Q: My lease runs through the end of September, but I gave 30-days notice in July and vacated mid-August. My landlord is

A: If the landlord is using your old dwelling unit for his purposes, then I believe a Judge (if it came to that) would find you no longer owed rent on that unit, at least for the time that it was being so used. If it becomes vacant again before your lease term would have been up, you may resume owing rent for that time. If you don't voluntarily pay, the landlord can withhold the amounts from any security deposit he may have or he can bill you. If he withholds it from a security deposit, he must provide you a written accounting and serve it to you in person or by regular first class mail (NOT email, text, verbally, Certified Mail, etc.) within 31 days of your restoring possession to him or he will owe you twice the amount not properly refunded or accounted for. If he does but you disagree with it, your remedy is to sue the landlord for twice the amounts wrongly charged or not accounted for. If he just bills you and you do not pay, his options are to either drop it; turn it over to a collection agency; or sue you in court for it where you can defend if you wish. If turned over to collections, they will ding your credit record and then harass you to pay. If you do not, then their option is to either sue you or drop it. All in all, you may want to review everything with a local landlord-tenant attorney after the 31 days has expired to see what your specific options are and the strength of any case you may have.