Asked in Civil Litigation and Contracts for Iowa

Q: I live in Iowa and i am on a month to month lease. I have been here over 2 years now and always paid my rent in full

From my pocket. It's been late a hand full of times but I've always paid late fee. Recently myself and significant other ran into some hard times. We are both jobless, he is receiving his last check from unemployment, and we are unable to pay the rent this month. We went to general assistance and applied for help with rent and we are waiting to hear back on thursday. My landlord had to sign a paper from general assistance approving to accept payment this way, he signed Monday. Today he messages me and says I am to pay hin 300 by Thursday or we are out. Can he do that after just having signing the paper? We've gotten a 3 day notice from him before which he cancelled after I put some money in. But that was after the fact he sent me certified mail saying "he will not accept partial payments" yet he has for months. And continues to. I'm 25 years old, my health is deteriorating, and i recently applied for ssd. What can I do? I'm not from here and i don't know the laws.

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1 Lawyer Answer

A: Find a way to pay the $300 immediately. By allowing you to pay partial payments your landlord will have a difficult time explaining why he stopped doing it--right after agreeing to do the general assistance thing. It sounds like the landlord (or perhaps the owner?) does not want the hassle of working with the assistance program people, because they will be auditing his business in the future.

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