“Is a 60% rent increase legal?”

“Dear PoPville,

I currently rent a one bedroom apartment in a building in DC and pay $2195 a month. My lease just expired on 2/28/22 and I’ve gone month-to-month. It will be short-lived because I close on a condo later this month. The apartment building requires 60 days notice to move out instead of 30, which I submitted on 2/15 when I went under contract. So my last day of paying rent will be 4/15.

Back in November, the leasing team offered me another 12-month lease at the same rate and said if I wanted to go month-to-month, I “may be subjected to a rent increase in the future (pending a 30-day notice), once all emergency orders in the District of Columbia prohibiting rent increases are lifted.” I didn’t respond, knowing that I was looking to buy a condo and had just started the process. No one from the leasing team ever reached out to me about it again.

Last night (3/1) I received an email from the leasing team stating that beginning on 4/1, my month-to-month rent will be $3500. That’s a 60% increase on what I was paying under my lease. And that seems like a really shady way to get me to pay way more than normal for my last 15 days.

Is that high of a price increase even legal? They’ve already started advertising my unit at $1942 a month, which is less than I’ve been paying for two years. Something doesn’t seem right about this.”