Landlord made a mistake on lease and wants to change it - can we fight it?
Hello, any advice (legal and/or other) would be appreciated! I'll try to make it short and sweet:
I just re-signed a year long lease for the same rental property that I lived in last year. (My last roommates were a couple and wanted to move to bigger space to start a family). My new roommate and I signed a lease for May 2026 - May 2027. In the previous lease (2025-2026), electricity was paid for by tenants, and lawn care was covered by landlord. In the new lease (2026-2027) it states that electricity will be covered by landlord, and lawn care will be covered by tenants. However, I just received a power bill for electric for the month of May. I brought it to my landlord's attention, and they said that the new lease was a mistake, and we should be covering electric. However, my roommate and I, and the landlords, all signed this new lease stating they would cover electric. They are now wanting to send over an addendum to update electric to our responsibility.
Do we have any ground to stand on stating that we should not be responsible for the electric bill? We are both semi-broke late-twenties women in the workforce who preferably do not want to go through the trouble of getting a lawyer involved, but is that the only way we can fight it? Please let me know, thank you!