I am a student, need advice on landlord who is taking advantage
July 10, 2014 1:00 PM Subscribe
Ok, so I know you are not my lawyer. So I am going to try and keep this very brief, but it is tough there are a lot of background details. She extended for all the background as to how I got where I am.So the short story is I am in grad school, and I met a landlord who has a 3 unit apartment building, she owns other properties as well.
My rent was $800 and this was just too much for me. So, I looked into two alternative options for myself, for when my lease expired. A graduate women’s cooperative housing which was $350 a month inclusive of all utilities, or to be a residential assistant making my rent $0. At this time I was becoming frustrated, I wanted to help my LL but they were actually in my way of filling the apartments. I am a very entrepreneurial person, so I said to the LL in an email, I could be your agent. I have these 2 rental options, and if you reduce my rent to $200 a month (my ults are $100) this would be commensurate to what I would I be paying at the women’s cooperative ,but an incentive to stay in this unit. For my reduce rent, I would advertise the apartment building for you, I would do showings, and handle applications and correspondence with potential tenants. Once applications are complete, you can approve or decline and do the lease paperwork. I felt this was very fair.
Like I said, she has 3 vacancies last year on the 2nd floor, and 4 on the top floor, by “paying” me “7200” she would be gaining $67,200 in rent that last year she lost out on. I emailed her this, she said great idea let’s talk more about this. We spoke on the phone, she said great, deal. I paid $200 in June. And I paid $200 in July, she returned my July rent, she is claiming she said she “wished I could reduce your rent to $200”. This is after I have filled 7 of the 8 vacancies!!! now, only one person has put money down. Everyone is emailing me. they see me as the agent. She is trying to revert my rent back to $800, even though, I negotiated two rooms for $650 and two for $700, why would it be fair for me to pay $800?
Also, I have worked my butt off, advertising, skyping, fielding phone calls, showings, and hand holding with incoming students. I am upset that I have worked so hard. She thinks that she can just give me $100 and count these/this work as referrals. But, I think my actions have shown I was an agent. A referral is when you say "hey here is my friend Sally’s email she is interested in a bedroom". So, I am wondering where I stand. Like I mentioned, I do not have anything formally in writing, just the emails. But, she in the email, she said sounds great, lets talk. and she did cash the june rent. Also, she has entered the apartment on numerous occasions without our permission (but how do you prove that) and I think the fact that she only wants to rent to students and not a married couple (which I have in an email) is discriminatory. I do not think she is evil or mean. I do think she she has a bad memory and is a little greedy. So what are my options, just mad I worked so hard and do not have those options anymore for the alternative rental arrangements which would improve my financial situation. I have a sister with special needs who I financially support back home.
My LL told me that she would help me find other roommates to fill the 3 bedroom. She did not, but that is OK. I filled the place.
The landlords (lls) are super sweet people, they are in their 80s, and they had not been advertising the apartment.
I threw up a posting on my school’s student housing site and secured them one tenant for the second floor. They let this student rent the entire four bedroom apartment by himself and he only paid for one bedroom, and they never rented out the 3rd floor. So he paid $700 for a $3100 apartment. She gave me $100 cash for the referral.
So, everyone in the building was someone I secured for them. I was feeling bad for them that they were losing money, so I posted an ad again, when I had time in May. They told me that they only wanted to rent to grad students, no one else, and no undergrads. I got a lot of responses from students and my friends, but they never email people back, so I asked the ll if I could email the students the rental application she had emailed me when I first inquired about the apartment, because she would not respond to the student's emails. One of these students was my friend, and she wanted to live with me in the fall. So I started sending applications from her/ll to students to fill out and then I sent these to the ll, and she was still not getting back to these people, one of which was my friend.
Then finally, after I kept calling her, she agreed to set up a viewing of the apartment with my friend. She was a no show. I called her and she wanted my friend to wait an hour for her to come up. Then I met a really lovely couple, through emails, they are so sweet, and we like kinda became friend, you know? I was telling them about my city, he was moving here for med school, and I was giving him advice and I would email with his wife as well, and we were really excited to be living together, but ,they filled out the application, and the LL never responded to them. During this time other people had emailed me about the place and because they never heard back from the LL in regards to the status of their application they just moved on.
My rent was $800 and this was just too much for me. So, I looked into two alternative options for myself, for when my lease expired. A graduate women’s cooperative housing which was $350 a month inclusive of all utilities, or to be a residential assistant making my rent $0. At this time I was becoming frustrated, I wanted to help my LL but they were actually in my way of filling the apartments. I am a very entrepreneurial person, so I said to the LL in an email, I could be your agent. I have these 2 rental options, and if you reduce my rent to $200 a month (my ults are $100) this would be commensurate to what I would I be paying at the women’s cooperative ,but an incentive to stay in this unit. For my reduce rent, I would advertise the apartment building for you, I would do showings, and handle applications and correspondence with potential tenants. Once applications are complete, you can approve or decline and do the lease paperwork. I felt this was very fair.
Like I said, she has 3 vacancies last year on the 2nd floor, and 4 on the top floor, by “paying” me “7200” she would be gaining $67,200 in rent that last year she lost out on. I emailed her this, she said great idea let’s talk more about this. We spoke on the phone, she said great, deal. I paid $200 in June. And I paid $200 in July, she returned my July rent, she is claiming she said she “wished I could reduce your rent to $200”. This is after I have filled 7 of the 8 vacancies!!! now, only one person has put money down. Everyone is emailing me. they see me as the agent. She is trying to revert my rent back to $800, even though, I negotiated two rooms for $650 and two for $700, why would it be fair for me to pay $800?
Also, I have worked my butt off, advertising, skyping, fielding phone calls, showings, and hand holding with incoming students. I am upset that I have worked so hard. She thinks that she can just give me $100 and count these/this work as referrals. But, I think my actions have shown I was an agent. A referral is when you say "hey here is my friend Sally’s email she is interested in a bedroom". So, I am wondering where I stand. Like I mentioned, I do not have anything formally in writing, just the emails. But, she in the email, she said sounds great, lets talk. and she did cash the june rent. Also, she has entered the apartment on numerous occasions without our permission (but how do you prove that) and I think the fact that she only wants to rent to students and not a married couple (which I have in an email) is discriminatory. I do not think she is evil or mean. I do think she she has a bad memory and is a little greedy. So what are my options, just mad I worked so hard and do not have those options anymore for the alternative rental arrangements which would improve my financial situation. I have a sister with special needs who I financially support back home.
My LL told me that she would help me find other roommates to fill the 3 bedroom. She did not, but that is OK. I filled the place.
The landlords (lls) are super sweet people, they are in their 80s, and they had not been advertising the apartment.
I threw up a posting on my school’s student housing site and secured them one tenant for the second floor. They let this student rent the entire four bedroom apartment by himself and he only paid for one bedroom, and they never rented out the 3rd floor. So he paid $700 for a $3100 apartment. She gave me $100 cash for the referral.
So, everyone in the building was someone I secured for them. I was feeling bad for them that they were losing money, so I posted an ad again, when I had time in May. They told me that they only wanted to rent to grad students, no one else, and no undergrads. I got a lot of responses from students and my friends, but they never email people back, so I asked the ll if I could email the students the rental application she had emailed me when I first inquired about the apartment, because she would not respond to the student's emails. One of these students was my friend, and she wanted to live with me in the fall. So I started sending applications from her/ll to students to fill out and then I sent these to the ll, and she was still not getting back to these people, one of which was my friend.
Then finally, after I kept calling her, she agreed to set up a viewing of the apartment with my friend. She was a no show. I called her and she wanted my friend to wait an hour for her to come up. Then I met a really lovely couple, through emails, they are so sweet, and we like kinda became friend, you know? I was telling them about my city, he was moving here for med school, and I was giving him advice and I would email with his wife as well, and we were really excited to be living together, but ,they filled out the application, and the LL never responded to them. During this time other people had emailed me about the place and because they never heard back from the LL in regards to the status of their application they just moved on.
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