Can anyone provide advice, suggest tenant rights resources, courses of action or even refer a good pro-bono lawyer for a friend of mine who's getting screwed by her landlord during the conversion of her apartment complex from rentals to condos in Studio City, CA? [more inside]
posted on Mar 29, 2007 - 11 answers

Slipped and Fell on Apartment property, are they liable? [more inside]
posted on Feb 21, 2007 - 22 answers

Leases often contain a clause saying you can be evicted if you disturb the neighbors. Mostly hypothetical question inside. [more inside]
posted on Nov 10, 2006 - 9 answers

How do I get my money back from my ex-roommate? [more inside]
posted on Dec 1, 2005 - 10 answers

Another rental question for all ya'll to tackle. I rented a room from an ad in the paper (I was moving in from out of state, didn't know many people). Rent was advertised @ $300/mo. A little steep for around here, but not TOO bad. Conveniently enough, the day after I got the lease signed, one of my roomates let me in on the fact that the couple downstairs, who rent their room/living room/bathroom combo area for $500, are moving out and subleasing it to a girl from SF for $367. Which bumps both mine and the other roomates rent up to $367 as well. I recently discovered that EVERYONE I talked to was aware this was going to happen - The landlord, the guy I subleased from, and the three other roomates. I spoke with ALL of them extensively before signing the lease, and no one felt it pertinent to let me in on this little "detail". So, to put it lightly, I'm feeling a little burned here. The lease, which legally covers the landlord ( I signed it for the total amount of the rent, $1,100, as did the rest of the roomates, which basically leaves it up to us to figure out distribution ) runs through August. An extra $67 may not seem like alot to some other MeFi'rs, but it's a ton to me, and I simply can't afford it. Subleasing it myself isn't an option, as $367 is absolutely RIDICULOUS rent for a room in this town, much less this neighborhood. Now to the question: What would happen, if I were to say, quit paying rent, period, and the landlord evicted me? Would I still be bound by the lease? I would pay all due rent ONCE he kicked me out - The point of not paying rent would be to provoke him to legally release me from the lease.. This sounds like the perfect solution to my problem, but...I mean, I've gotta be missing a critical detail here, right? An interesting side note is that I haven't paid my $300 deposit, which I don't plan on doing either. So I'm not worried about that end of it...
posted on May 20, 2005 - 24 answers