Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with tenant

What law says my lease is gone?

fireoyster — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 20:02:55 -0800

In Texas, is there a specific law or section of law that says a tenant's lease goes poof when a landlord's property is foreclosed on by the bank, or is it one of those situations where a whole body of law and court decisions are added together to make this situation? I have (had?) a lease in Texas with a company that owns a small less-than-20-unit townhouse building. The lender has foreclosed on this building and posted notices on all the units that reads: "Dec 1, 2009. As of this date, $bank is now the owner of this property. Please mail all rents payable to $bank to $address." I checked the county records and the building had been posted for a foreclosure sale on December 1st, plus I called the person whose name was on the letter (identified as an "Executive VP in Charge of Lending and Finance" or some amazing title) and specifically asked: "What happened, did your bank foreclose?" The answer was yes.

From what I have been told, this now means my lease has gone the way of the dodo. I fully intend to take advantage of this fact, but since the bank is now the owner, and they have nothing but money, lawyers and time, I would like to read the relevant sections of law that make this so. I have been reading Texas Property Code sec 91 and 92, but the only mention of foreclosure is to exempt a section relating to security deposits from banks that foreclose.

Considering I plan on delivering notice first thing Monday morning, I called a few local lawyers today, but they were out of the office or otherwise unavailable. I also tried calling the Austin Tenants Council, since it's their web page where I found this information (but not legal cites) initially, but they didn't answer the phone. To be specific, I'm not looking for legal advice, just pointers to an area by people who are better at reading law than me. Thanks in advance.

Rental discrimination/morality

JimDe — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 17:09:11 -0800

I'm a landlord for a owner-occupied 4-unit bldg. I know I can't discriminate, with respect to tenant selection, regarding "family status", but am I free to prefer a single-occupancy renter to a family? My motivation is mostly remunerative -- included in rent are: water, hot water, and heat, and so a single renter is cheaper for me than a family of three with respect to those utilities. Is my preference for 1 vs. 3 rentors actionable discrimination? (Call me a miser if you like, but I'm under rent control, and I need to watch my costs, since it is near impossible to pass inflationary costs on to tenants.)

Can I negotiate rental agency tenant-changeover fees?

Anonymous — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:12:42 -0800

I live in London in a flat of three, and someone wants to move out. We have someone else ready to move in. The lettings agency wish to charge £150 for swapping a person over, and £100 for admin fees. Can we dispute this, for a more reasonable fee? The fees were similarly massive when we moved in (and we paid 6 weeks rent as deposit). When I visited the building we ended up saying yes to, the agent actually never came down (the janitor let us in). In fact, the first time I ever actually saw the agent was going into their offices to sign the contract and collect the keys.

While I understand that credit checks must be done, and some phone calls must be made, I fail to see the justification for paying half a months rent to change some names on a piece of paper when I found the other tenant. £100, that's going to sting but it's doable. But £250?

Two options seem to present themselves:

1) Try to negotiate, asking them for an itemised breakdown of these costs and making a case for them to reduce the fees for good tenants who have paid all their bills on time and never broken anything or asked them to do anything or fix anything.

2) Go straight to the Landlord. Do this actually have to be done through the Agency? Problem is in this case the 'Landlord' is a big company and I'd expect they'll just want the agency to handle it and will happily pay whatever they're being extorted for, in turn.

The person moving in is having a hard enough time getting 6 weeks rent, plus one months rent up front together, without high fees adding to the troubles.

Thanks!

Help me get rid of an unwanted guest

Anonymous — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 15:34:44 -0800

I'd like to know how to deal with an unwanted "guest" living in an apartment that I'm paying rent for. This is my situation:
I am renting an apartment with my ex-boyfriend, Mark (both our names are on the lease). I am no longer living there but I am continuing to pay half of the rent. Mark found someone to move into my old room and began collecting money from this person. Mark lied to the new roommate about the amount of rent and bills and ended up charging him over 50%. This was in addition to the 50% that I was paying at the time. In other words, Mark avoided paying any rent/bills and managed to make a tidy profit. When I found out about the new roommate, he was surprised to discover that the amount of rent/bills were not what Mark had told him.

I spoke with a housing adviser on campus who told me that the new occupant should actually be subletting off of me, since he'd been living in my old room. The problem got even more complicated when this new roommate refused to reimburse me for the remaining months of my lease and refused to sign any sort of sublet agreement. Instead, he insisted on paying the money directly to Mark and having Mark pay the money to me - despite the fact that Mark had shown himself to be a bit of a scam artist.

I've spoken to a police officer and the landlord and both have told me that I'm not able to have the new roommate removed since he's considered a "guest" of Mark's. So, now I'm left with having someone living in the room that I'm currently paying for. I'm worried that I'll be liable for any damage caused by the new roommate.

Is there any suggestions for having this person removed or forcing them to pay me for the room that I am renting? Also, the new roommate is a recipient of government disability and both Mark and the new roommate signed a form falsely indicating that the total rent paid to the landlord was more than it really was (although the new roommate didn't know this at the time). If I fail to report this, would I be considered an accessory to fraud?

P.S. If it's relevant, we're located in London, Ontario. Throwaway email: ontariotenantproblems@gmail.com

New owner/old lease

ian1977 — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 18:38:59 -0800

Does my new landlord have to honor my old lease? I live in an 8 unit building and I am 6 months into a year lease. About a week ago I had a note on my door saying my building is now owned by Such and Such Company and to please send my rent there.

Now tonight I come home to another note saying that the new company wants 2 things from all tenants. One is whether or not we have a garage. Fine no problem.

The other is....since the previous owner didn't give the new company any of the original paperwork (huh?) could we please kindly fill out the rental application by Friday. This includes basic stuff (name, employer, etc) but also signing off on their right to do background check, credit check, etc. It also has a thing you fill out for a rental reference that they would send to an old landlord. The letter does state that this info is 'simply for our records and files.'

I looked at my old lease. Its typical boilerplate generic lease....it does have one paragraph about 'Lease is Subject to Mortgage' and says that, for example, should the property be foreclosed on, the new owners rights are superior to the rights of the tenant.

So here are my questions:

Why am I filling out the rental application? Ostensibly its just so they have one on file. Thats fine and dandy if thats all it is....but is that really all it is?

The whole 'lease is subject to mortgage' thing. Does anyone know what that means in practice? Is the new owner likely to void my lease because i don't fit their idea of a perfect tenant?

Do new owners typically honor the remainder of old leases?

Any other advice? It seems like the company is just doing pretty standard stuff, the place is going from ma and pa ownership to McRental Corp...so it makes sense that the company wants everything on THEIR paperwork. But then why I am giving them permission to do a background check, credit check etc? I already have the apartment, I am not applying for one. I guess I am just asking, is this a red flag situation?

My landlord's a jerk, but how big of a jerk?

Beardman — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 11:32:29 -0800

Does my landlord have to give me advance notice if he's going to shut down the building's water for a few hours? This is in Ontario. This morning at 9:00 AM, some plumbers turned off the building's water. It wasn't an emergency, it was a repair that they had been scheduled to make. They told me the landlord was going to tell us. The first we heard of it was when the plumber knocked on the door and said "We're shutting it off now."

Obviously it's rude not to inform your tenants, and the landlord knows this too--he usually lets us know. However, I want to know how much notice he is actually obligated to give us, according to the Residential Tenancies Act, in which water is considered a vital service. I asked on Yahoo Answers, and someone replied that the RTC doesn't apply. Is that true? Is my landlord really not obligated to tell me when he turns off my water supply in a non-emergency situation? I would have assumed 12 or 24 hours was required! I want to know so that I can specify how much notice I want in the future.

How to handle a goober for a landlord?

mr. remy — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:49:32 -0800

I've got eleven months to go on a lease, and a whole slew of problems with a new (to me) apartment, and a cheap, possibly negligent landlord. How do I remedy them? LOTS of details inside. But if you don't want to read the whole kit-and-caboodle inside here are the Cliff notes: (a) Landlord took more than weeks to fix the unusable bathroom sink; blamed the repairman. (b) Landlord expects me to find/select/transport the washer/dryer he’s obligated by lease to provide, and was missing on our move-in, and for less than $200. (c) Landlord flat-out refused to clean disgustingly smelly carpets we encountered on moving day (d) Landlord reneged on verbal agreement to replace crappy kitchen linoleum (e) Landlord made repeated, guilt-trippy and borderline abusive calls about first month's rent, and (bonus) (f) makes (super odd) references to lesbians. [Way too many details inside; you probably don't need to bother reading unless you want specific specifics] After long and futile summer craigslisting, my girlfriend and I went to a realtor to find us an apartment [Boston area] for one year, beginning 9/1. The realtor found us a fair (not exceptional) apartment for a fair (not exceptional) price. Since it met our needs (though not, as I’ve said, exceptionally) we took it. I forked over a lot of money up front (first month, last month, month security, and half-month’s fee to realtor) totalling about 5K. Since then we’ve had a number of issues with the landlord. In order of occurance:

[The sink] The landlord was unable to do a walkthrough until September 5th, though we moved in on the 1st. On the 5th we informed him the sink was unusably plugged. Stuck full of hair. Wouldn’t drain. Landlord said he’d take care of it immediately. He blamed the issue on previous tenants; “butches, lesbians; don’t know where to wash their hair, always washing their hair in inappropriate places.” But he didn’t do anything. We still couldn’t use the sink two weeks later… at which time I called and asked the landlord what was happening. He said he’d already sent the handyman over, who’d said there wasn’t a problem. After consulting the handyman, Mr. Landlord called me back to tell me the handyman had visited unit number 3, instead of our unit, number 2. Within 24 hours the handyman came to fix the leak, so we considered this issue closed. Until…

[The washing machine/dryer] Our lease specifies we’ll be provided a washer/dryer, though if either breaks they will not be repaired. Due to some miscommunication, the machines vanished with the previous tenant (Mr. Landlord: “girls have no respect for property, got no respect at all, take anything isn’t nailed down, even took the bins in the fridge”). He did not provide replacement appliances at move-in. Girlfriend and I were understanding, and said we could even do without a dryer, as long as we got a washer soon. Mr. Landlord asked if I’d do the legwork and get a washer for him. Stupidly, I said yes. But now he’s asking me to find one for under $200, used, (including, presumably, delivery). I’m not sure I have the time/information to do this on my own. Not to mention, issue number 3…

[The bedroom carpet/THE STENCH!] The previous tenants (Mr. Landlord: “butches, lesbians, who hate men – like some of ‘em Catholic nuns I know I went to school with”) moved out on the last day of August, letting us move a little stuff in before they were totally gone. There were no in-between days for Mr. Landlord to do work on the place. It was left in decent condition, with carpets vacuumed. Not spot-clean, certainly not as clean as I’d leave the place, but adequete -- barely. However: the bedroom stank. Stank like stagnant poop residue in the corner. Or a dead animal in the wall. Or a pet’s tank overturned on the floor. Badly enough that girlfriend and I had to buy an air purifier, and have to air the room out all the time. During the walkthrough (9/5), girlfriend and I told Mr. and Mrs. Landlord that we were bothered by the stench, and wanted the carpets professionally cleaned (nothing in the apartment had been touched by landlords at all, remember). Mr. and Mrs. Landlord flatly refused, on the grounds (a) they claimed not to smell anything (b) “that is definitely the tenants’ responsibility.” Since then, we have been trying to live with the smell (which has abated a bit, but is nevertheless unpleasant...) and would probably have just rented a steam-vac, but for…

[The kitchen floor] Prior to signing the lease, when still considering the apartment, I remarked to the realtor that the kitchen linoleum was in terrible shape: cracked, scratched, buckled, patched, broken, beat-up. [Pics on flickr here]. And still before signing the lease for the apartment, I asked the realtor if he'd relay to the landlords that we wanted the linoleum fixed. He picked up the phone immediately and called the Mr. and Mrs., asked if they'd be willing to make this repair. They said they hadn't seen it in a while, but that conditional upon it being in bad shape, they'd take care of it. Satisfied, the realtor hung up the phone, we signed the lease, paid the money, and we got the apartment. I did NOT get a clause about the linoleum put in the lease; the realtor said that it would diminish my chances of getting the apartment if I appeared too needy up front. During the walkthrough on 9/5, Mr. Landlord said he ‘could get around to replacing it sometime’ but not immediately, or soon, or (I’m guessing) during my tenancy because expenses were tight. Honestly, I wouldn’t have moved into the place if I’d known he’d be so disagreeable. But the straw that broke the camel’s back was…

[The rent check issue]
(i) (9/29) I got a call yesterday morning, from Mr. Landlord saying he didn’t get my half of the rent. I explained that my girlfriend would be paying all of the rent this month, because I’d paid all of the fees on the place before move-in, and cash was a bit tight. He was irritated, and said he expected rent by the 25th (as it says in the lease). I explained that my girlfriend had sent him two bank checks on the 20th, and that he should take another look around – at least one showed as ‘delivered’. This actually took three phone calls, because landlord does not have his ‘money girl’ on hand.

(ii) (9/29)Another call from landlord, yesterday afternoon, saying the checks /did/ come in the mail. Followed by a tirade about how expects it on the 25th, as outlined in the lease. I explained that it was mailed on the 21st, and that, frankly, 4 days was ample leeway for something to arrive by mail from one end of town to the other. And that next month I will send it earlier.

(iii) (9/29) Received another chiding call from landlord about an hour after (ii) concluded, telling me that I had seemed initially like a nice person and he didn’t expect this kind of thing from me. Told me I had him over a barrel, and how was he supposed to pay his bills if our bills weren’t paid on time. And how is he supposed to pay his mortgage on the place if we don’t get him our rent by the 25th (or 17th for an out-of-state check)? I tell him I don’t know… my girlfriend sent him two checks on the 20th, mailed on the 21st, etc., etc., etc….

(iv) (9/29) I ignore a call at night from the landlord. I’m sick of talking to him.

(v) (9/30) I ignore a morning call from the landlord. I’m sick of talking to him.

(vi) (9/30) I call the landlord back, feeling guilty and a little harassed. Landlord starts in on my ‘irresponsible behavior, because it turns out my GF’s checks are from an out of state bank (though they was a cashier’s check sent directly from Bank of America), and that as explained in the lease, out of state checks are due on the 17th, and that we’re ‘off to a bad start’ and that I’m causing him ‘a lot of stress and anxiety, stress and anxiety, because how am I gonna pay my stuff if you pay your rent late?” Yet again, I explained I had not sent any check, that he needed to talk to my girlfriend, but for what it was worth we’d get him everything on time next month. [[This means that if we’re going to pay with out of state checks, and need to allow him ample time to process the paperwork, and need to mail them more than 5 days in advance we will need to post the checks around the 10th of the month prior to the month for which we are paying. Am I nuts? Is this incredibly high maintenance? ]]

Metafilter, what do I DOOOOO? How do I get my issues fixed? Do I stand a chance at getting this resolved?

How much should I charge to manage a student house?

walla — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 18:49:46 -0800

What should I charge to manage a property? A friend recently asked me to help him fill his rentals. I filled all ten in a month with good tenants. We did not set a fee in advance - I wanted to see how it went before I committed to the job. How much should I ask for? I will probably continue managing the property. So would it be better to charge a finder's fee for the renters I found, a percentage of monthly gross from now on, or a combination of both? How much would I charge for each option?

The property is a university student house, so it's fairly labor-intensive. However, I am friends with the owner and he has been going through tough financial times (he's been losing $1000s to mismanagement for months), so I want to be fair to generous. Google has yielded a wide range of answers, none of which seem to fit these circumstances.

Thank you, hive mind!

Subleasing tenant cosmetically damaged my table. How much, if any, of her deposit should I keep?

evadery — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 06:54:35 -0800

Subleasing tenant cosmetically damaged my table. How much, if any, of her deposit should I keep? I am in my late 20's and I had a tenant stay at my place for 4 months in the summer as I subleased another place with my fiancee (in town for the summer). She paid her rent on time, was courteous, kept the place in good condition, and all in all a good fit. Unfortunately, she left hair products on my antique wooden dining room table (passed from generation to generation) and left a large black waxy stain on it around the size of two fingers held together, but in an irregular pattern.

It was very noticeable, and compounding the problem, as I tried to remove it, I stripped some of the red from the previous refinishing of the table several years ago. So, before it it was pretty obvious and bad, and now it is very obvious and bad.

I have received a handful of quotes pricing out the cost of fixing the table, and the general guesstimate is around $300-$350 (not including transport of the table top, which may or may not fit in my car, and would cost $130 round trip at my favourite place). All parties say that touching up the area would be visible and not ideal, and the entire top of the table should be redone, but none of the legs, etc. The entire top would need to be redone regardless of whether I had removed some of the colouring, as the removal of the wax would necessitate the full work.

Other relevant facts:
-The tenant gave me a deposit of $825.
-The room is shared with a roommate, but I don't think there is any debate about who caused the damage.
-There are very slight discolourations on the table from resting glasses, etc, but before the wax I would have not considered getting it refinished under any circumstances.
-I will get it refurnished due to this problem, either now, or when I move out of my apt into a house (estimated time-10 months from now). I would not have gotten it refurnished otherwise.

So, hivemind, what should I do, and what is fair under the circumstances? If I did the work now, what percentage of the final cost should the tenant be charged? Thanks.

Am I legally entitled to a buzz?

vegetableagony — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 13:15:02 -0800

After signing the lease and paying the deposit, the owner is asking me to sign a release saying that I know that the door buzzer system does not work and will not be fixed. Is a buzzer something that I'll wish that I had, or will I be fine just having people call when they need to be let in? The buzzer wasn't mentioned either way before I signed the lease (but I saw that the building had a buzzer system without thinking to check it). I wouldn't want to try to get out of the lease and have to redo my apartment search, but it does seem a bit weird not being warned about this in advance. Do I have any recourse? Can I force them to fix it or to give me some sort of discount on my rent, or should I just let it slide? If it matters the apartment is in Boston and is maybe 4 units in a non owner occupied building.

I tried looking through the tenant rights documents for the state and couldn't see any requirement that the apartment have a buzzer.

I am sharing the apartment with one other person who has no need of a buzzer system (since he is deaf).

Help! My landlord is trying to scam me!

Anonymous — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 14:29:48 -0800

Help! My landlord is trying to scam me! Okay, so, when I first signed my lease, my landlord had me sign a "rider" that basically said the following : Although the amount on the official lease is $1800, the actual rent on the apartment is $2150. However, as long as I pay my rent on-time, I get a "discount" of $350.

This is obviously a ploy to get around the rent control laws of my city. If not for the "rider," my apartment would be rent-controlled since it is under $2000 a month.

Anyway, I renewed my lease in June, and he wanted me to sign another "rider" along with it, since the original "rider" was only valid for the term of the lease. I kept putting it off, and ultimately I forgot to send in the new "rider."

Months later, he calls me and bugs me, so finally I bring it into his office.

A few days later, he calls me and tells me that my last rent check bounced, and that I need to write him a new check and pay the $350 late fee. I knew this was absurd, because I have plenty of money in my account. A quick call to my bank confirmed that my landlord never tried to cash the check, and that it never bounced.

I called him back, and he yelled at me, insisting that the check had bounced, and that he has the "bounced" check which was "returned" by my bank with stuff written on it. He threatened me with eviction if I didn't send in a new check along with the $350.

Tomorrow, I am going to the bank to get an official letter stating that they never recieved the check and that it never bounced. I called his office to say that I will be bringing in this letter, but his secretary was instructed to tell me "not to bother, since he won't be in and that I don't have an appointment." Obviously, I'm going to bring in the letter anyway and leave it with his secretary.

But I'm wondering what happens next. Over the phone, he threatened to evict me! I don't want to lose my deposit, and I don't want my credit effected. I don't even want to leave my apartment. He's obviously mad at me for taking so long to bring in the "rider," but I wonder if it's really in his interest to evict me over this, especially since I've been a good tenant and have always paid my rent on-time.

What can I do to avoid being scammed, evicted, or losing my deposit? Would his "rider" even hold up in court? Does eviction effect your credit rating? Is this worth lawyering-up over? My deposit was $1800, but I have no idea what a lawyer would cost.

I live in NYC, if that makes any difference.

If you like, you can email me privately at dontwannabescammed@gmail.com.

Why is the landlord trying to hide?

ishotjr — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:10:06 -0800

Property manager hid that other duplex tenant is property owner when getting me to sign lease. My partner and I signed a lease for a duplex back in early June, and we move in mid-July. When we were looking at the unit and signing the lease, the property manager, who handles all aspects of the property, from renting it, to maintenance, etc., told us about the "other tenant." She said it was a retired woman who likes to socialize with whoever lives in our unit, bringing over food and whatnot, and that she used to live in a neighborhood full of wild college students, so that she's cool with some noise (there are no shared walls, though). She also said that the owner is wanting the "tenants" of each unit to start sharing the cost of the landscaping costs after we move in, even though the owner paid the full cost before. There are other examples, but she definitely made it sound like some hands-off owner existed out there who rented the two units in the duplex, one to this retired lady, and one to us. The name of the owner on the lease was a company name that sounded like it could be a person's name.

I've worked for realtors and real estate lawyer in the past, so whenever I move somewhere, I look up the property in the online tax rolls out of curiosity. I hadn't done so before we signed the lease, though. Checking it out the other day, I realized that the "other tenant" was actually the property owner!

I have a hard time trusting property managers/landlords after having many bad experiences renting in college, so I find this to be a bit of red flag. While I can think of several legitimate reasons why they would do this (didn't want to freak out potential tenants, landlord wants to be friendly with neighbors without being treated like a landlord, etc.), it just seems wrong not to disclose this. Another red flag is that the previous tenant actually broke her lease and we are replacing her. The property manager said it was because she was moving in with her boyfriend. Now I am suspicious.

After this long description, I have a few questions:
1) Is this a situation that anyone else has heard of? Property owner living on the premises hiding that they are the owner?
2) Should we play dumb or address this somehow with the property manager when we go get our stuff to move in. I was thinking we should ask about the owner to see if she continues to lie, or if she's honest. We don't want to confront her about it, because we don't want to get off to a tense start.
3) I have the prior tenant's email address because their ad seeking a replacement was what I originally responded to. Should I email her and ask her if there is anything we should know?

Perhaps I'm just an overly cautious tenant, but I'm sick of being treated like an idiot by property managers. For all we know this is totally innocent, but we get a bad feeling being deceived about anything that we are locked into for a year.

Can my landlord really kick me out?

krunk — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:19:28 -0800

My landlords want to kick me out and move into my apartment. They gave me the 60 days notice, but I have some questions about the validity of their notice. I was checking out the Residential Tenancies Act, and it seems that there is a clause that says they can't move in unless they have previously lived there (72 b), which they haven't.

Also, they said they would rather take over the apartment of the guys who live upstairs, but can't because they have a lease until March 2010. Since we are on month-to-month, they said they could take over our place instead.

Are either of these things true? Could they in fact take the other apartment instead?

Can landlord take us to court to recoup rent when we're moving out at his request due to violating zoning laws?

phishie — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 14:34:06 -0800

Moving out of rental house because landlord's lease violates zoning laws, can he bring us to court to get rent? About 6 months ago myself and 5 friends moved into a house in Arlington VA and signed a year-long lease with all 6 of us specified on the contract.

Unfortunately it's zoned as a residential single family home which in Arlington means no more than 4 unrelated individuals can live there. The zoning inspector came once and did an inspection which we passed as our landlord had us transform two bedrooms to look like storage and an office. A couple of months have passed since then and the zoning board has received more complaints from the neighborhood that there are 6 people in the house. The zoning inspector then contacted our landlord again and told him they would sue/fine him if he didn't rectify the situation.

The landlord spoke with one of my roommates about a week and a half ago and asked if we could find another place. He said we could stay till the end of June. Lucky for us we found a place within a week and will be moving out this weekend. Unlucky for him as he won't have any tenants to pay him for June. He's expressed to us that he's very disappointed because he expected us to stay through June and also expected us to give him 30 days notice when we found a new place.

Clearly it's absurd for him to be upset with us as finding a new place and subsequently moving there is quite a hassle for us. Either way I'm worried he may try to pull some shady move with our security deposit (1.5x our monthly rent) or get a lawyer involved to recoup the rent for June.

Any advice for what steps we should take now / legal footing we have to stand on?

Should I Take My Old Landlord To Small Claims Court?

heartquake — Wed, 27 May 2009 06:31:59 -0800

Should I take my former landlord to small claims court? YANAL and YANML, I understand. We recently moved out of an apartment that is about 600 sq ft. In our living room, there was a small quarter-sized patch where there'd been a burn in the carpet and we'd cut some of the fibers to get rid of the burned part. Besides that, the apartment was left in good shape. I'd assumed that if we ran into any problems that would be the one and we would deal accordingly.

Fast forward and we receive a notice for $1100. $800 for the carpet replacing and $300 for a burn mark to the counter. We'd previously reported on our move-in sheet that one of the counters had a small bubble in the vinyl. Mysteriously, they say this is not on their move-in sheet (which is fine, I have my own copy). After receiving the notice we went back to the apartment and saw that someone had scrapped the bubble off with a blue ink pen down to the core of the counter - I took pictures of this, but I think besides my move-in report this might be moot because I don't have any before pictures.

We called yesterday to speak to the property manager who said that they have pictures but from what he was describing, it didn't seem like they really did or that he was telling the truth. I was smart enough to take video of the carpets after cleaning them on my cell phone, but have no pictures. I asked him what the lifespan of the carpet was and was told it was 10 years. So I asked that given that, how could they charge us the full amount for the carpet when we lived their two years and there is normal wear and tear. Naturally, he did not answer this. He also noted some other things that we were "lucky" to not have been charged for. Not cleaning out the microwave (a lie, I did that myself), and a burn stain inside of a draw - how I could accomplish that, I do not even know.

They don't seem to be willing to negotiate at all. And even IF they do replace the carpet in the living room - it's value is certainly not $800. My question is, would it be worthwhile to file a claim in small claims court or should we just cut our losses and go?

I think we're being slightly railed here because we were told by the property manager that either we can make payment arrangements or after 30 days they submit to a collection agency. They don't even attempt to sue me for the monies, which I found to be quite odd. thanks for any guidance/suggestions!

Am I mistakenly assuming the worst about my landlord and my potentially shady gas bill?

midatlanticwanderer — Sat, 23 May 2009 11:37:34 -0800

Philly filter: Is my gas bill too high and/or is my landlord shady? We get charged a ton for "indirect" charges by a non-PGW company and must write our checks payable to the landlord, not the utility. I also pay the same amount every month, and am not enrolled in some budget plan that makes the amount due the same each month. Several residents (me included) think this is some sort of way for the landlord to rip us off. You can see three examples here (I've removed identifying information about myself).

You will notice that I pay $81.25 every month. After commiserating with others in this apartment complex, they also pay the same every month regardless of their actual usage (or non-usage). We have little to no ability to control the thermostat in the winter months. You'll see that the majority of gas usage each month is "indirect," meaning, according to the utility company: "the heat radiated from the shared boiler and the building heat distribution pipes... For residents that maintain the lowest thermostat settings during cold weather, and for many additional residents during mild months, the indirect heat allocation may be greater than the direct heat allocation" (see here).

My questions:
1. Is it fair to be charged so much for something over which we have no control? I fear the answer is yes, but this rubs many of us the wrong way since no matter what we do with the thermostat, we have no control of the heat in the winter months.
2. Is a CCF charge of $1.91 high? I paid $1.36 per CCF at my old apartment, when I did have PGW service (on a small furnace in my unit, not a boiler).
3. Is the adjustment/credit on my current bills which brings it down to $81.25 every month the result of some arcane regulation to ensure PA residents don't pay exorbitant utility costs, or is it a gimmick to make me feel like they're doing me a favor while still pocketing $81.25 every month?

Overall, the landlord has exhibited several other behaviors that are highly shady, unethical, or that just cut corners (e.g. one of my closets was painted shut when I moved in). Several other residents have experienced far worse. Several of us feel that something is up with these high gas bills when we have no control over the actual usage (we've tried -- I get heat in the winter no matter whether my thermostat is jacked up or all the way down). Furthermore, we must write our gas bill checks payable to the landlord, not the utility. This only increases our suspicion that we are being ripped off.

I know that at one point complaints were made to some authorities, but nothing has come of it. Apparently one new resident called PGW to try to turn on gas service, not knowing it was handled by this other company, and the PGW representative had some sort of difficulty sensing/finding our building in their database of possible properties.

Any insights are welcome, especially if I'm just overreacting about the difference between boilers and furnaces. It's just that the track record with this landlord has been bad in several other areas, so we have some reason to be suspicious.

Help us find good tenants

baggers — Thu, 07 May 2009 17:48:50 -0800

Mrs Baggers and I are now landlords, and we are looking for new tenants. What resources would you recommend to help us pick good tenants? Mrs Baggers and I bought a 2-family house near Boston last year, which came with a tenant in the ground floor flat. But her lease is nearly up, and she's moving out. So, we are looking for tenants. What resources can you recommend (associations, groups, etc) that can help us to find good tenants?

What I am most concerned about is the application, credit check process, etc. Any pointers for that?

Your honor, please kick this guy out!

Anonymous — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 10:04:52 -0800

We're filing a complaint against our landlord in Ontario's Landlord and Tenant Board regarding their maintenance man who is also our downstairs neighbor. Tell me what worked in your successful complaint. We are located in Toronto.

Our building employs a maintenance man who is also our downstairs neighbor.

Since we moved in over a year ago, he has harassed us.

He frequently pounds violently on his ceiling - our floor - at odd hours.

At first, he claimed he was responding to noise. We carpeted our apartment, walked only in bare feet, and tiptoed.

Still, the violent pounding continues.

He has also appeared outside our door twice - barely dressed - threatening acts of violence against us.

He shouts violent threats and racial slurs at us from his window. He mutters the same at us when we encounter him in the hall.

Now he is going around telling our superintendent and neighbors that we're involved with illegal drugs.

There are definite mental illness issues involved with this neighbor.

Our frequent, well-documented complaints over the course of a year have not resulted in action by our landlords.

Bringing in the police has not deterred our neighbor.

So, we're filing a complaint with the Landlord and Tenant Board.

We're seeking an order forcing our landlord to evict this person and possible rent abatement.

I am not seeking legal advice.

I am seeking anecdotal tales of people's experience with the Board.

For what relief did you ask?

What relief did you receive?

What time frame did the whole process take?

Were there any unpleasant surprises you think you can help me avoid?

Thanks

usurping landlord

pentagoet — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:02:01 -0800

In 2001, we moved into our current apartment. It's a slighty dumpy (yet cheap) basement apartment. Along with our apartmet, we received two parking spots and a separate locking storage area in the basement. A few years ago, our landlord sold the building. No problems with the new landlord- everything has been the same. In late March of this year, our landlord mentioned that he wants the locking area for his stuff and told us we must have our stuff cleared out by May. Can he do this? Can we receive compensation (ie x amount off our rent)? We live in Massachusetts , do not want to move unless we have to and don't want to tick off the landlord. The building itself has 4 other apartments and the landlord lives offsite, if that makes a difference. AFAIK, our apartment is legal. Advice, please!

I didn't authorize this plumber.

puddleglum — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:00:47 -0800

I was recently out of the country on vacation. The tenants at my rental property had a plumbing emergency while I was unreachable, and I suspect they were taken advantage of. What options do I have? While I was on vacation, my tenants had a leak under the sink. Since they could not get a hold of me*, they called a plumber on their own. Unfortunately, they called the most disreputable plumber in town (based on online reviews and a bad experience of my own), and ended up paying $450 for the repair, which strikes me as fishy.

My tenant said that when he called the plumber, they initially said that they couldn't come out without my authorization as the landlord. My tenant said that if they didn't come, he would call another plumber and claim to be the landlord. The plumber called back 5 minutes later and said they'd left a message at my work number, (They hadn't.) and that they'd come out.

They came out, my tenant paid them in cash. My tenant also signed both a "Work Authorization" and a "Acceptance of Work Performed". Of course I'm not going to stiff my tenants on this, but I'm wondering if I have any recourse with the plumber based on the fact that they were not authorized to come out and do work without my permission, and they knew it, and they came anyway.

I suspect that the plumber will tell me that my only option is to take it up with the tenants, but I wanted to check in here to see if I could get some better information.

*I've learned my lesson. I'm going to provide my tenants with an alternate emergency contact, plus ensure that they know who my preferred plumber is.

Landlord, give me my money back!

allisonrae — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 12:29:04 -0800

My previous landlord never returned my security deposit ($1,650) last autumn. I live in Chicago. Do I get an attorney (and if so how do I choose one) or do I take it to small claims court myself? What are the pros/cons of either approach? I have read this question already, and while that was helpful, I am wondering if anyone has any additional recommendations.

First off, I am pretty well documented. I was a tenant there for 2 years, and have copies of the deposit receipt & cleared checks. I have copies of my original lease termination letter and the demand of payment letter I sent via registered mail after 60 days. This guy was an incredibly MIA landlord (several days before repairing heater in 10° Chicago winter, incommunicado for a week after the gas co. shut off my line due to a leak, etc.)... so none of this is shocking. Other tenants had similar complaints, but to my knowledge, people rarely took him to task.

After reading up on Chicago tenant law I've seen that I am potentially owed interest and/or twice the amount of the original deposit.

Does getting an attorney increase the likelihood of getting the interest payment or does the cost of the attorney generally cancel that out? Am I better off to do small claims? (I have heard mixed things about Illinois Tenants Union, and that you pay a sizable membership fee to join before using their services.)

Thanks for any suggestions!

Help me find out if these nice-seeming tenants are actually defaulting murderers.

ignignokt — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 21:04:44 -0800

LandlordFilter: Who's got credit and criminal background checking service recommendations? So, I have some applicants to rent my place out, and now I need to check out their viability as tenants. I can check on their work and rental histories by calling companies and landlords myself, but I need to pay someone to do credit and criminal background checks. Googling turns up a lot (including this, which appears both tempting and suspicious), so I'd prefer to go with something MeFites have already used without getting burned. Can anyone recommend a service?

In regard to credit, I'm more interested in defaults and bankruptcy than I am in a credit score number.

In The Zone

DecemberRaine — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 09:47:40 -0800

My fiance and I made the mistake of renting from a young friend of mine who just bought her first house here in London, Ontario, Canada. We have been here since November 1st with nothing but trouble - construction which pushed back our move-in date by two weeks and then continued for weeks afterwards, incredibly loud dogs (she has 3 dogs upstairs who are almost always in cages) not to mention domestic fights from upstairs. We were supposed to have heated tile floors, but they do not work and we have lost all hope that they'll be fixed and to top everything off, our fridge has stopped working 3 times now and the process of getting it fixed has

Now we have found out the the next door neighbour has "reported" us - apparantly she bought the house under the assumption that it was already zoned for a 2-family dwelling, and it isn't. We are being told that they have to come in and remove our fridge, stove, and apartment door "just for the day" when the inspector comes, to convince the inspector that we are simply two couples who have known eachother for a long time and are sharing one house with a single kitchen.

Obviously, this sounds like bad news and dirty business to me. The inspector will be here March 3rd and I need to know first and foremost what the dangers are if (s)he doesn't believe this sad attempt at bypassing the zoning law. Can they force our eviction until proper zoning is achieved? Should we demand some kind of rental discount? Should we break our lease and get out as fast as we can (we have a 10 month lease that is up the end of August)?

Is it okay to sever a new lease within a certain amount of time in Ontario?

gman — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 13:45:11 -0800

I've heard that one can sever certain contracts they sign in Ontario if it's within the first 10 days of signing. If this is true, does it also apply to a lease on a house?

Benefits of bundling insurance?

kitkatcathy — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 13:51:14 -0800

What, if any, are the non-monetary benefits of bundling insurance policies (specifically auto and tenant)? I'm currently looking for tenant's insurance. I have auto insurance and know that premium discounts are the main reason to bundle policies with the same provider.

However, when shopping for new insurance, it seems that bundling insurance (auto+tenant) still works out to be about $7/ month more than purchasing policies from separate companies. Which isn't a lot... but $7 x 12 = $84/ year which starts sounding more significant (particularly on my pennypincher salary).

While the specifics of tenant insurance policies vary, let's assume that all the policies satisfy my coverage needs (with the more expensive policy actually providing more coverage than I need, specifically in terms of content value).

Additional details:
- Separate tenant insurance policy does not cover damage from backed up sewers.
- Separate tenant insurance policy has a $500 deductible.
- Bundled tenant insurance has $1000 deductible.

So Mefites, other than price, is there any advantage of bundling? Specifically, is sticking with one insurance company worth the extra $7 company/ month premium (especially given higher deductible)?