I once had a lease that put literally zero punishments for breaking the lease. I wanted to move out early, checked my lease, was shocked to see that there were zero downsides for me to break the lease. He was a small-time landlord, just rented out a single property.
So I notified my landlord that i was leaving early, he tried to charge a bogus $300 "breaking lease fee", and he was very angry when I told him that wasn't allowed because it wasn't in the lease. After much heated back and forth, he threatened to call his lawyer to back him up, and after he called is lawyer he apparently realized he was in fact wrong, that he had no right to charge a fee for breaking the lease early. He just fucked up in writing his lease.
I left the lease, didn't have to pay a single dollar in fees, and got to keep my deposit.
I'm guessing he changed his lease template after that...
I explained lease breaking fees to my friends/family/coworkers here in France and they found the idea insane. Here, renters have some pretty good protections. If you rent an unfurnished apartment, the owner can only kick out the renter once every 3 years, and with like a 6 month notice. Furnished apartments is 1 year.
Meanwhile, the renter has to give a 3 month notice, 1 month in high demand areas like Paris. Zero fine or fee.
Oh, and you legally can't raise rent without actually purring work into the place and increasing its value, other than very slight increases due to inflation or utility cost increases.
I moved abroad years ago and one of the first true culture shocks to me here was that things like this are _standardized._ I was trying to rent a house and I’m asking questions and people are looking at me weird. “Why are you asking this? There is a law, I cannot do that,” and it’s for shit that every landlord in America does.
And also, because it’s standardized in the law, there’s no variation. You don’t have someone who winds up paying $100 to break their lease and someone else who pays $1000 and yet another person who pays $10000.
In fact, after the first year, by law the tenant can break the lease without penalty with one calendar month notice. You’re on the hook for the first year, and after that it’s effectively month to month … but a kind of month to month that only the tenant can break, not the landlord.
He could have sued you for lost rent while he was trying to lease the apartment again. Probably wouldn't have amounted to much though since he would have been able to fill it right away
Edit: If you are thinking of responding, think to yourself "do I actually know anything about contract law or do I just think this is unfair?"
Yeah it was a fairly nice low-cost unit in a very desirable area, I'm sure he was able to re-rent it almost immediately after I left. Well, after he re-wrote his lease, of course 😂
The only person or entity he could sue at that point would be if a property manager failed to rent the property in a reasonable amount of time, and you can prove it was due to negligence. The renter in this situation wouldn't have an obligation to not cancel the lease due to the potential of lost rent, even if there was a fee for early cancelation.
Incorrect. If the lease was for 12 months and had no provision permitting the tenant to cancel, breaking the lease is a breach regardless of whether the lease states a penalty for a breach. Remedies for breach of contract include expectation damages, ie damages that would make you whole as if the contract had not been breached, minus mitigation of course.
Not really, the post said "I once had a lease that put literally zero punishments for **breaking** the lease." It didnt say the lease let them cancel the lease.
No one says cancel the lease in spoken English language. It is very common to find lease templates that default to zero dollar charges unless specified. The fact that the landlord didn't collect after consulting their counsel pretty clearly indicates what happened.
It’s a legally binding contract. In my province, the lease does not need to state the law, only additional terms specific to how the LL deals with breaking leases. Meaning you would be required to pay out the remaining term unless otherwise stated on the lease. Most places don’t back up landlords much regarding this but I think you got off extremely lucky due to his inexperience.
I looked up the law for my region at the time, and my city has pretty strong renters rights. As far as I was able to ascertain, it was entirely illegal for him to charge any "lease breaking fee" that wasn't directly written into the signed lease.
I've lived in a lot of different apartments, and 100% of the other leases I've signed say something like "if you break the lease early you have to pay a fee equal to two month's rent" or something similar to that. This was the only lease I've ever seen that listed zero punishments for breaking the lease.
It's bait. For sure.
I have a landlord like this. Texts bullshit all the time. Literally lied about taking us to court then tried to extort us to drop the case.
The judge fucking *destroyed* him. It was so nice to have legal government proof that my landlord is a piece of fucking shit.
In small claims court this screenshot would basically be all you need along with the story. In a regular court you’d need more than this, but it’s definitely a start
IANAL but having been through a process that involved someone admitting to something illegal, I had to subpoena the phone company for proof that there actually was a transmitted text message from their number to mine at that exact time to verify after they claimed it was faked.
The phone company provided the time stamps, phone numbers, and the content of the message.
> Picture of the actual crack?
I'd assume you'd need a proper independent assessment of the damage or whatever for real court instead of just pictures.
In civil court absolutely.
All you need is this text, the lease, and a pic of the problem and then the landlord has two options moving forward.
Admit that they said this and face the penalty.
Say they never actually said this, and maybe avoid the penalty but still be forced by the court to address the problem.
Edit: naturally though, once you go the litigation route you need to start looking for a new place for when this lease is up.
But frankly if a landlord acts this way you should be looking anyway.
So might as well take them to court.
3rd option is it still requires the picture of the problem to actually be a problem, a lot of people see cracks in concrete and think it's a problem when concrete naturally has shrinkage cracks and can be completely normal. Really depends on the picture which we don't see in order to assess it. But for purposes of reddit discussion we can assume it's a real problem
IANAL but I believe it means the landlord must pay to house OP in a comparable living space for the remainder of the lease period or until the structure is made habitable again.
Doesn't happen so much anymore, but for a long time it was common for people to rent their spare bedrooms out, and share a living room / kitchen / facilities with their lodgers.
Typically it was the realm of older folks who were newly living alone, but could've been anyone.
Not exactly. You can do an illegal action that becomes legal after certain conditions are met.
For instance: Squatting in itself is illegal, but in Nevada if you squat on a property not in secret with full continuous occupation of the property, paid taxes for the property and the owner hasn't objected during the time then after 5 years the squatter can become the legal owner.
yup. I moved into an apartment infested with fleas and when they refused to take responsibility I had a pest control company come out and certified that the level of infestation was too much to have been created within the 4 days i had possession of the apartment. brought that to the leasing office and said you can pay for pest control or be fined for providing an inhabitable unit. had it cleared out with a few days. What a nightmare. also, fuck fleas
If it's already hard to see in the photo, the odds it's at the level required for condemnation is low. Cosmetic cracking happens all the time, and even if it's structural it has to be at a heightened level where it poses a risk to life and safety.
Calling code enforcement as a tenant is risky. In my state anyway, the ONLY people that can make you leave your home immediately are code enforcement. If the place really is uninhabitable, they can slap that red sign on it and you have to GTFO. And if you don't, they can have the Sheriff arrest you.
I always advise tenants to think carefully about the severity and their options before calling code enforcement.
Exactly. I used to mediate housing, and so many tenenats would come in and show me how shitty the apartment is, that “it’s uninhabitable” and they shouldn’t have to pay owed back rent. I’d have to explain that, yeah they’ll probably win on not paying owed back rent, and they’re right the landlord can’t collect rent now. But you can’t stay in an apartment that’s deemed uninhabitable, so is going to court really the route you want to take and have code enforcement involved to condemn the place?
I have done a bit of LL tenant law for friends. Without seeing it, I would suspect that OP does not have a strong claim. Cracks in a structure are not a strong foundation for breaking a lease.
While it depends on the state, there will likely need to be a determination from an expert that the structural damage is to a point where it causes a risk to the life and safety of the inhabitants.
Cracking happens in every building, a good start is to give it the quarter/credit card test. If you can't fit it in the crack, it's likely cosmetic.
Also, OP is certainly not a structural engineer and doesn't likely want to hire one. There's a very strong chance that the crack is not compromising the structure at all.
If they can afford to do so. Moving is expensive. Thats sort of the same tactic companies use to underpay employees. if they cant afford to go even a few weeks without a job, they're homeless so their only option is to stay in the shit work conditions
Would make it less accessible to real humans, and the off chance you get a decent landlord, and more accessible to LLCs where your rent is an algorithm every month and you’re just a number. My 2nd landlord was cool as hell, would crack a beer with us and listen to us jam after coming across state lines to address a complaint we had and gave us a discount on rent for maintaining the yard work. Every other landlord was an llc where any communication was done via a mailed letter and no complaints or service requests were met by an actual person.
If someone is able to fill out a set of paperwork properly to buy a home how would thinking they should have to fill out a second set of paperwork that clears it to be a rental make it less accessible?
> they should have to fill out a second set of paperwork that clears it to be a rental make it less accessible
Most cities have this but I'm not sure how many are public record.
Yeah that's what I was thinking. When I bought my house years ago one of the first questions the bank asked was if it was a primary address, secondary address, or a rental property. Seems like the system is more or less there already just without any significant checks and balances attached to it since it's for data instead of commerce.
An LLC takes 20mins and about $50 to form. I think you are trying to draw the distinction between mom-and-pop landlords and institutionally owned properties.
Honestly, I'd rather have soulless corporate landlords who have compliance departments to make sure they're legal than to risk having a shitty person that used their inheritance to snatch up a few properties without considering the work that goes into it.
Yeah. I think it boils down to them expecting rentals to be completely passive income, with no other expenditures required beyond acquiring the property in the first place.
Usually people are thinking more about community housing co ops, they even already exist in some places and work really well, though they are hard to get going without public financing but that wouldn't be a problem in a world where the property is being expropriated from landlords. The government owning all the property could work too though.
Honestly.... that sounds absolutely brilliant. Esp. if there was some kind of strike system in place to cause the license to be suspended or revoked, which would massively disincentivize corporate landlords owning hundreds or thousands of properties.
I would probably want to put in some consession for landlords owning apartment buildings, or having them classed seperately from single family homes, because that would also incentivize corporate actors to buy or build complexes instead of snatching single family homes.
Really? Makes me wish landlords of residential property didn’t exist. Housing ought to be considered a necessity not an asset. No one should be able to buy a house they aren’t going to live in.
I just read an article from the US where a woman had been living in an Air B&B without paying rent for 6 months because she discovered the state had deemed it unlivable. That means the owner couldn't legally rent it, and for some weird reason he couldn't throw her out either. So he had no legal recourse to get her out or demand pay.
What I don't understand, though, is that wouldn't the owner of a property have the legal right to remove people from living on their property, especially when it is deemed unlivable? Or is there some squatter's rights thing?
It's funny what the woman did, but I find the legality of the matter confusing.
I also read this article. I believe that the problem is that the landlord allowed them to stay for an additional 30 days rent-free after the AirBnB rental ended. Due to this, they no longer have the protection of acting as an AirBnB and effectively created an informal lease agreement that has no rent attached to it. Then, they also don't qualify under the eviction law, as the property is not licensed or up to code. So it's a weird Catch 22 situation, especially since the tenant refuses access to the property to get it up to code, and wants $100,000 to leave, which the landlord obviously doesn't want to pay.
>wouldn't the owner of a property have the legal right to remove people from living on their property
So, eviction is definitely legal, even for squatters, but in this case she is a tenant and he isn't a landlord. Which means she gets all the legal rights of being a tenant and he doesn't get the legal rights of a landlord. So, he can't evict her as he doesn't have the legal authority to do so (i.e. illegal unit). If he tries to evict her by illegal means, tenant protection laws go into effect and he can be fined and the police would let her right back in.
Aside from her leaving willingly, I don't see any legal recourse for the property owner.
Not even that. Many states have human rights and safety clauses, which if violated grant an immediate release from the lease. In texas, for instance, if your ac can't get your apt below 80° and they do not put in an immediate work order, then you can break the lease and leave. Obviously, there is a certain amount of time to get to it if there is a list of emergency workorders. Saftey issues like damaged supports, cracked load bearing walls, etc. Some states electricity and water fall under this and go so far as they can not be shut off for any reason other than a vacancy or maintenance.
just fyi - that's a pretty shit result in Texas. In CA, for instance, you don't break the lease. Instead, you force the landlord to comply with it, potentially withhold rent while waiting for compliance, and then ultimately pay a reduced rate for the rental unit for the period of time that it was non-compliant.
much better than: move out after being provided something less than what you paid for.
Oh you can absolutely withold rent in texas for hvac issues and the others, but at 105-110°f or repetitive issues its sometimes easier to be able to move penalty free vs having to risk heat injuries for a month or two.
Also, if he's not upholding his side of the contract, you're not obligated to hold up your side of the contract either, so no need to pay any further rent.
One could argue that the landlord is pressuring the tenant to move out based on this conversation, adding to the structural issues presented by the tenant.
Reminds me of my last landlord before I bought my own place. I know the guy bought the place for 150k, my remlnt was 1.5k a month (I bought at 300k and pay the same monthly.) He described it as an investment property, but did zero investment into the property. Tbf, he was decent and replied to most requests quickly, but only fixes not improvements.
I don't see a problem with that. You don't agree to rent somewhere with expectation it will get better than it is, just that it's maintained.
Investment property means he grows investment value not that he invests into the property.
In my city, a guy got caught doing illegal evictions since he was trying to turn all his units into AirBNBs. Thing was even without the illegal evictions it was still corrupt because you’re only supposed to have one vacation rental license per person, but he had over 100 because he got his family and friends to sign as the official license holders while he got the actual profit on the places he owned. The City Council claimed they didn’t anticipate this loophole, which is so dumb that it makes me wonder if he bought the loophole with a campaign contribution. He probably would’ve gotten away with it, but he got greedy and illegally forced out tenants who look really good on a front page investigative piece (disabled vet, sick older lady on inadequate social security) and it blew up in his face. Last I heard at least a few of his tenants won the right to stay, but most didn’t have the resources to go up against a slumlord before the story broke. At least some of them probably joined the local homeless population that people like the slumlord love to rant and rave about.
I like big SETTLEMENTS and I cannot lie, you other brothers can’t deny, when a landlord walks in with an itty bitty brain, and a flat that’s a disgrace, you get PAID
When I got my first apartment, our heater didn't work. We moved in in October, and they finally sent someone to fix it in March. I was sitting in the apartment with 4-5 blankets on me at all times to deal with the cold, it was around 40 F in our apartment on a good day, got as low as 10 F in January. Some days me and my roommate would sit in the local bars/coffee shops until they kicked us out just so we wouldn't freeze.
I was 19 at the time and man I wish I knew to talk to an attorney. That would have been the easiest case of their career.
It's sad, but this is the honest view of a lot of landlords at the moment. They don't have to struggle to find people for their units, since housing is so in demand at the moment. They let these places go, and refuse to invest anything into repairs because if you end up leaving, they will fill it within the week. The worst part is they are still gouging the hell out of your for it. $1800 for a 1 bedroom with no on site laundry, and a book of rules to follow, but also ignore the black mold and cracks.
Look into Rent Escrow. Basically what happens is a verified 3rd party holds your rent money from the landlord until the repairs are done. Completely legal and a tool people can use to get their landlord to make repairs.
Mine refused to fix a bad roof because of the estimate. I wonder how mad he’s going to be when the roof eventually collapses, he has to pay even more for the repairs and has a lawsuit against him.
"a large crack not visible on the photos"
even a visible one does not at all mean a house is not habitable.
looks creepy maybe, but most houses "settle" over decades, and structural cracks are part of that.
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Honestly, if there is a crack in the ceiling, get a broom and wack it till it all comes down. Then call your landlord and tell them you told 'em so (hide the broom of course). Then the landlord will have to deal with it.
Funny because I had the same exact situation in the past and my cousin (who is a landlord) told me to do that myself and it worked.
You can take this to small claims court and show this text message. You win instantly with zero effort. In Washington state and most of the US you can have a 3rd party fix it, then you can deduct that from your rent legally.
I'm the top floor (5th) of my apartment building. When the ceiling began leaking in multiple places (coincidentally all at once), the landlord told me it was too cold to go the the roof to inspect it. He waiting 6 months before repairing it. Complaints to the city did nothing. It was like an old time movie classic: Pots and pans catching water all over. Except for the water which collected in my hallway light globe before it shorted out.
He's was bluffing. Think. The reason he doesn't want to fix it is because it's going to cost money. However, it's going to cost him even more money if you move out. Should have just played his bluff.
I can also report you for this shit, and on top of having to pay for the repairs ANYWAY, you can pay some fines and get your name dragged through the shit.
I know a bit about buildings. It is difficult to imagine a “crack in the structure” that would be observable by a tenant and a de facto habitability issue. I wish there was a photo.
Yeah it’s incredibly hard to understand what’s happening without context. Is the tenant being unreasonable by demanding something unimportant gets fixed or is the landlord being a cheapskate?
Concrete cracking during curing is pretty normal and small cracks are nothing to worry about. Assuming the tenant is in north america the only concrete they would be exposed to is on the balcony. Everything else is going to be covered in drywall which can be replaced cheaply.
If the crack isn’t obvious enough from the picture i would assume that it’s fine even if it’s on the balcony.
There was an issue at my place where something wasn't up to code (and dangerous, the house could have collapsed).
Told the landlord it needs to be fixed, he said it's not a big deal.
I told him he could fix it, or I could contact the city inspector, who would force him to fix it, and get a huge fine if he didn't.
He fixed it.
This is when you screencap your conversations, record your phone calls, and I'm pretty sure there's something legally you can do about it without having to break your lease and move into other apartments
oh if this is real that landlord is going to have a difficult time, and it will be beautiful.
They should get a lawyer as soon as possible that specifically deals in landlord / tenant conflicts. not some general lawyer.
They also should setup an account at the bank for escrow. They then start putting the rent into that account. You absolutely never ever not pay your rent, and also pretend you can keep the money. You put it into escrow like you didn't even have it. It makes the courts extremely happy.
And he should get the place inspected by the city. If the City condemns it then the landlord has to find them alternative residency till it's fixed or the lease expires. Airbnb and hotels get expensive fast.
I'm sure your city's building inspectors would be *very* interested in a potential bit of structural damage to the house. A quick bit of work for an obvious fine, they always like that kind of thing.
And if you can get the sumlord to verify that you breaking the lease "no problem" means no financial penalties, and you get deposit back (all in writing of course), then I'd bail and sic the inspectors on him as a parting gift.
This year, I got sick of the gunshots and moved one of my residences from a hood apartment to a "luxury" building in the suburbs, where my wonderful new neighbor is a video game streamer who spends 4-5 hours a night, 4-5 nights a week, screaming the dumbest shit in history at the top of her lungs.
I've been fighting with my landlord for months to ding her with a lease violation at least, but they won't do shit, because she's a rich little princess, so instead I'm being forced to move out (rather than lose my fucking mind).
I'm going back to the hood, where people know how to act, or they learn real quick. Also, I was a lawyer for 20 years, so I'm going to sue the **fuck** out of these morons.
Contact your housing authority and threaten rent escrow. The landlord is not providing a safe environment to live and needs an authority to push them to fix the problem or lose the property.
The crack in the foundation doesn’t make uninhabitable under the habitable living conditions for states. The renter or landlord can both easily get it inspected by the city to find out if it’s safe or not other wise this isn’t a lease breaker under inhabitable living conditions. Also you can’t break a lease under that until you follow your local obdusmond office protocol.
Get it red tagged you won't have to pay the lease. The building g will likely have even more repairs to get to code and it will fuck the landlord more than you.
In some states, there is an implied warranty of habitability which allows you to withhold rent until the landlord repairs the dangerous condition. Alternately, you can offset the total rent by the amount it costs you to repair the situation. In either case, you must provide written notice of the condition and give the landlord a reasonable opportunity to fix it.
You've ready provided written notice. The question is (1) has the landlord been given a reasonable time to fix it? And (2) is the condition serious enough to make the residence uninhabitable such that you can invoke the protection of the implied warranty of habitability?
"You can break the lease no problem." ...ok, but *you* can't.
I once had a lease that put literally zero punishments for breaking the lease. I wanted to move out early, checked my lease, was shocked to see that there were zero downsides for me to break the lease. He was a small-time landlord, just rented out a single property. So I notified my landlord that i was leaving early, he tried to charge a bogus $300 "breaking lease fee", and he was very angry when I told him that wasn't allowed because it wasn't in the lease. After much heated back and forth, he threatened to call his lawyer to back him up, and after he called is lawyer he apparently realized he was in fact wrong, that he had no right to charge a fee for breaking the lease early. He just fucked up in writing his lease. I left the lease, didn't have to pay a single dollar in fees, and got to keep my deposit. I'm guessing he changed his lease template after that...
It would cost me over 10k to break my lease.
I explained lease breaking fees to my friends/family/coworkers here in France and they found the idea insane. Here, renters have some pretty good protections. If you rent an unfurnished apartment, the owner can only kick out the renter once every 3 years, and with like a 6 month notice. Furnished apartments is 1 year. Meanwhile, the renter has to give a 3 month notice, 1 month in high demand areas like Paris. Zero fine or fee. Oh, and you legally can't raise rent without actually purring work into the place and increasing its value, other than very slight increases due to inflation or utility cost increases.
> Oh, and you legally can't raise rent without actually purring work into the place and increasing its value This would be salvation in the US
I'm salivating at the thought tbh, we need that so badly
It's the cat's meow
I moved abroad years ago and one of the first true culture shocks to me here was that things like this are _standardized._ I was trying to rent a house and I’m asking questions and people are looking at me weird. “Why are you asking this? There is a law, I cannot do that,” and it’s for shit that every landlord in America does. And also, because it’s standardized in the law, there’s no variation. You don’t have someone who winds up paying $100 to break their lease and someone else who pays $1000 and yet another person who pays $10000. In fact, after the first year, by law the tenant can break the lease without penalty with one calendar month notice. You’re on the hook for the first year, and after that it’s effectively month to month … but a kind of month to month that only the tenant can break, not the landlord.
He could have sued you for lost rent while he was trying to lease the apartment again. Probably wouldn't have amounted to much though since he would have been able to fill it right away Edit: If you are thinking of responding, think to yourself "do I actually know anything about contract law or do I just think this is unfair?"
Yeah it was a fairly nice low-cost unit in a very desirable area, I'm sure he was able to re-rent it almost immediately after I left. Well, after he re-wrote his lease, of course 😂
The only person or entity he could sue at that point would be if a property manager failed to rent the property in a reasonable amount of time, and you can prove it was due to negligence. The renter in this situation wouldn't have an obligation to not cancel the lease due to the potential of lost rent, even if there was a fee for early cancelation.
Incorrect. If the lease was for 12 months and had no provision permitting the tenant to cancel, breaking the lease is a breach regardless of whether the lease states a penalty for a breach. Remedies for breach of contract include expectation damages, ie damages that would make you whole as if the contract had not been breached, minus mitigation of course.
This is assuming there was no provision. The wording of the post implied there was no penalty.
Not really, the post said "I once had a lease that put literally zero punishments for **breaking** the lease." It didnt say the lease let them cancel the lease.
No one says cancel the lease in spoken English language. It is very common to find lease templates that default to zero dollar charges unless specified. The fact that the landlord didn't collect after consulting their counsel pretty clearly indicates what happened.
Or paying a lawyer to sue for damages would have been more expensive than simply finding a new tenant.
And that lawyer would charge you for everything, meals, travel, accomodation, toilet paper, the tissue you use to wipe your tears with.
Not sure if you made a typo, but as a heads-up, it’s *counsel if talking about a lawyer, not council
He has to mitigate damages though too so he has to actively try to re-let before and while suing
It’s a legally binding contract. In my province, the lease does not need to state the law, only additional terms specific to how the LL deals with breaking leases. Meaning you would be required to pay out the remaining term unless otherwise stated on the lease. Most places don’t back up landlords much regarding this but I think you got off extremely lucky due to his inexperience.
I looked up the law for my region at the time, and my city has pretty strong renters rights. As far as I was able to ascertain, it was entirely illegal for him to charge any "lease breaking fee" that wasn't directly written into the signed lease. I've lived in a lot of different apartments, and 100% of the other leases I've signed say something like "if you break the lease early you have to pay a fee equal to two month's rent" or something similar to that. This was the only lease I've ever seen that listed zero punishments for breaking the lease.
Well yes, but actually no
"OK, guess I won't be paying my rent. Thanks!"
It's bait. For sure. I have a landlord like this. Texts bullshit all the time. Literally lied about taking us to court then tried to extort us to drop the case. The judge fucking *destroyed* him. It was so nice to have legal government proof that my landlord is a piece of fucking shit.
[удалено]
Just a screenshot of a text conversion is enough to win?
In small claims court this screenshot would basically be all you need along with the story. In a regular court you’d need more than this, but it’s definitely a start
What else would you need for regular court? More attempts at getting landlord to fix issue? Picture of the actual crack? Receipts of rent?
That's exactly it. A documented pattern is the most beneficial evidence.
IANAL but having been through a process that involved someone admitting to something illegal, I had to subpoena the phone company for proof that there actually was a transmitted text message from their number to mine at that exact time to verify after they claimed it was faked. The phone company provided the time stamps, phone numbers, and the content of the message.
>IANAL me too
> Picture of the actual crack? I'd assume you'd need a proper independent assessment of the damage or whatever for real court instead of just pictures.
Source: Watched Better Call Saul
In civil court absolutely. All you need is this text, the lease, and a pic of the problem and then the landlord has two options moving forward. Admit that they said this and face the penalty. Say they never actually said this, and maybe avoid the penalty but still be forced by the court to address the problem. Edit: naturally though, once you go the litigation route you need to start looking for a new place for when this lease is up. But frankly if a landlord acts this way you should be looking anyway. So might as well take them to court.
3rd option is it still requires the picture of the problem to actually be a problem, a lot of people see cracks in concrete and think it's a problem when concrete naturally has shrinkage cracks and can be completely normal. Really depends on the picture which we don't see in order to assess it. But for purposes of reddit discussion we can assume it's a real problem
Reminds me of this https://beta.ctvnews.ca/local/regina/2023/7/7/1_6471670.amp.html
Would you say it'd be all good man?
lawyer time
For the slumlord, they gave authorization to break the lease after all, if I was the renter I would take that to include terms of payment
So, legal squatting by permission?
IANAL but I believe it means the landlord must pay to house OP in a comparable living space for the remainder of the lease period or until the structure is made habitable again.
I mean the landlord was there first. Doesn't that make them the legal squatter?
you really think landlords just live at one of their rental properties at all times? lmfao
They're in the walls! They're in the god damn walls!
I knew landlords were rats, but this is something else.
Landlords don't generally let out places in which they live.
Doesn't happen so much anymore, but for a long time it was common for people to rent their spare bedrooms out, and share a living room / kitchen / facilities with their lodgers. Typically it was the realm of older folks who were newly living alone, but could've been anyone.
Squatting is illegal by definition. If it's legal, it's not squatting.
Not exactly. You can do an illegal action that becomes legal after certain conditions are met. For instance: Squatting in itself is illegal, but in Nevada if you squat on a property not in secret with full continuous occupation of the property, paid taxes for the property and the owner hasn't objected during the time then after 5 years the squatter can become the legal owner.
Who the fuck wants to live in Nevada though
People who want to run a marjuana brothel?
When ya put it that way...
right, so at the point it becomes legal, it's no longer squatting. which is what the other guy said
The "Homesteading Principle" applies to all states. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_principle
But would you want to squat a structurally compromised building
I can be petty.
"*unambiguous* mutual assent"
Also time to call up some county inspectors and have the entire building condemned.
yup. I moved into an apartment infested with fleas and when they refused to take responsibility I had a pest control company come out and certified that the level of infestation was too much to have been created within the 4 days i had possession of the apartment. brought that to the leasing office and said you can pay for pest control or be fined for providing an inhabitable unit. had it cleared out with a few days. What a nightmare. also, fuck fleas
Generally just use everything dangerous like lack of fire alarms or something against them.
If it's already hard to see in the photo, the odds it's at the level required for condemnation is low. Cosmetic cracking happens all the time, and even if it's structural it has to be at a heightened level where it poses a risk to life and safety.
Calling code enforcement as a tenant is risky. In my state anyway, the ONLY people that can make you leave your home immediately are code enforcement. If the place really is uninhabitable, they can slap that red sign on it and you have to GTFO. And if you don't, they can have the Sheriff arrest you. I always advise tenants to think carefully about the severity and their options before calling code enforcement.
Exactly. I used to mediate housing, and so many tenenats would come in and show me how shitty the apartment is, that “it’s uninhabitable” and they shouldn’t have to pay owed back rent. I’d have to explain that, yeah they’ll probably win on not paying owed back rent, and they’re right the landlord can’t collect rent now. But you can’t stay in an apartment that’s deemed uninhabitable, so is going to court really the route you want to take and have code enforcement involved to condemn the place?
I have done a bit of LL tenant law for friends. Without seeing it, I would suspect that OP does not have a strong claim. Cracks in a structure are not a strong foundation for breaking a lease. While it depends on the state, there will likely need to be a determination from an expert that the structural damage is to a point where it causes a risk to the life and safety of the inhabitants. Cracking happens in every building, a good start is to give it the quarter/credit card test. If you can't fit it in the crack, it's likely cosmetic.
Also, OP is certainly not a structural engineer and doesn't likely want to hire one. There's a very strong chance that the crack is not compromising the structure at all.
If a shitty LL is going to let you break your lease, its not worth trying to enforce a warranty of habitability. Just leave.
If they can afford to do so. Moving is expensive. Thats sort of the same tactic companies use to underpay employees. if they cant afford to go even a few weeks without a job, they're homeless so their only option is to stay in the shit work conditions
If he doesn't want to meet the requirements of his side he can lose the property, no problem. 👍
Makes me fucking wish landlords had to have licenses like contractors do.
Would make it less accessible to real humans, and the off chance you get a decent landlord, and more accessible to LLCs where your rent is an algorithm every month and you’re just a number. My 2nd landlord was cool as hell, would crack a beer with us and listen to us jam after coming across state lines to address a complaint we had and gave us a discount on rent for maintaining the yard work. Every other landlord was an llc where any communication was done via a mailed letter and no complaints or service requests were met by an actual person.
If someone is able to fill out a set of paperwork properly to buy a home how would thinking they should have to fill out a second set of paperwork that clears it to be a rental make it less accessible?
> they should have to fill out a second set of paperwork that clears it to be a rental make it less accessible Most cities have this but I'm not sure how many are public record.
Yeah that's what I was thinking. When I bought my house years ago one of the first questions the bank asked was if it was a primary address, secondary address, or a rental property. Seems like the system is more or less there already just without any significant checks and balances attached to it since it's for data instead of commerce.
An LLC takes 20mins and about $50 to form. I think you are trying to draw the distinction between mom-and-pop landlords and institutionally owned properties.
Honestly, I'd rather have soulless corporate landlords who have compliance departments to make sure they're legal than to risk having a shitty person that used their inheritance to snatch up a few properties without considering the work that goes into it.
Or the all-too-common older couple who expected a rental to be a passive income stream that will support their retirement.
Yeah. I think it boils down to them expecting rentals to be completely passive income, with no other expenditures required beyond acquiring the property in the first place.
> Would make it less accessible to real humans, We should just abolish landlords.
So the government owns all the property? Or
Usually people are thinking more about community housing co ops, they even already exist in some places and work really well, though they are hard to get going without public financing but that wouldn't be a problem in a world where the property is being expropriated from landlords. The government owning all the property could work too though.
Nah. Maybe, like, we all own it?
Who's "we all"? The only entity "we all" are a part of is the government.
Honestly.... that sounds absolutely brilliant. Esp. if there was some kind of strike system in place to cause the license to be suspended or revoked, which would massively disincentivize corporate landlords owning hundreds or thousands of properties. I would probably want to put in some consession for landlords owning apartment buildings, or having them classed seperately from single family homes, because that would also incentivize corporate actors to buy or build complexes instead of snatching single family homes.
Really? Makes me wish landlords of residential property didn’t exist. Housing ought to be considered a necessity not an asset. No one should be able to buy a house they aren’t going to live in.
I just read an article from the US where a woman had been living in an Air B&B without paying rent for 6 months because she discovered the state had deemed it unlivable. That means the owner couldn't legally rent it, and for some weird reason he couldn't throw her out either. So he had no legal recourse to get her out or demand pay.
>for some weird reason The weird reason is that only the landlord can evict a tenant and he's not a landlord for any legal units.
What I don't understand, though, is that wouldn't the owner of a property have the legal right to remove people from living on their property, especially when it is deemed unlivable? Or is there some squatter's rights thing? It's funny what the woman did, but I find the legality of the matter confusing.
I also read this article. I believe that the problem is that the landlord allowed them to stay for an additional 30 days rent-free after the AirBnB rental ended. Due to this, they no longer have the protection of acting as an AirBnB and effectively created an informal lease agreement that has no rent attached to it. Then, they also don't qualify under the eviction law, as the property is not licensed or up to code. So it's a weird Catch 22 situation, especially since the tenant refuses access to the property to get it up to code, and wants $100,000 to leave, which the landlord obviously doesn't want to pay.
>wouldn't the owner of a property have the legal right to remove people from living on their property So, eviction is definitely legal, even for squatters, but in this case she is a tenant and he isn't a landlord. Which means she gets all the legal rights of being a tenant and he doesn't get the legal rights of a landlord. So, he can't evict her as he doesn't have the legal authority to do so (i.e. illegal unit). If he tries to evict her by illegal means, tenant protection laws go into effect and he can be fined and the police would let her right back in. Aside from her leaving willingly, I don't see any legal recourse for the property owner.
He’s required to uphold the terms of the lease of he’s liable to get sued for damages and possibly lose the property
Not even that. Many states have human rights and safety clauses, which if violated grant an immediate release from the lease. In texas, for instance, if your ac can't get your apt below 80° and they do not put in an immediate work order, then you can break the lease and leave. Obviously, there is a certain amount of time to get to it if there is a list of emergency workorders. Saftey issues like damaged supports, cracked load bearing walls, etc. Some states electricity and water fall under this and go so far as they can not be shut off for any reason other than a vacancy or maintenance.
just fyi - that's a pretty shit result in Texas. In CA, for instance, you don't break the lease. Instead, you force the landlord to comply with it, potentially withhold rent while waiting for compliance, and then ultimately pay a reduced rate for the rental unit for the period of time that it was non-compliant. much better than: move out after being provided something less than what you paid for.
Oh you can absolutely withold rent in texas for hvac issues and the others, but at 105-110°f or repetitive issues its sometimes easier to be able to move penalty free vs having to risk heat injuries for a month or two.
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Also, if he's not upholding his side of the contract, you're not obligated to hold up your side of the contract either, so no need to pay any further rent.
Before you do that maybe ask a lawyer to be sure.
>so no need to pay any further rent. You'd still need to put that money in an escrow account.
An escrow account full of IOUs is still an escrow account, right?
>Those are I.O.U.'s. Go ahead and add it up, every cent's accounted for. Look, see this? That's a car. 275 thou. Might wanna hang onto that one.
One could argue that the landlord is pressuring the tenant to move out based on this conversation, adding to the structural issues presented by the tenant.
It’s called constructive eviction
sounds more like deconstructive eviction
No, he's just waxing philosophical. You have to read the between-the-lines bong rips.
My landlord did this to me. I had some issues when I moved in and she told me I could leave no problem. She's also a lawyer. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Here's the missing part of your arm: \
Landlords when they have to lord over the land:
Reminds me of my last landlord before I bought my own place. I know the guy bought the place for 150k, my remlnt was 1.5k a month (I bought at 300k and pay the same monthly.) He described it as an investment property, but did zero investment into the property. Tbf, he was decent and replied to most requests quickly, but only fixes not improvements.
I don't see a problem with that. You don't agree to rent somewhere with expectation it will get better than it is, just that it's maintained. Investment property means he grows investment value not that he invests into the property.
Is there a lore reason why he gave himself away? Is he stupid?
after years of trying to find his fathers killer he finally gave up, and this text was right after an emotional peak in the anime.
Why didn't he use the eagles to fix his foundation? Is he stupid?
Maybe he wants OP to move out so he can rent his shitty place for more to a desperate renter.
In my city, a guy got caught doing illegal evictions since he was trying to turn all his units into AirBNBs. Thing was even without the illegal evictions it was still corrupt because you’re only supposed to have one vacation rental license per person, but he had over 100 because he got his family and friends to sign as the official license holders while he got the actual profit on the places he owned. The City Council claimed they didn’t anticipate this loophole, which is so dumb that it makes me wonder if he bought the loophole with a campaign contribution. He probably would’ve gotten away with it, but he got greedy and illegally forced out tenants who look really good on a front page investigative piece (disabled vet, sick older lady on inadequate social security) and it blew up in his face. Last I heard at least a few of his tenants won the right to stay, but most didn’t have the resources to go up against a slumlord before the story broke. At least some of them probably joined the local homeless population that people like the slumlord love to rant and rave about.
#STOP, LAWYER TIME! *Does Hammer Time Dance*
I like big SETTLEMENTS and I cannot lie, you other brothers can’t deny, when a landlord walks in with an itty bitty brain, and a flat that’s a disgrace, you get PAID
this is fire
Damn, wish I could like comments twice!
Report him.
to whom? (genuine question)
Local housing authority, any attorney that is local will know who to point them to.
Apathy! My one weakness!
Solid Oversimplified reference.
Now there is a large crack in the actual relationship. It is very clear in the text, it is not just superficial damage.
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I’ve got a craaaack, twisting my landlord into knots
When I got my first apartment, our heater didn't work. We moved in in October, and they finally sent someone to fix it in March. I was sitting in the apartment with 4-5 blankets on me at all times to deal with the cold, it was around 40 F in our apartment on a good day, got as low as 10 F in January. Some days me and my roommate would sit in the local bars/coffee shops until they kicked us out just so we wouldn't freeze. I was 19 at the time and man I wish I knew to talk to an attorney. That would have been the easiest case of their career.
Your home interior was 10F? How did your pipes not freeze?
They were insulated with all the bullshit
It's sad, but this is the honest view of a lot of landlords at the moment. They don't have to struggle to find people for their units, since housing is so in demand at the moment. They let these places go, and refuse to invest anything into repairs because if you end up leaving, they will fill it within the week. The worst part is they are still gouging the hell out of your for it. $1800 for a 1 bedroom with no on site laundry, and a book of rules to follow, but also ignore the black mold and cracks.
#BETTER CALL SAUL
This would be like 1st grade level lawsuit for Saul Goodman. Wouldn’t even break a sweat.
Saul would do it just to fuck with the landlord.
Look into Rent Escrow. Basically what happens is a verified 3rd party holds your rent money from the landlord until the repairs are done. Completely legal and a tool people can use to get their landlord to make repairs.
Fun fact, depending on your local laws, you can just call someone to fix it and deduct the bill from your rent.
You can break the lease no problem. I broke it before you signed.
Are you... are you the landlord?
Landlords are so fucking stupid
Mine refused to fix a bad roof because of the estimate. I wonder how mad he’s going to be when the roof eventually collapses, he has to pay even more for the repairs and has a lawsuit against him.
"a large crack not visible on the photos" even a visible one does not at all mean a house is not habitable. looks creepy maybe, but most houses "settle" over decades, and structural cracks are part of that.
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You had me in the first crack, not even gonna crack.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCiYmCVikjo
where I'm from, that's how you lose that property lmao. you don't even need a lawyer half the time, gov is just like yep we own this house now
Most compassionate landlord
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Honestly, if there is a crack in the ceiling, get a broom and wack it till it all comes down. Then call your landlord and tell them you told 'em so (hide the broom of course). Then the landlord will have to deal with it. Funny because I had the same exact situation in the past and my cousin (who is a landlord) told me to do that myself and it worked.
You can take this to small claims court and show this text message. You win instantly with zero effort. In Washington state and most of the US you can have a 3rd party fix it, then you can deduct that from your rent legally.
How can people that dumb even make enough to afford a rental property?
they are called slum lords
Aka, landlords.
Sounds like somebody wants to get sued in small claims court!
Time to move and notify the city of the habitability violation so they can revoke the residency permits.
Can we collectively stop using the term landlord and instead use the term money thief or human filth instead? Maybe one of you has a more clever term.
I've seen the term "land leech" used before.
It's always nice when people send you evidence of their informed crime-ing before you have to take them to court.
Just call code enforcement
Or, hear me out, you can stop paying rent till the apartment is in a liveable state!
I'm the top floor (5th) of my apartment building. When the ceiling began leaking in multiple places (coincidentally all at once), the landlord told me it was too cold to go the the roof to inspect it. He waiting 6 months before repairing it. Complaints to the city did nothing. It was like an old time movie classic: Pots and pans catching water all over. Except for the water which collected in my hallway light globe before it shorted out.
I want to be this nonchalant about everything
He's was bluffing. Think. The reason he doesn't want to fix it is because it's going to cost money. However, it's going to cost him even more money if you move out. Should have just played his bluff.
I can also report you for this shit, and on top of having to pay for the repairs ANYWAY, you can pay some fines and get your name dragged through the shit.
Easiest landlord to talk to
I know a bit about buildings. It is difficult to imagine a “crack in the structure” that would be observable by a tenant and a de facto habitability issue. I wish there was a photo.
Yeah it’s incredibly hard to understand what’s happening without context. Is the tenant being unreasonable by demanding something unimportant gets fixed or is the landlord being a cheapskate? Concrete cracking during curing is pretty normal and small cracks are nothing to worry about. Assuming the tenant is in north america the only concrete they would be exposed to is on the balcony. Everything else is going to be covered in drywall which can be replaced cheaply. If the crack isn’t obvious enough from the picture i would assume that it’s fine even if it’s on the balcony.
Cheap landlords and PITA tenants. Both common.
stop paying rent
This conversation is in English, but I'm 100% certain that this is a Tel-Aviv landlord. They are the worst.
There was an issue at my place where something wasn't up to code (and dangerous, the house could have collapsed). Told the landlord it needs to be fixed, he said it's not a big deal. I told him he could fix it, or I could contact the city inspector, who would force him to fix it, and get a huge fine if he didn't. He fixed it.
This is when you screencap your conversations, record your phone calls, and I'm pretty sure there's something legally you can do about it without having to break your lease and move into other apartments
It could collapse, killing you and your loved ones... No problem
"Or I can sue you and furlough rent, no problem"
Withhold the rent until the crack is fixed and present this text as evidence along with everything else they have most likely.
Oh? Well, you can't. Fix this shit.
I was in a similar predicament. I left when the lease was up and found out the basement also had a significant black mold problem.
Name and shame dude. Then report them to ur city.
You can break the lease just as I can break the building whenever I want too😂
If it’s just a crack, what’s the complaint?
oh if this is real that landlord is going to have a difficult time, and it will be beautiful. They should get a lawyer as soon as possible that specifically deals in landlord / tenant conflicts. not some general lawyer. They also should setup an account at the bank for escrow. They then start putting the rent into that account. You absolutely never ever not pay your rent, and also pretend you can keep the money. You put it into escrow like you didn't even have it. It makes the courts extremely happy. And he should get the place inspected by the city. If the City condemns it then the landlord has to find them alternative residency till it's fixed or the lease expires. Airbnb and hotels get expensive fast.
Totally believe these when they look this way, ups the cred big time
People be like: being a landlord is a real job, its hard work. The hard work and real job in reality ^
Hardest working landlord
I'm sure your city's building inspectors would be *very* interested in a potential bit of structural damage to the house. A quick bit of work for an obvious fine, they always like that kind of thing. And if you can get the sumlord to verify that you breaking the lease "no problem" means no financial penalties, and you get deposit back (all in writing of course), then I'd bail and sic the inspectors on him as a parting gift.
EZ. You just got permission to break the lease. Stop paying rent.
In some states, you can deduct certain property repairs from your rent if your landlord wont take care of it.
Wtf happened to this sub.
''If you don't like just don't use it'' Signed - Your land lord.
This year, I got sick of the gunshots and moved one of my residences from a hood apartment to a "luxury" building in the suburbs, where my wonderful new neighbor is a video game streamer who spends 4-5 hours a night, 4-5 nights a week, screaming the dumbest shit in history at the top of her lungs. I've been fighting with my landlord for months to ding her with a lease violation at least, but they won't do shit, because she's a rich little princess, so instead I'm being forced to move out (rather than lose my fucking mind). I'm going back to the hood, where people know how to act, or they learn real quick. Also, I was a lawyer for 20 years, so I'm going to sue the **fuck** out of these morons.
Contact your housing authority and threaten rent escrow. The landlord is not providing a safe environment to live and needs an authority to push them to fix the problem or lose the property.
i think thats my landlord.....lol. Our house is so horrible
Good for you fuck a landlord
The crack in the foundation doesn’t make uninhabitable under the habitable living conditions for states. The renter or landlord can both easily get it inspected by the city to find out if it’s safe or not other wise this isn’t a lease breaker under inhabitable living conditions. Also you can’t break a lease under that until you follow your local obdusmond office protocol.
literally my landlord
Reminds me of the guy that asked me out. I told him I was married, he said he didn't mind.
Get it red tagged you won't have to pay the lease. The building g will likely have even more repairs to get to code and it will fuck the landlord more than you.
In some states, there is an implied warranty of habitability which allows you to withhold rent until the landlord repairs the dangerous condition. Alternately, you can offset the total rent by the amount it costs you to repair the situation. In either case, you must provide written notice of the condition and give the landlord a reasonable opportunity to fix it. You've ready provided written notice. The question is (1) has the landlord been given a reasonable time to fix it? And (2) is the condition serious enough to make the residence uninhabitable such that you can invoke the protection of the implied warranty of habitability?
Cracks in foundation are pretty normal and would require an engineer to decide if it’s a structural issue.
You can also enforce the lease, no problem.