This happened in 2018, I just moved to a new apartment. It was a three bedroom first floor apartment and it had a finished basement. It had two bedrooms, a living room, and a kitchen on the first floor. It also had a bedroom (with a full bath) in the basement and a bar/gaming area. It was also in a very nice area of the city. The apartment was owned by a corporation.
Honestly, we loved that apartment, until it kept having recurring issues in the basement. The carpet was wet from time to time, at first the landlord would send a cleaner to come and handle it but it keeps happening. I asked them to check and fix the issue. They did not do it, I told him I’ll call the city inspector to check the building, they laughed at me and told me ‘go ahead, call the city inspector’, so I did.
I called the city twice until I finally was connected to the right department and they sent an inspector a week later. The inspector found so many building violations. They told me they’d contact the building owner and would come again. The next day, the owner called and begged me to tell them what I know about the problem with the apartment. I told them that I sent complaints multiple times, they should check their record.
The city inspector, the owner and the property manager came two weeks after that, the city inspector was whooping their a***s. He laid it to them, it was bad. They have to deal with structural and foundational issues and some safety issues too. There were 4 tenants in that building including us, imagine it was a big colonial/multi family home divided into four apartments. They had to break the lease with all of us to fix the building. They couldn’t fix it with us being there. We were ready and already consulted a lawyer, we told them that:
1. We want our deposit back before moving out
2. They paid for all of our moving expenses
3. They paid for our deposit at the next place
They could not kick us out, they could not rent the apartment after the inspections, there were four of us and we could all sue them for placing us in a dangerous building. In the end they spent so much money to relocate us and fix the apartment.
According to author and financial expert Sam, from Financial Samurai, we shouldn’t be spending more than 30% of our gross income on rent each month. “Once you limit your rent to 20% of your monthly gross income, you’ll free up a lot more disposable income to invest. If you want to achieve financial independence sooner, my housing expense guideline recommends keeping rent/mortgage to 10% of gross income each month,” he told Bored Panda, adding that it’s always worth negotiating with one’s landlord to lower the rent. Of course, in a courteous way.
“After all, if you never ask, you never receive. You just have to negotiate in a courteous way, not in a demanding way. As a landlord since 2005, all I want is great tenants who will take care of the place, pay on time, and be respectful to the neighbors. Plenty of landlords are willing to charge a discount to market if prospective tenants come across as responsible,” he explained that many landlords are perfectly reasonable.
“If your rental property has fewer people, that’s another great reason to negotiate the rent lower. For example, my previous tenants were a family of four with a dog. However, my new tenants are a family of three with no pets. As a result, I was more than happy to charge them less due to less wear and tear. In a hot rental market, make sure to come prepared with all the relevant documents when applying. The more thorough, the better.”
According to Sam, the author of ‘Buy This, Not That,’ the most powerful option that a tenant has is being willing to move elsewhere. “Landlords don’t want turnover. If you move, even in a strong rental market, a landlord might lose a month’s worth of rent or more trying to find new tenants. So it’s best if there’s continuity,” he shared what landlords value.
A few years ago, I moved back to the city in which I was a university student. As I was now ‘a young professional’, and had experienced significant issues with housemates in the past (non-payment of bills, having to do all the cleaning) I decided that I would rent a small flat from a reputable agency which specifically catered for ‘young professionals’ such as myself.
I went and viewed the property, which was quite messy, and needed to have a few things addressed (ie the vinyl flooring in the kitchen was ripped, one of the drawers in the freezer was broken). But seeing as tenants were still living in the property, and the agency assured me that between tenants the landlord would clean the property, and resolve any small issues prior to moving in, I happily signed a contract, and wrote a cheques for the deposit, and first month of rent.
Two months later, I moved into the property, and was welcomed with the following issues (note, I just happened to stumble upon the list I made at the time when clearing out an old hard drive a few days ago):
General:
The entire property had not been cleaned
Fire door wouldn’t close (breach of fire regulations)
The previous tenants had left much of their belongings behind, namely clothes and bedding
General waste was present in all rooms (bins had not been emptied)
Batteries had been removed from all of the fire/smoke alarms (by law, they were meant to be hard wired in rented property)
Half of a lightbulbs had been removed from the property
Hallway:
Mains supply & circuit breaker ripped from wall (incredibly dangerous)
Carpet soiled
Bedroom:
Slats on bed broken (so would not have been able to sleep on it)
Mattress torn and ripped
Vinyl floor ripped up
Window jammed closed
Bathroom:
Faecal matter on light switch
Mirror broken
Toilet had not been cleaned (still had faecal stains in
Shower door broken off hinges
Vinyl floor torn up
Kitchen/Living Room:
Washing machine broken
All draws in fridge freezer absent or broken beyond repair
Gas cooker, missing burner caps and pan rail (therefore unusable)
Two cupboard doors hanging off
Vinyl floor ripped up
Curtain pole ripped down
It was very clear that two things had occurred here. The first being that the previous tenants had done a bit of a number on the property. That they had not respected the property, and had left quite a lot of damage in their wake. They did not even have the decency to empty the place of their contents, and at bare minimum, take the rubbish out before leaving. The second issue however, is that the landlord had evidently not made any significant attempt to bring the property back into a habitable state prior to me moving in.
Being the reasonable guy that I was, I called the landlord and asked if he could resolve these issues immediately. Primarily as the property was genuinely in a dangerous, and non-inhabitable state. I did not want to be a dick about it, however, at the bare minimum, the flat should be safe to inhabit.
The landlord dismissed all of my complaints, and stated that his wife (he was on a business trip to Dubai) had inspected and cleaned the property a few days before, and all was fine (a blatant lie). I told him that I was extremely unhappy with the situation, and he told me to ‘adhere to the contract which I had signed’. He subsequently put the phone down. Any sympathy I had for the landlord evaporated at this moment. He was happy for me to live in a dangerous property.
So I went through my contract line by line, and found two key pieces of information:
If a property is deemed to be in breach of fire regulations and/or is deemed uninhabitable by a suitable representative, it is the responsibility of the landlord to resolve such issues immediately
If the landlord cannot resolve such issues immediately, it is the responsibility of the landlord to provide alternative accommodation to the tenant until the property is returned to a habitable state.
Fortunately, a close member of my family at the time was a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. Within the hour I had a formal letter stating that the property was uninhabitable, and dangerous. I had this emailed to the landlord (address helpfully listed on the contract). Within 10 minutes, I had a call from him arranging emergency accommodation at a local hotel until he returned from his business trip, 3 days later.
On his return, he drove directly to the property from the airport, and returned the cheques for my deposit and first months rent to me, and asked me to move out. Which I gladly did. Unbeknownst to him, a copy of the letter had been sent by my family member to the Housing Ombudsman, and the local authority. The last thing I heard is that this bloke ended up being investigated, heavily fined, and had to sell the house.
TLDR: Landlord rents me dangerous property, and tells me to adhere to the contract. I adhere to the contract, and get a weekend in a hotel, all of my money back, and he is heavily fined and sells the property.
Tl;dr (SPOILERS) landlord gives us 7 days to vacate our leisure business from the building, he thinks we cant empty the business during lockdown, and proceeds to advertise OUR equipment for sale to our competition. We sell everything in 7 days and destroy the rest. Enjoy no rent and the loss of your potential buyers.
I work for a leisure company, think soft play, indoor soccer, laser tag (can’t be specific) Prior to lockdown, Managers and the big bosses were negotiating the renewal of the lease on one of our parks. Things were going mostly smoothly, however, the landlords were difficult to contact.
Then 2020’s shit hit the fan.
All of our sites were closed, and everything was thrown into a mess. Negotiations began to slip down the priority list; nobody thought the landlord would push an eviction for an expired lease during this period. Especially with it still getting rent, despite the sites closure, and the closure of every business and restaurant in the immediate area. We were…
Read More:Sweet Revenge: 42 Times Tenants Followed Their Malicious Landlords’ Instructions To The Letter To Teach Them A Lesson
2022-07-03 03:02:26
