Asshole landlord.. long thread
 

My old land lord is trying to sue me for some cash.

I need some advice on this as a few people have told me just to go to court and they most likely won't make me pay anything. I'm sure it is different in each state, but please advise the best you can.

What happen...

We rented a house about 18 months ago. Rent was $1,300 per month. I just started building my credit then (never had a need for it) so he was reluctant to rent to us. I offered him 6 months rent in advance, on the 1 year lease. That's $7,800 plus 1 months rent deposit so I cut him a check for $9,100.

The problems..

Ok, so 2 weeks go by and we move in. There's some shit we didn't notice about the house, its in poor condition. But we thought, oh well we paid for it so we better live here. Well after about a month our garbage disposal burns out. We call him up to come have it fixed, a week go by and he still hasn't come to fix it. In the mean time its gotten pretty nasty in the sink, when we would use the dish waster it would back up and flood the sink with water with parts of food and other crap in there.
He did end up coming 2 weeks later (was pretty bad by then) and got it fixed for us.

Another few weeks go past. Well I noticed water damage in one of the bed rooms on the ceiling. Didn't really think much of it until it started raining. It fucking looked through and onto a rack of stereo shit that I had in the bed room. We call him up and let him know, he tells us that the stereo is our responsibility and that he will send someone out. No one ever comes. It just kept leaking.

Another 2 weeks go by, the heater stops working. We say fuck this.

We call the landlord up and tell him we are leaving. We give him our 30 days notice and leave. This was about 2 1/2 months into our lease.

He doesn't repay any of the advance rent, no deposit back.

Ok.. fast forward to about 2 weeks ago. I get a call from the fucking jackass saying he wants money for the rest of our lease.

He said the house sat empty because we were still supposed to be renting it and blah blah
I told him we put in our days, he knew we were gone. Eventually he tells me that he remodeled and fixed the whole house. He was trying to say some shit that he offered to do that for us before we left.

He is saying that he is going to take me to court if I don't pay the rest of the rent. He says I owe him a little over $6,000.

The problem is that we didn't document any of the problems we had, it will basically be our word against his.

He says if he takes it to court he will charge us for lawyer fee's, his gas for driving to the house, what it cost him to advertise the house for rent in the paper and for what time he spent going and showing the house. (about $10,000 he says)

A couple people told me to go to court and we most likely won't have to pay anything if we tell our story.

Does anyone think we stand a chance in court? Or should we just settle out of court for 4-5g's less?



Sorry for the long post, just need some advice
:Graucho

Try a small claim court? I think there is something called "renter's right bill", not sure, was thinking about using it toward my landlord when he tried to kick me out for having too much sex. :2 cents:

i hate fucktard landlords like that..
actually i hate them all because they all will fuck you when they get a chance.

Take his ass to court you will win no doubt about it.

damn that sucks man. I hate fucking landlords too, can't wait till I move in May. Badass house with 3 friends will be great.

My first suggestion is to go see an attorney. They usually do a first consult for free.

You mentioned giving him 30 days notice. Was this something that was in your lease? Also, if he took you to court and mentioned the fact that he'd remodeled the house after you left, any judge would take that to mean there were problems with the house.

It's douftful that he could collect all the extras from you, such as money for his time, ads, etc. If he let the house sit vacant that was of his own choosing. Certainly he didn't expect you'd come back out of the blue. In fact, it's likely he used the fact that it was vacant to remodel it.

... you are an idiot for 3 reasons:

1.) paying up 6 month ahead is just plain stupid.
2.) not keeping documentation of damaging is just ... plain stupid.
3.) taking the whole thing to court ... also plain stupid.

... pay up the 6K and take it as a lesson.

1300$ PER MONTH? WTF? Why didn't u get a house for that price?!

I would tell him if he wanted to go to court, you would mention all that he did wrong. Even if you did or did not document it. Also, I would threaten him with a counter suit for the months you did not use.

I would also tell him that you will post signs in the town reccomending people not to rent with him.

But counter suit is the way to go. Even if you don't win, waste his time, and make it a pain in the ass for him.

30 days notice is just standard around here. When you rent, you have to give 30 days before you leave.


I think i just may goto court and try my luck with this guy.
I'll contact a lawyer and see what they think

try living in san diego.. $1000 a month easy for a 1 bedroom apartment..

if you find it any cheaper.. you are looking at cracktown.

Someone else advised me to do the same

My income wasn't stable at the time and I didn't want to risk loosing it.

Your landlord doesn't have a case. People get out of their leases all the time with a 30 or 60 day notice. He obviously doesn't know anything about being a landlord or a business person.

Consult an attorney first and foremost. The worst thing anyone can do is go to court, no matter how trivial it is, without an attorney or an attorney's advice. This should run you about $300-500 but worth every penny. For $9100-10k, it might be too big for small claim's court, but I am not sure how much the maximum amount is.

If it goes to court, your attorney can postpone the court date 2 times, if you need the time.

Hopefully you have cancelled checks from the money you paid him and/or receipts from giving him 6 months in advance. There is a tenant's bill of rights and your landlord violated yours.

Just tell your side of the story to your attorney and to the judge, if it ever gets to that point. To be honest, it sounds like your ex landlord is bluffing and just trying to get cash out of you. If he is stupid enough to go to court with this, he will make a fool of himself. Any judge in their right mind will throw it out.

By the way, how did you notify him that you were moving out?

Heres some info on the law for you.

1) you were stupied for paying up front.

2) he will not be able to get you for the rest of the lease. The law (in all states as far as I know) states a landlord will be afforded a resonable amount of time to re-rent a property in the event you break a lease.. reasonable in the eyes of the court is generally 1 month or 2 max. This is the same even if you just don't like the place and tell him to go fuck himself.

3) you can probably recover 3 months rent of the money you paid him in small claims court maybe 4 or5 of it. the court sides with the tenant the majority of the time. see lexis-nexis.com and do a search under his name, This probably happened before and someone may have taken him to court and documented it better before.

4)next time walk through with a video camera.

5) court will prob side with you as they will wonder why you would put up six months rent if you were going to risk your cash and bail out.


hope that helps

Where do you live? oklahoma? My last appartment rent was $3000 /mo . You could prob find a SMALL house for 2000 in a decent area

Thanks for the advice. We notified him by #1 calling him then #2 we went into the local store he owns and gave him a letter


Thats what I was thinking too, he keeps saying things like "My lawyer wants me to take this to court right now, but i'm being nice and letting you settle this out of court. Its going to save you alot of money" :321GFY

$1300 is pretty high around here. If you look through the news paper its pretty much the highest you will see.

Yes it is a long thread

Small claims run from 2-5k, in some instances up to 7k in certain states.

No matter what court, hopefully you have some witnesses and plead constructive eviction. ;-) Simply put, it wasn't fit to live in so you had to move. :D

I own some rental property and renters are generally a pain in the ass. Hope your situation works out for you but if you signed a lease you are pretty much screwed and I doubt a court will rule in your favor. Been there, done that. My advice would be to just cut your losses at this point.

I was in property management for years. You've got a couple of problems. The first is that you signed a one year lease. Without seeing a copy I can't say for sure, but all the leases I used held the tenant responsible for the rent through their lease period regardless of notice they gave. The only exception is if I was able to re-rent the apartment. Then they only had to pay until the new tenant moved in.

You should be able to find a landlord/tenants rights department through the local board of housing. They can help you with advice. Frankly, I'd try to cut a deal with him, but you can risk going to court if you want to.

I'd be really careful about posting signs or whatever around town saying he is a crappy landlord. That can get you in even more trouble.

Seriously, contact a mediator or tenant rights board. You should find one in the yellow pages. That's the best place for you to start, not on a board of pornographers. :1orglaugh

I rented a townhouse from an older couple a few years ago. They seemed really cool at first, but turned out to be cold and vindictive whenever routine maintenance issues came up. I ended up fixing many things on my own (which is pretty much what they wanted), but made sure to return them to original condition upon departure. Most of them wouldn't be discoverable for some time, but were time bombs.