Landlord Problem

Factual Questions
1

Hopefully, someone here can offer some advice on my current situation with my landlord (the building owner).

We moved in to an apartment in October 2000. During the move-in, we dealt with an on-site apartment manager. The manager told us what the rent was and that it included ALL utilities, including electricity, water, heat, etc. This was one of the big selling points and the major reason we chose to live there. We paid first month’s rent and a “security deposit” (same as a month’s rent) and received a hand written receipt. The manager told us he was out of leases at that time but the owner would bring some more to him and we could sign it after we moved in.

Two weeks after we moved in we still had not received a lease even though we asked for it every couple of days. After a month, still no lease. When we dropped off the rent for the 2nd month, we asked when we could sign the lease and the manager again told us the owner still had not given him any leases and he would let us know when he had one. We kept asking the manager about every two weeks, either calling and leaving a message, speaking to him in person, or when we would drop off the rent. This went on for about 4-5 months. Finally we stopped asking. To date, we STILL have not signed a lease.

About three weeks ago, we had a problem with our sink backing up and called the apt manager about a zillion times over a period of about 2 1/2 days but he never got back to us. We had standing, filthy, garbage disposal water in our sink for this entire time. We finally gave up and called the owner who immediately sent over a plumber and replaced the disposal and cleared the sink. We asked what the problem was with the apt. mgr. and the owner said they had had a lot of trouble with him and were switching to a property management company soon.

Around this time, we got a letter from the owner which stated that, due to rising public service costs, he would have to raise rents at the end of our leases in order to cover these costs. Also, it said that due to poor bookkeeping, he did not know how long our lease was for or how much our rent was. This was obviously a form letter and had blanks to fill in (“My rent is $___________ My lease is for _______ months”)

So we filled it in with the correct $ amount and put 12 months for the lease term, which is what we were told it would be when we moved in.

Last week, we got a letter from the property management company, basically introducing themselves and giving the # to call for maintenance, etc. Included in this letter was a lease and a note asking us to initial several spots and sign it. The problem:

This lease says that the owner pays all utilities EXCEPT electricity. All this time we have lived there, we have never been sent a bill for the electricity and we have never been asked to pay for electricity. We were told by the owner’s representative that electricity was paid by the owner. (We do not have anything in writing, since we did not sign a lease when we moved in.) I called the property management company and told them we weren’t supposed to pay the electricity and they said they would get back to us. They called today and said that the “management agreement” the have with the owner states that all residents pay their own electricity. (I don’t know if anybody else in the building actually does or not.) She also said that the owner has been paying our electricity for the last 6 months and was being nice enough not to back charge us for it.

I don’t think it’s fair to ask us to start paying the electricity now. Considering that we were told we didn’t have to pay it and then have lived there for 6 months without paying it, and the owner has been paying it for 6 months, I think that even if we don’t have it in writing, it’s sort of an implied agreement that we aren’t the ones who are supposed to pay it. The property management co. says the now-fired apt. mgr. made a mistake in telling us we didn’t have to pay it. It is not our fault that the owner’s representative made a mistake. It is not our fault that we couldn’t get a lease out of him no matter how many times we called. Plus, it’s been this way for SIX MONTHS! If it was really that important, shouldn’t the owner have done something about it before now? He’s been paying the stupid bill for six months! It’s not our fault that he didn’t do anything about it. Plus, the property management co. says they are going to transfer the bill to our name. Can they do this without our permission? We haven’t signed anything except the rental application, which said we were giving permission for them to contact our previous landlords to do a check.

So…do we have a leg to stand on here? I am really p.o.'d but I don’t know who to call or where to get advice. After speaking with the property management co. I decided to call the owner directly, but I need some legal ammo here. I don’t want him to bully me into just agreeing to this. As of right now, the lease is still unsigned. I don’t know where to go from here.

Can I get a little advice from the Teeming Millions?

2

[broken record voice] What state are you in? [/broken record voice]

Also, it might be relavent to know what city you are in, as many cities have landlord/tenant ordinances.

3

Oops. I guess knowing where I am might help.

I’m in Denver, CO.

4

You don’t have a signed lease. The owner is having a responsible company straighten things out. They are asking you to sign a new lease to rent the appartment. Unless you can prove a contract existed that was with the previous owner, you have to find a new place, or sign the current offered lease to stay there. You never even talked to the owner, just a smuck that wasn’t doing his job.

5

Don’t assume they are trying to screw you right away because they sent over a preprepared lease. Sign the lease but cross out the part about hydro and sent it to them. you can include a small note that you made the change but it should be clear.

6

Oops, spoke too fast. In any case, their management agreement is meaningless as far as you are concerned. You have a deal already. Cross it out and send it to them signed. Stand up for yourself and they will most likely back down.

7

Well, the way they have it listed in the lease is like this:

*Lessor shall pay the following: cable, phone, electricity, gas, water, sewage, garbage. _________(init.) *

And gas, water, sewage and garbage are all circled. There was a note on the lease to initial in the blank. I considered just circling electricity and sending it in but I didn’t. Now, unfortunately, the prop. mgr. knows about it and says she is having the bill transfered to our name.

8

I agree with Ned. An oral agreement is binding assuming it was made with a duly designated represntative of the Leasing company. However, proving the terms of an oral agreement can be mighty difficult. If you follow Ned’s advice it might be settled fine, or then they might try to screw you. Then you probably need to go to mediation if they try to evict you. Some cities have mediation services, but tenants have very strong right in many places, it can prove quite difficult to evict someone.

9

I fail to see the difficulty, you have a record of previous payments and no transfer of utilities to your name. The onus would be on the landlord to demonstrate that the clear conduct of the parties was not in accordance with the agreement.

10

You need to see a lawyer if you intend to fight this. This will probably cost 500- 1500 for serious representation (vs just consultation) or 6+ months of utility payments. Landlord -Tenant law varies so much from state to state, county to county there is a reasonable chance you may not prevail. If all the other leases are with utilities and yours is the exception verbal agreements with the previous property manager may be difficult to hold as binding.

As an aside it is quite possible the previous PM was pocketing the rent which is why you never saw a lease.

11

Note: The following is based on an understanding of general leasing law across the U.S. and may not apply in Colorado or any other specific jursidiction.

In general, oral leases are enforcable, unless they violate a statutory provision known as the “statute of frauds.” The original statute of frauds was originally enacted in England before American Independence ane requires that some types of agreements be in writing so that a litigant can’t fraudulently claim to bind another person to a particularly long-term or onerous agreement.

Under the traditional statute of frauds, a lease of more than one year was required to be in writing, but a lease of one year or less could be oral. (Colorado’s Statute of Frauds provision pertaining to real estate appears to follow this pattern, though I would not rely on my web search and confirm this with qualified Colorado counsel).

Since your lease was for one year, it could be validly made by an oral agreement. The services and utilities to be included in the lease are an important part of the lease and, since you discussed them with the owner’s agent, they are part of your oral lease agreement.

Even if the property manager was not authorized by the owner to enter into a lease that included energy, because you reasonbly relied on the apparent authority owner’s agent, you can hold the provision against the owner for the term of the lease. The fact that the manager had been receiving the electricity bills and, presumably, paying them for six months is evidence that the electricity was supposed to be included in the lease.

What you may wish to consider is circling the electricity clause in the proposed written lease, initialling it, and sending it in, because that matches the terms of the oral lease you have with the prior agent. You appear to have a valid oral lease, though the cost of proving it could be large, so you may want to stand firm in your negotiation position, at least initially.

You can consider whether it would be worthwhile to hire counsel to protect your rights. In addition you may want to contact a local tenant’s rights organization or bar association (which may have a free clinic of some sort) to get better information. In any event, please do not rely on anything in this post that could be considered legal advice, as I am not licensed to practice law in Colorado and am not representing you in any way.

12

Some reasonable advice has been given, salient points being that:

[Guts of post deleted upon seeing, on preview, Billdo’s post]

So, have you conferred with your fellow tenants to see where the tide is going? That’d be one of my first steps.

13

I second (third?) Billdo’s excellent post, including the disclaimers about not being licensed in Colorado and seeing a local attorney.

I’ve got little to add, other than suggesting that you see if Denver has a landlord/tenant ordinance that may have a useful provision. If you do decide to do this without local counsel, in addition to amending the lease as has already been suggested, you might want to consider sending it with a cover letter which sets out your position (using the thoughts expressed by Billdo) in a non-confrontational way. You obviously can write in a clear, well-reasoned way, so you might gain some points with a good letter. After all, the landlord doesn’t want to lose a good tenant over this, and legal costs are something that landlords avoid paying, too.

14

Thanks, everybody, for your excellent comments.

We actually are on very good terms with the owner. He has stopped by the property frequently in the past, and with the garbage disposal thing he was prompt and apologetic and acknowledged that the apt. mgr. screwed up. I have spoken with him on the phone quite a few times as well and he seems to be a reasonable man who is just trying to straighten out the mess the apt. mgr. made. (Please note, the apt. mgr. was just a random guy who lived in one of the apartments, not a property management company. I don’t think he had any experience.)

Anyhoo, it’s not worth the expense to me to take this to court or anything major like that. I DO feel we had a binding oral contract that is supported by the fact that the owner paid our electricity for 6 months. I plan on either calling him and speaking rationally with him, keeping Bildo’s post in mind. Or I will just circle electricity on the lease and send it in with a letter. Or both.
Because we are on good terms at this time, I don’t want to damage the relationship we have with him, so if he wants to fight me on this, I will let it go and just pay the stupid electricity. Seeing as the weather is warming up and we won’t need the heat, and we don’t have an air conditioner to drive the bill up, I doubt it will be all that expensive anyway. It’s more the principle of the thing and feeling like we’re being screwed that matters.

15

You took that place first without getting a written contract. As you might have learned by now, always get a written contract on paper first.

As they say, oral contracts are worth the paper they are written on.

Also, for $25 you can get a half hour legal consultation from your local bar assn. if you give them a call.

16

Well, I guess I got all worried about nothing. I called the landlord and explained it to him and first he said that what the apt. mgr. had told me was wrong. And I told him I understood that, but that what the apt. mgr. told us is one of the reasons we had moved in there, and that since he (the owner) had been knowingly paying the bill for six months, we had no reason to believe otherwise. And the owner said, “Yeah, I can see we have a precedent here. I continue paying that bill until the lease is up.”
Just like that! Sheesh. So, anyway…you can all stop holding your breath. We don’t have to move, we don’t have to pay the bill and the owner still likes us. All is well.
:slight_smile:

17

I lived in a building for about 3 years and the got a car. The building had 2 parking spots registered in the garage in the back of the building. Over the 3 years the landlord had become a real jerk so I just paid the rent and had very few words with him.
When I got the car which was a full size car which would not fit in the garage I asked him for a letter saying that he had no room available for me to park in and he refused to write me a letter. So I started thinking why not ask the other teneants in the building about the parking and they all gave me letters saying that there was only one spot being used and that there was no parking available for me to put my car.
The reason I did this was because in our city, Toronto they allow parking on the street for $40 a year but you must ulitize the parking that is available on your property first. Well with the letters from the other teneants I went to the city and the city gave me the permit to park on the street and it solved my problem and it was much cheaper than paying the landlord in the long run.
My point is why not get letters from the other tenants in your buliding and see if they are paying for electricity and document it in case you have to go to court and then you will have some defense in your favour.
Just a thought but there are always ways around problems with your landlord, and although the guy you dealt with when you moved in even though he was incompetent he was still representing the landlord and anything he said should be binding even though it is verbal. By the way make sure you find out where he is and if he has been fired by the landlord would probably be a good witness if you need to go to court in the future even though he may have been fired.
Since he has to tell the truth at court.
Good luck and I think we have all learned a good lesson here get everything in writing and always document all your dealings in writing with people like this…