Need Advice Immediately - Would you go toe to toe with your landlord?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Sorry, this is long:

I have crazy landlords. They forget what they have said and what they haven’t. They even forgot they met me. Now they are saying that they explicitly told my SO, NO PETS. He says they said nothing of the sort.

Now the problem, according to the residential tenancies board have told me they are not allowed to tell me to get rid of my dog. Basically, if they haven’t given it to us in writing in the beginning they can’t now. They also can not evict us for having pets. If they suspect the dog is causing damage they are supposed to give us a written request to get rid of the dog and then if we do not comply within a reasonable amount of time, they can proceed with eviction.

I have a friend who has offered to try and be a foster parent for my dog until we move into our own place, but if that doesn’t work we are out of luck. Also, then the poor dog has to adjust to a new household and then back to us. Also it will make obedience training a pain in the butt.
My question, should I take a stand here and tell these old people that I am keeping my dog? Or should I bite the bullet and send him to a foster home?

2

My definitive advice is — it depends.

When is your lease up? Do you have an protections in your jurisdiction against being kicked out when your lease expires? Do you have an option to renew? Etc.

How is the place? Does everything work, or do you need minor repairs on a regular basis? If you need such repairs, do you mind doing them yourself and/or can you put up with delays if your landlords decide to “punish” you?

If you give in on this, are your landlords likely to take it as precedent and run roughshod over you on other things?

Personally, I almost always fight my landlords when they act unreasonable. It’s rarely happened, because I shop for a landlord as much as an apartment, but it happens. But my life isn’t settled yet, so if I have to move on, its not such a big deal.

Sua

3

The big question is whethre or not the dog is doing damage. Has he broken the mini-blinds, pissed on the carpet, scratched up the hardwood floors, killed half the grass in the yard? Does he bark constantly, annoying everyone around you? (Nothing wrong with him if he does all these things. Some dogs do, some dogs don’t) If any of those things are true then I suspect they will make your life a living hell until they drive you (and hte dog) out, and furthermore, they have some justification. If, on the other hand, your dog is a sweetheart, quiet as a mouse, never hurt a flea, and you clean up after it when it uses public property, well then, I would just wait and see if they forget about it on thier own. Make sure they see the apartment and see that no damage has been done.

4

  1. Look at what is expressly written in you lease. Your lease is a leagally binding contract and regardless of what your landlord has verbally told you, it is your strongest evidence if you have to appear in court.

  2. Research the local and state housing laws where you live.

  3. See if there is some kind of residents advisory committee where you live.

  4. If it’s not in writing, it never happened. Document everything in case you have to go to court.

What it really comes down to is who is legally right, who can prove it, what the landlord can legally do in retalliation, and how big a deal you want to make out of it.

In my state (Massachusettes) the laws are very tenent friendly. A landlord can’t evict you without a hearing. They can’t evict you or raise your rent in retaliation for anything.

When my landlord refused to fix my bathroom floor, I wrote them several letters (and kept coppies) over a period of 30 days. I then sicked the Board of Health on them. They happened to fix it the day before they received the letter from the BoH (and since it had a laundry list of everything wrong with the BUILDING, they were pissed. Fuckum! Cheap pricks!). The next step would have been to withhold rent.

Anyway, if you go up against your landlord, you need a plan.

5

More information Poysyn. Now is the time, if you haven’t already to pull out your rental agreement or lease.

There should be a clause in there either allowing or dis-allowing pets.

If you have a month to month tenancy, all the landlord needs to give you in most cases is 30 days notice to vacate.

If you are going to continue to rent, instead of own your home, you may want to reconsider pet ownership. In some locals it is nearly impossible to find landlords willing to let you move in with pets, and if they do, may charge you an incredible premium for doing so.

6

I hate to butt in, but I noticed several people asking for more information that I believe was in the OP. It sounds like Popsyn has been somewhere that offers advice to residents.

It also sounds that dogs are not expressly forbidden in the lease.

If I’m not mistaken, I believe that Popsyn simply wants opinions on if this fight is worth the time and effort.

I tend to go with SuaSponte. It depends on when you are planning to move, or rather, how long you plan on renting from these people. It depends on what your living conditions are like right now. If they are poor landlords in other respects, fighting them on this one issue is just the tip of the iceberg, and probably not worth the effort. Are they the kind of people to retaliate? Sure, you can probably fight them on their retaliations, but it might not be worth your time and effort.

I would probably keep the dog. If they rent property, this would be a good time to acquaint themselves with the law on this point (ie. they have to put it in writing to begin with). Let them try to evict you on this point. As you were advised, they can’t. In the meantime, I would also start looking around for other housing.

7

The advice everyone else gave you is good, but I’ll give you a little emergency advice. If you receive an eviction notice, it can take up to 5 months or more to evict you, if you promptly go to a lawyer. Normally they give you a 3 day notice to vacate, probably filled out by a paralegal. Basically, that warns you that they are getting ready to get you out. You call or write to them to acknowledge the notice and discuss more time to vacate. After 3 days will come the 30 day notice, served by an officer and he can leave it at your door if you are not there. Pay close attention to this notice and check for mistakes. Like the officer must sign and date it when he left it. Sometimes an officer, finding you not home, will carelessly write the date of his first attempt on it. When he leaves it on the second attempt, he will date and sign it somewhere on the front page. If the two dates are in the margin and close together, then the document is compromised. What date is the actual one?

Get a lawyer, even a free one from legal aide. If you spot errors in the document, like claiming you are behind $200 in rent and you are actually $300, that is an error which can invalidate the document. If you have done, at your own cost, any improvements to the place, list them. If you have a lease, search for any differences between the two documents. Landlords make errors and lie. If any damage is cited by the landlord by your pet, photograph the area mentioned to prove or disprove damage – like a judge will sneer at a small scratch on the door down in a corner and if the landlord says your pet has ruined the carpet and he has not, the pictures will be needed to verify this.

Your lawyer will give you further instructions of what to do and will immediately start a delay request to either defeat the eviction or delay it until you can move. He will then give you forms to fill out and bring back, will go over them with you and instruct you what to do with them. I delayed an eviction for a friend of mine this way for 4 months, giving him time to locate a place to move.

Oh, yeah. Once the eviction notice is served, stop paying rent. You’ll put that money into getting a new place. Check with your lawyer, but mine said fine because the eviction was in dispute and if the judge felt that my friend owed back rent, that he would agree to monthly payments or order the landlord to seek it in small claims court. Even if you go to small claims court and loose the case, it is then up to the winner to find a way of prying the money out of your hands if you choose not to pay. Most will have to hire a lawyer to find things to put a lien on and it can cost the land lords more in the long run than it is worth. So, they’ll drop it.

You might gain up to 6 or 8 months to locate another place and move to it.

Then again, confronting your landlords might just make them back down over your dog, especially if they have had other tenants there with pets.

8

The reason I asked for more information lolagranola is that the OP is NOT clear. When I feel there is some information lacking, I tend to read between the lines and come up with bad advice.

poysyn made absolutely no mention of a rental agreement. She said that according to her SO there was no mention of pets.

I have to deal with these problems on a daily basis, without further information I’m going to guess that poysyn’s SO is the original lessee and that she moved in after the fact with her dog. My reason for this guess is her statement that the crazy landlords didn’t even remember meeting her. If she is indeed on the lease then how could they question meeting her?

Every single state and some municipalities have laws different from every other. You need to be aware of all your rights and responsibilities. Starting with the tenants board is a great place to get the information you need. I can almost guarantee you the landlords are going to know the applicable laws better than the average tenant.

I would not follow LightTracer’s advice to withhold rent without the written advice of a competent local lawyer. It may work to your advantage occasionally but it could as easily ruin your credit history.

Landlords have nasty ways of getting back at bad tenants. If you screw with them, they can make it difficult for you to find a good rental anywhere. Most landlords and property managers subscribe to credit agencies that encourage us to report any problems with tenants including not paying rent.

I would still welcome more information. If we could get a better idea of the actual circumstances, perhaps we could help the OP to come up with a satisfactory solution for all parties.

9

Okay, some clairifcation - I was trying not to go on and on but here we go -

There is not lease, period. We are month to month, but no signed agreement to that effect. They sent along a list of written instructions after the fact to my SO, but nothing that had been agreed on and nothing that mentioned pets.

I have checked with the Residential Tenancies Board, they have no right to kick out my dog. They have to give it to us in writting if they can prove there is damage.

10

I’d say stand your ground. If you let people like this push you around once, they never stop. I have some real issues with landlords, to be frank, but it sounds like you’re in the right.

The real problem here is that month-to-month lease - how much notice do they have to give before they can turf you out (two months or one?) I could see them trying to toss you out for some “unrelated reason” just to get even.

The good thing is that Manitoba (and Winnipeg in particular) is very renter-friendly when it comes down to a fight between tenant and landlord, as far as the Rentals Board (or whatever they’re called) is concerned.

11

You’re right, you do have crazy landlords…no written rental agreement? Ai yi yi, Always, always sign a rental agreement, it saves both parties tons of grief. I’ll bet the reason your landlords are crazy in the first place is because of past tenant problems brought about by the lack of an agreement. More likely though, they are inexperienced or illegally hiding the fact they are renting.

I would suggest you get a standard rental agreement from any stationary store and offer it, filled out to your landlords and you can after the fact agree to terms you can all live with.

As for the dog, you may try offering a seperate security deposit strictly to cover any damages caused by the dog. To cover your keister, document conditions of the rental in person with your landlord by taking pictures or better yet, find a “walk through report” at the stationary store and thoroughly fill it out making sure your landlord signs it as well as you and your SO.

12

IANAL, and I hope I do not offend, but -

I would call this stealing. If you expect others to treat you fairly, then treat them fairly.

Part of the reason it is difficult to find decent, affordable housing in many cities is that landlords have to deal with behavior such as the above suggests.

Regards,
Shodan

13

Thye would have to give me a month’s notice, but it would have to be for a valid reason (non-payment of rent, destruction of property, disturbing the neighborhood). If the reason is not-valid (or un-founded) we can appeal it and it goes to arbitration, during which time we do not pay rent and it can take up to six months.

They do not seem unexperienced, they seem like they may be ignorant of the renting regulations (“My house my rules” only works when you are a parent).

14

Do you live in Vancouver by any chance? I ask because verbal rental agreements are everywhere in this city… My first landlord kept promising to bring me something to sign ‘next week’. Four months later I moved out.

You sound like you’ve already been to the local Residential Tenancy Board to discuss things. Find out if there is an advocacy group for tenants in your area (Student unions in local universities are a good start).

A good step is to document everything. The more documentation you have, the more you can stun them should you wind up in court.

Failing that, do you have more tenants in your building? or are you renting out someone’s basement? If you have neighbours you might want to band together.

Personally, I would fight to keep your dog, especially because you have no written agreement. But then again, I’m the editor of my Tenant Association’s newsletter. I also live in housing officially run by the university, and my wife is president of the graduate student union, so I 've got a bit more weight than the average tenant.
That being said, my landlord has lost every single case it’s taken to court in the past 5 years, because the contract has an invalid clause limiting the maximum length of tenancy.

But that’s a hijack :slight_smile:

15

Are you absolutely sure about that? IANAL, and I know landlord-tenant law varies widely, but I always understood that a “month-to-month” rental agreement meant that the agreement could be terminated by either party with a month’s notice for any reason. What you’re saying is that your landlord can’t ever ask you to leave (without just cause), which doesn’t make sense.

16

zut - I know it sounds weird, but it is true. They can’t evict me unless they have a valid reason. They also are not allowed to raise my rent by any more that 1.5% and only once a year. if they intend to do that, they have to give me three months written notice and it’s very specific about how the notice must be written. There are various reasons considered valid, but providing we pay the rent on time, pay the utilities, don’t cause any destruction or disturbances (loud parties etc) we are in the clear.

Also, if they decide to no longer rent the house to anyone (a valid reason) they have to give me THREE MONTHS notice and pay my moving expenses.

I think they have been entering the house when we aren’t home too.

GRRR I hate these people!

17

zut - I know it sounds weird, but it is true. They can’t evict me unless they have a valid reason. They also are not allowed to raise my rent by any more that 1.5% and only once a year. if they intend to do that, they have to give me three months written notice and it’s very specific about how the notice must be written. There are various reasons considered valid, but providing we pay the rent on time, pay the utilities, don’t cause any destruction or disturbances (loud parties etc) we are in the clear.

Also, if they decide to no longer rent the house to anyone (a valid reason) they have to give me THREE MONTHS notice and pay my moving expenses.

I think they have been entering the house when we aren’t home too.

GRRR I hate these people!

18

As you probably know, Poysyn, I move around a lot with my work. I rent apartments and houses across western Canada, from Kenora (Ontario) to southern Alberta, and pick up and move every 3 to 12 months.

The first thing I do every single time is to change the locks on all the doors. Landlords have no right to enter my house for the hell of it, plus every previous renter probably still has a key (I find old house/apartment keys stuck away in my bags all the time.)

If the landlord needs to get in, they can contact me and give me 24 hours notice. Oddly enough, there has never been an emergency so critical that they legitimately had to get into my place right now - and that’s after eight years and I don’t know how many residences (10, 15, 20?).