I signed a lease to rent a home for a year. The lease ends March 31st. From what I can gather the person I am renting the home might be in financial trouble with the house. She is trying to sell the house while I am still in it. At first I was ok with this as she states it would just be "a sign outside and an ad on the internet
". One month later its some real estate guy and her pressuring me to show the house once a week always during the early morning hours.
This has become very problematic as I work night shift and stick with the night shift routine of sleeping during the day. I either have to stay awake or wake up. Furthermore sometimes I would just like to have some privacy and when I asked for two weeks of it I got a rash a shit and just more stress I don’t need. I looked up some information online about NJ renting law which gives me the impression I do not have to co-operate with her to sell the house. I told her I would gladly move so she could sell it and she says she is selling it because I am not renewing the lease and then said she would keep my security deposit.
TLDR; My landlord is trying to sell the house I am renting in the middle of the lease. They are pressuring me to show the house at least once a week during the day time and I work night shift. I’m under a lot of stress and just want my peace and definitely precious sleep since I work night shift. I need a lawyer don’t I?
I should add I have already shown the house several times. The real estate guy told me this house is a “Tear down” and he doesn’t think anyone would buy it for the price she wants. I live in a beach town and this is an older house built before the huge real estate boom. The same agent is also the one who told her I would not be renewing. Which I said to him in casual conversation about my future job plans.
I’m not sure of your rights in the US but in Australia we could tell them inspections can only be afternoons due to your work hours and that would be that.
It’s not clear whether the landlord is really confused about your intentions, or whether they’re making excuses. If you think there might be miscommunication, then it’s probably worth at least trying to clear things up.
But it they really want to sell and you’re planning to move anyway, one alternative is to offer to void the lease and move now (well, in a month or however long is reasonable to line up somewhere else), in exchange for a payment from the landlord. Worked for me once (though the landlord made the offer). That way the landlord won’t have to worry about accomodating you in showing the house and the buyer won’t have to wait until April to move in/tear down.
At any rate, be clear that keeping your security is not acceptable, and would result in legal action. Be sure to document the condition of the house when you move out, and document all communications with the landlord from now on (even if it’s just writing down the substance of telephone conversations in a notebook or folder).
I work at a real estate office in Ohio. The procedure here seems to be that we have to give the tenant at least 24 hours notice before the showing, and the tenant can reschedule if the showing is at a bad time for him. Your landlord does have the right to sell the property while you are still living in it, but she is obligated to not overly inconvenience you while doing so.
Sounds to me like the landlord may be deliberately annoying you to get you to move out early. Or maybe not, but I’ve seen that happen.
As pointed out, keeping your security deposit is not legal unless it’s for reasons of damage.
If you actually want to move you might be able to negotiate something above-board with the landlord allowing you to move out early (but still at your convenience) that makes everyone happy, but I can’t say for sure from where I’m sitting, hearing all this second hand.
Frankly, if I was in the market for a house and found out that someone who worked night shift was forced to show the home in the morning I’d probably blow a gasket - that’s just effing rude and inconsiderate, and it would make me question the sort of people I’m working with on the purchase. Most normal people would not find it impossible to view a house in the afternoon or evening, and in fact evening hours might work out better for a lot of folks with 9 to 5 daytime jobs.
When I had to do this I offered my tenants a little bonus package in the event of sale.
#1 that months rent would be free/refunded when/if house sold while they were still living there.
#2 I would pay for a professional mover to move them to their new housing arrangement.
Basically I tried to make them moving as financially painless as possible since I was benefitting from them continuing to stay while I tried to find a buyer.
Then they moved out 2 weeks later and took all the appliances.
I went through this about two years ago. I started this thread when I was particularly pissed off about it, but things cooled down after that and we ended up staying for quite a while.
Note that your rights depend on which state you live in to some extent. I didn’t see that listed in the thread, so you might want to do so.
Here’s what I’d recommend:
Negotiate lower rent, along with when showings can be and how many you’re ok with doing. Talk about the types of showings, a few interested buyers at a time, or a full house, etc. You have a right to be there whenever the showing is, although the real estate agent will probably want you gone.
We butted heads with our landlord and the real estate agent for a bit on these things, but we did get a rent reduction and the showings ended up being mostly during the day when we were at work, so the actual impact was fairly low. We didn’t have a lease at the time, though, so there was a limit as to how far either side could go before it would be easier to just move out. I was initially in favor of moving out immediately, and my roommates wanted to stay. After a bit, it switched, and we moved out. The house finally sold (after 6+ months on the market) just about when we moved out.
if you have a annual lease in progress the new owner has to abide by that lease.
if you renegotiate the lease with the current landlord like wanting lower rent for inconvenience, the landlord might agree but also want to change it to a 30 day lease.
Have you told the landlord that you don’t want to deal with morning showings? Or have you only told this to the realtor? I’m not clear from the OP.
Also, local laws vary, and IANAL, but IME if you break the lease then the landlord can keep the security deposit towards unpaid rent, that is, rent until they find another tenant. And this is excluding cases where the landlord violated the lease, the apartment became unlivable, etc.
if you break the lease on a long term lease the landlord can come after you for every month’s rent as it is due for the term or until another tenant is found.
Today I voiced my displeasure with the real estate agent as my landlord is very hard to talk too. She pretty much just yells and screams and doesn’t say anything relevant. I doubt she is willing to end the lease because I mentioned I would gladly move to avoid the inconvenience and she just started yelling about keeping my security deposit. I agreed to showings only on Saturdays for now until I can talk to some people about my options. The Realtor was saying things like just remember she has options to have you removed if you refuse to show etc, etc… I live in NJ and from the laws I read she really has no immediate action at all unless I didn’t pay rent. This is exactly why I am not ok with this whole process, I am good tenant and they resort to threats and don’t respect my wishes for some privacy. I feel guilty telling them no on a showing and its just adding more stress.
Thank you everyone who has provided input on this matter its appreciated. I’m going to try to talk to her on Monday after this latest showing about voiding the lease. However, along with yelling and screaming she stated “I have to sell the house because you don’t plan to renew your lease”. Again I think this comes down to money problems on her end and I don’t think she is going to be nice about anything but her way or the highway.
Yelling and screaming? Seems like any communication with her needs to be in written form. Yelling and screaming are not appropriate for discussion between two reasonable adults.
I had this happen to me, except that I only had to deal with one showing. The prospective buyers approached the owner and made a ridiculous offer. Naturally, he accepted. I had to show the house once, but that was all. The showing wasn’t particularly invasive, either. They wanted the house. Its condition was not a serious concern.
Once the purchase was closed, I was informed of the new owners and where to continue to pay the rent. The new owners wanted the place for their own use, so they informed me that the lease would not be extended at the end of its term and that I was free to leave at any time. They were even negotiable on the thirty-day notice.
We actually stayed for about six more months and the rent went a long way toward offsetting their renovations. However, the actual moving day was crazy. The owners had their contractors show up the day we were leaving. As we were moving the furniture out, they were measuring and tearing stuff up. It was really quite offensive. They were like vultures. Finally, we had to call the owners and tell them to get their people out – we had paid the rent until the end of the day and (expletive deleted) we wanted our “quiet enjoyment” until the end of the day.
Okay, IANAL but I bought a house in 2008 and looked at a bunch of them first. In the case of houses occupied by renters, and there were several of them, we had to give 24 hours notice if we wanted to see the house. And when we hired an inspector we had to give the realtor enough time that he could give the tenants 24 hours notice. And even with notice, they had to agree. I think this is pretty standard if someone has a lease. ajb867 you said you have a lease, which should document the conditions under which the landlord may enter your residence.
For the house we bought, the tenants didn’t want the house shown more than one day a week, but once we were under contract and I needed to get people in there (electricians, plumbers) they were a bit more relaxed. I got very friendly with their dogs, but the dogs never stopped barking at my realtor.
In one other case the house, which could have been a perfectly fine house, was listed as “infill” and a tear-down and we could only drive by it; according to the realtor we couldn’t even stop, so as not to upset the tenants, and we especially couldn’t peer into the windows. Well, we drove by, and we stopped all right. We did not peer into the windows. We also didn’t buy that one, as we wanted something to live in , not infill, and something we could see first.
Having a house on the market is a real pain, but at least when it’s your house you get some benefit. For a tenant there is NO benefit. You need to get some benefit and not just endless hassles.
The Realtor sounds like a piece of work too, to be perfectly honest. I wouldn’t take his opinions on her options too seriously, his interests are not in any way aligned with yours.