Tenant Law advice sought.

In My Humble Opinion
1

I need a little bit of advice before I put myself in potential danger of losing hundreds, if not thousands of dollars.

I have been living in a house in Baltimore, MD since October. The landlord and I met through a mutual friend. He and I never established a written lease, but I’ve been living there and paying rent every month with relatively few issues. He lives in Omaha, NE.

The house itself does have several problems with it: There’s no washer/dryer, the landlord was ham-handed when it came to installing the new stove and broke it, so I don’t have that either. There are parts of the wall and woodwork that are damaged. He’s been renovating the house himself when he sporadically takes trips back here, but he’s not very good at the whole handyman thing. We have agreed in the past that anything I spend money on fixing on the house I can take out of the rent.

I live there alone and for extremely cheap rent. It’s a great neighborhood of young professionals with relatively little crime. If I ever moved, he’d be hard-pressed to get another tenant, both because of where he is and the condition of the house.

Consequently, I applied and was approved to sign a lease on the house across the street. I sent my current landlord an email on Monday outlining all the issues on the house, and if he wants to retain me as a tenant, he agrees to let me fix them all in lieu of rent and to sign a long-term lease. He has yet to respond.

Why not just move to the new place? Honestly, the way the house is set up isn’t nearly as nice. The bathroom is incredibly small, and one of the two bedrooms has linoleum flooring (ugh). The landlady (of the new house) doesn’t plan on doing any renovating. She simply wanted to keep it after she married her husband and moved into his house. And despite the problems my current house has, it’s actually pretty nice, and I enjoy living by myself. With the new place, I’d have to take a roommate (which I already have lined up).

Thus my legal question is: If I send him a second email stating that I’ll assume his silence implies agreement, can he either a) sue the crap out of me for doing unauthorized repairs on his home, b) kick me out as soon as the work is done before I can recoup what I paid in rent, or c) worse? Is it even worth it for me to do this?

What are my rights here? He’s a decent guy, but honestly, doesn’t care too much about the house since his grandfather makes any payments he misses (which is pretty much every month… my rent generally goes toward his beer money). My best possible outcome is that I have a really nice house to myself for incredibly cheap rent. I wouldn’t start any repairs until he signs the lease with me, but I have to give the new landlords an answer soon.

Before I forget, I accept and use any advice given in this thread at my own risk and agree to indemnify and hold harmless the Board administrators, its members, and Creative Loafing Media, Inc. for any damages which I might incur.

2

He can make you undo your “repairs” if he thinks they aren’t worthy.
And no, silence is not acceptance.
He may go for the deal, but the best way to convince him is in person. A phone call to say you have an idea, followed up by an email, is next best.
I find phone calls alone are not good for negotiating. They tend to raise the volume when each side feels the other is cutting them off, because you can’t see the person to tell when they are done talking and switched to waiting for a response. Phones tend to make people talk over each other.
But emails can frustrate as well, so call after every couple of them to reestablish personal contact.

3

Just tell him you’re going to move out next month if he won’t sign a lease. That’ll get his attention.

4

This isn’t legal advice. I am not licensed in Maryland. I don’t know Maryland law and frankly am not entirely convinced that such a thing even exists. That being said, here is a resource on landlord tenant law in Maryland. Here is a section that talks about the termination of the lease.

Let me see if I understand. You are living in a place with no washer dryer and worse yet, no stove. How do you cook?

Purely as a practical matter, I think that doing the work for this guy and taking it out of the rent is a bad idea. How do you value the work? What happens if you “get ahead”?

Legal issues aside, I would be very hesitant to take his silence as acceptance.

5

You can’t enter into a contractual relationship based on the other party’s lack of reply.

If you don’t pay the rent, he can kick you out and sue you for back rent, regardless of the repairs you made. You might be able to get away with it if you have his agreement, without his specific agreement, I only see trouble ahead.

6

I recommend you take his silence as noncommittal, and move out. My advice is independent of your lease status on the house across the street – your current landlord is not taking proper care of your property, and you seem to be on an informal month-to-month lease.

I suggest you write him a letter (if you’re paranoid, go for certified w/ return receipt) stating that you are terminating the verbal lease and moving out on X date. No negotiations, no conditions, no elaborations.

7

Except that he still has to give notice to the landlord before he moves out.

8

IANAL, nor do I play one on TV.

Are you in contact with the grandfather? He might appreciate taking the rent directly from you, since he’s covering for his slacker grandson anyway.

I assume you’re keeping a paper trail of all the repairs you’re doing? You also seem rather ambivalent about moving.

9

One month. Shouldn’t be a problem.

10

True, but the OP needs to be aware of the requirement to do so. Also, do you really want to be renting from someone who is so disengaged that they haven’t fixed the stove?

11

If it doesn’t really bother AT, why would it bother the landlord? I don’t know what his eating habits are like but I eat out 50% of the time and eat microwaveable stuff the other 49% of the time.

The wifey cooks very, very occasionally, but since we bought our house I’ve only used to stove to boil water for tea.

12

Couple of replies:
[ol]
[li]I’m not Argent Towers. ;)[/li]
[li]By washer/dryer, I mean clothes, not dishes. I do have a brand new dishwasher. I do my laundry at the laundromat or neighbors’ houses (which is wearing thing).[/li]
[li]I am not in contact with the grandfather, and I’m pretty sure the landlord wouldn’t want me to be. His grandfather probably doesn’t know the condition of the house.[/li]
[li]I wouldn’t actually be doing the work myself… just hiring contractors and then taking whatever I pay them out of the rent.[/li]
[li]Yes, I have a paper trail of repairs made. I just replaced a toilet yesterday since the old one was leaking and could’ve destroyed his walls and caused mold. That toilet will come out of next month’s rent.[/li]
[li]If I seem ambivalent about moving, it’s because I have two options and both have their pros and cons attached. It’s a difficult decision.[/li][/ol]

13

[quote=“Agent_Foxtrot, post:12, topic:506281”]

[li]I’m not Argent Towers. ;)[/li][/QUOTE]

Yes you are. I have decreed that you are now Jewish, like old guns, and… actually, that’s all I know about Argent Towers. Make the necessary changes and move on. :smiley:

14

Oh, forgot to add: I currently cook with a hotplate, microwave, and oven.

15

I’m not even remotely sure why anyone would want to have a lease. As a tenant a lease is infinitely worse than an informal month-to-month scenario. Especially when the landlord is less than reliable and involved. Why would you want to enter into a situation where you’re potentially obligated to live there and pay rent even after some more serious building issues make that painful?

I’d just keep hitting the guy up over the phone. You sound like you like the current place better and if the biggest issues were fixed you’d probably be happy as a clam. Based on the description of the landlord and his golden parachute of a grandfather a scenario where you are improving the place and the granddad is covering the mortgage would be win-win for him. I’m not sure why he’d refuse. If you were able to get the stove fixed/replaced and have a cheap used washer/dryer combo installed would you be cool with the place long term?

16

Yes, I’d definitely stay if I got a stove and washer/dryer. There are other issues that would have to be fixed (such as flooring and paint), but otherwise, those two things would seal the deal for me.

17

It’s pretty inconvenient to have to find a new place to live with 30 days warning.

18

And it’s nice to know your rent won’t go up for a year.

19

BTW, that’s not to say that month to month leases can’t work, my dad had such a lease for his business, and stayed in the same location for 35+ years. The problem was that every few years, he’d hear rumblings that the old lady was going to sell, or let her kids use the space for their business, or some other thing that made him go to bed wondering if he’d have to pick up and move the whole works next month.

20

:confused:

How do you cook with an oven if you haven’t got one?