Thanks a bunch, (soon to be ex-) landlord/lady

The BBQ Pit
1

I loved the house I rented. The house was perfect, the neighborhood wonderful. It was expensive, but everything around here is expensive. I loved it so much, within 2 weeks of moving in (last June) I decided I wanted to stay in the area long term. However, with my debt load etc, I thought I would wait another year of renting to buy a place around here.

However, the house I was in was perfect for me. 2 bedrooms, giving my son his own room when he comes to visit, small enough to be manageable, enough of a yard to grill in, and enough space inside to feel like home. Also, seeing as it is the end of the row, it gets oodles of light. So I told the owners that if they ever thought about selling, they should let me know, and we could save the 6% commission. They told me no, that they were planning on moving back in eventually, which is fine.

Anyway, in December I return from a business trip, and the house across the street is for sale. It’s even nicer - hardwood floors, an extra bathroom in the basement, bigger yard, garage. So, long story short, I buy it. Then the fun starts. Despite giving two months notice, I am being held to the last two months of my lease. That I can live with. We had a long discussion, and agreed that they would make a good faith attempt to rent the house starting on April 1 or May 1, and if they did, I would obviously stop paying rent. Sounds fair to me.

What bugs me, however, is that I get a phone call today telling me they have decided to sell the place. All in all I am happier across the street as it is a nicer house, though the money saved would have been nice. But how on earth does putting the place on the market constitute a good faith attempt to rent it out?

Last rent check goes out of my account today. I’m sulking.

2

Sulk all you want, but I don’t think the landlord/landlady did you wrong.

Once I tried to find something to rent during Dec-Feb. There just wasn’t much going on. I imagine that both renters and rentals are low going into April. Which means either you or the owners were going to eat the cost of an empty rental in April.

Putting myself in their shoes I could either eat the cost of carrying the rental empty for a month or put the cost on the guy who told me he wanted to buy it but then bought the house across the street leaving me with the task of renting or selling the place to somebody else. I choose him.

You never know. They may have been planning to offer a sale to you at the end of your lease and are now sulking because your offer evaporated.

It sounds like they decided not to move in and didn’t want to bother with running a rental.

3

Well - there was not the chance of them eating the April rent. As I said, I agreed to pay out my lease and they agreed to make a bona fide attempt to rent it earlier than the end of the lease. They had people look at the place already. But they decided to sell instead, which is fine, but it means there is no way I am going to avoid paying rent until the end of May.

My issue is with smoke having been blown up my ass. I moved out much faster than I wanted to, and did a lot of work around the place, in order to facilitate them renting it. Now it seems that they never intended to rent it out for next year.

4

That sucks that you tried to buy it, and they said “no way” but then turned around and sold it. I think sulking a bit is definitely in order on that point. Congratulations on the new house!

5

Even though they didn’t do anything wrong necessarily, it sucks that timing wasn’t right and they didn’t sell when you wanted to buy. Well, at least you’re in a good neighborhood and going to be in your own home soon.

What I would do however is hold them in the same regard they do you, and do absolutely nothing but what the law requires from here on out. Their being fickle (and apparently unapologetic) would put them on my shitlist.

6

Thanks bufftabby - it is nice to be a home owner again. (Well, it turns out I only thought I was a home owner previous times and it turns out my ex-wife was.)

What is bugging me now is the things they keep asking me to do. Getting called early in the morning to ask when the lawn is going to be mowed is a bit ridiculous. It poured with rain last Sunday and I was out of town on Saturday for work. I am sorry I am not taking a day off to mow the lawn of a place where I no longer live.

It will get interesting if they do anything like turn the AC on to show the place. I sure as hell am not paying for that…

7

I can see why the May rent may still be a sore spot.

Unless the landlord is holding a deposit on it you may be able to negotiate the May rent downward. Tell them that you will pay half the rent since they can’t possibly rent the house for a month.

I once was evicted buy an owner who sold my rental house with the land for new construction. I had two months to vacate before demolish and construction started.

My rent was $260 per month.

I went to the landlord and gave him a check for $100 and said, “here’s my last 2 month’s rent.”

He said, “You don’t understand. The rent is still $260/month.”

I said, “No. You don’t understand. I can move out tomorrow and you can try to find somebody to rent your house for two months.”

He said, “$100 sounds good.”
I realize that, due to circumstances, I had more leverage than you. But a try couldn’t hurt you.

8

Already tried. They have my month’s deposit, and made very clear that if I was to attempt to use it for last month’s rent they would take some form of action. Unfortunately my lease (as is standard in the area) had a two month penalty clause for early termination, regardless of notice given. As such, given that i wanted to end the lease at the end of March (I made settlement on my house end of February) I was over a barrell.

9

Can you try some kind of “If you’re making me pay for all of May, I’ll hold you to all the landlord/renter laws that apply” tactic? Things like no entry without 24 hours notice, no events, no entry on weekends, that would make it difficult for them to start showing the house? Cause if you’re paying rent, you’ve still got rights, whether or not you still live there. You may be able to negotiate down based on that.

One time, I was renting a place, and moved out with all required notices given. I happened to move out 2 weeks before the end of the month. I had asked the landlord if I could prorate my rent, and he said no, I had to pay for the full month as required by the lease. Fine. I happened to drive past a week later and saw that a new tenant had already moved in, a week before my lease was officially up. I was on the phone with the landlord immediately and told him he could either give me back 2 weeks rent that day, or I’d be seeing him in small claims court for violating the lease. I got my money.

10

You still have utilities on there?!? I’d have those turned off immediately.

I’d also insist on a move-out inspection and return of any deposit immediately.

The situation does kinda suck, but life’s like that sometimes.

Congrats on the new home!

11

My decisions at the moment revolve around how antagonistic I want this to get. I left the utilities on because I wanted them to show and rent the place, and I figured that was easier to do with the power on - the cost was minimal because the heat and cooling were not needed as it was Spring. I’m going to suggest that we transfer the utilities into their name for the last month of the lease, with the veiled threat that I will turn them off otherwise.

Trouble is, they are sitting on a deposit of a month’s rent of mine. While I can fight to get it back, it is always possible to find nickle and dime items to deduct, whereas if I stay on reasonable terms, I should get the majority of it back. They are being very careful about giving notice of entry etc.

What I am finding most frustrating is that I have very little recourse here. They are pretty much following the letter of the law, but given the extra stuff I have done throughout my time there I feel that the relationship should have continued on a better footing. I fixed stuff myself rather than charge them etc. I know they have the right to do what they are doing, but I hoped they would be more amenable to a karma type concept.

12

I dunno. They sound like the sort who will nickel and dime your deposit, no matter what you do.

And i agree about cutting off the utilities. Doesn’t matter how cheap they are, they’re still costing you money for a place that you’re not living in.

13

For people who suck.

14

Ugh. That definitely sucks.

I’m currently living in a place while the landlord is trying to sell it. Just recently, the landlord said that we either had to start allowing them to do open houses on the weekends, or we had to move out. We caved. Mostly because it’s inconvenient for my roommates to move out right now (they’re planning on living with a friend who’s moving to the area in a few months). So now we’re biding our time and hiding our expensive possessions.

15

Do you have a lease? If you do, they can’t make that sort of threat.

Even if your lease is over, and you’re on month-to-month tenancy, then the landlord still has to give you 60 days notice, unless he’s ALREADY contracted to sell the house, or unless you’ve been there less than a year. Even then, he’s have to give you 30 days.

Relevant CA rules

16

Little FYI, they can’t really do anything to you if you just don’t pay last month’s rent.

As a guy who rents out properties it’s not something I like, but there’s very little recourse to this.

You can send it to collections, which means after five years or so it becomes uncollectable debt (all the while you can just refuse to communicate with the collections agency) or there’s the off chance they could actually take you to court. For various reasons and from personal experience I can assure you that if they are smart business people they will quickly understand there is little upside to that path.

They will probably send it to collections, as that is relatively painless for them. So unless you’re particularly uncomfortable with having that on your credit report they can’t really do anything to you.

It’s further worth noting that for whatever reason lenders and even the credit reporting agencies don’t seem to take black marks for lease disputes very seriously.

Most of our tenants who do this, they have long since done so many things to the unit that they were going to get little to none of their security deposit back–so the security deposit was a moot point for them.

If you had a high probability of getting the entirety of your security deposit back, then unless the deposit is > than one months’ rent, it’d basically be a wash either way. Furthermore, paying the last month’s rent runs the risk that they just keep your deposit maliciously (it can be difficult to pry that out of a land lord’s hands, too–although much easier than it is for a land lord to collect unpaid rent.)

17

Tenant Terror in San Fransisco.

You’ll be glad you never rented from these landlords.

18

You know, since you are living across the street you could always threaten to do something that will drive the value of their now-for-sale house down. Like letting your friends park their rundown cars in your front yard, have hellacious parties while they are trying to show the property, put up confederate/nazi flags. It seems to me that in the current housing market, you being a “good neighbor” would be in their best interest.

19

Holy shit! That’s like some bad movie script.

At least their trial will be in San Francisco, where juries are probably unlikely to be very sympathetic to landlords who terrorize their tenants. I hope they get whatever the maximum penalty is, if they are found guilty.

20

Thanks. We do know our rights. It’s just that moving even with 60 days notice would be inconvenient for us. And our landlord hasn’t been a jerk about it. It’s just a distasteful situation.