RPA Tenant Rights Blog » Landlord Problems

Dispute on Appliance Ownership

Tenant — Wed, 29 Apr 2015 01:03:20 +0000

Because apartments have had a lot of previous owners, then nothing can ever be truly new once you move in – most of the time. Sometimes, the appliances could be broken and unusable. Who gets to fix or replace them would depend on what’s stated in your lease agreement.

Most of the time, your landlord will claim the responsibility because after all, it is an investment. The appliances would remain in the apartment even after the tenant has moved out and another tenant moves in. But there are a handful of cases wherein the lease agreement would say that the tenant can replace the appliances at his own expense and he can take them with him once he moves out. It’s clearly stated in the lease agreement but what if your landlord forgot and would insist on keeping the appliances that you have bought as replacement? What happens then?

Here are some tips to establish your ownership on the appliances that you have bought out-of-pocket.

Make sure to document every purchase. Keep the receipts and take photographs.
Take pictures of the old appliances and put them side by side the new ones. This may require a bit of editing. If you don’t know how to do this digitally, you can just glue the pictures next to each other in a sheet of paper.
When you move out, make sure to show your landlord a copy of the lease agreement saying that the appliances are yours to keep.
You would also need to note all the repairs that need to be done, if there are any, so you would have a general idea as to how much of the security deposit you would have left.
If you will be charged, ask for receipts as well as detailed explanation of the charges. You want to make sure that the landlord is not just charging you because of you took the appliances with you.

At all times, you must be well-aware of your rights. Naiveté will only hurt you. There are landlords who will do everything that they can to try to keep your security deposit or bend the lease agreement in their favor. Never allow that.

If that happens to you, know that there are companies that are willing to help you out. One of them would be the RPA, which accepts and processes complaints via their complaint center. Here’s the link http://www.rentalprotectionagency.com/complaint_center.php.

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am i responsible or is the land lord?

Matthew — Tue, 28 Apr 2015 00:48:59 +0000

Are ac went out and we asked them to come fix it they put a new air filter in and said it should start working give it a few hours. We did so and told them it still wasnt working theyt had a guy come out and look at it but he worked on the wrong unit so we went back to the office and let them now it still wasnt working and they sent another guy out. This guy went all thought the system and got it working and we where very happy. We live in a all bills paied apartment with a cap of 100 dollers for electricty anything over we have to pay. 1 month after fixing the ac we went over 50 on are electrcity. This month 2 months from them fixing the ac we went over 100 on are electrict. Perior to them working on the ac we only went over 1 time each month it goes up now since they fixed the ac. After recieveing the 100 doller bill we shut everything done like we would not be home. Walked out to are meter and noticed it was just spinning very rapidely so we went to the office and asked them to have it checked so they sent one of there employees to check it and he said that the ac needed ferion in it and that is why are electricy would be high. Are question is are we responsible for this outradious electric bill or are they?

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can a new owner carge a deposit to tennants who alredy live in the appartments

allysonfraire1961 — Mon, 27 Apr 2015 12:42:36 +0000

We movwed in to an appartment and since then the appartments have changed owner now he wants to charge a deposit. Can he do this? Please help

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wrong full eviction reporting

juliet ireland — Sun, 26 Apr 2015 12:36:31 +0000

I rented out a house with room mated that did not pay there portion, I went to court and paid owner my portion. He was happy and excepted the 2,579.00 check to owner. and said if i clean up home real good he would not put eviction on my credit . i did recieve half of my dedposit back, and left home clean. How ever he is garnishing the trwo ex room mates checks and well dedserved . i have a 0 balance on this report but still reporting eviction please take this off.

Juliet ireland

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Is the landlord responsible for thse repairs?

John Reyes — Sun, 26 Apr 2015 00:30:41 +0000

Hi, i live in Lowell,ma. I was wondering, my kitchen counter is falling apart its splitting has a bow in it from water damage he never sealed around the sink.

Is my landlord req by law to fix this issue?

I call and call he tells me we will get to it tells me a day he will send someone in and then nothing.

Also i know if he provides a fridge he has to repair it if it breaks but, is it the same with an a/c? The a/c is built in to the wall and mine broke

i ask him to repair it and gives me the run around and the paint job is horrible he did not repaint after the last tenant left.

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house burnd up do I have rights

billy allen — Thu, 23 Apr 2015 23:53:09 +0000

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Can My Landlord Do This?

Tamara — Tue, 21 Apr 2015 23:18:51 +0000

So I rent from a landlady who has a 20+ yr old delinquent daughter. The landlady cannot (or does not) want to deal with her daughter’s problems so the landlady moved her daughter right next to me and my fiance in our complex. This daughter siphons electricity and cable from the other tenants and from the building itself; she smokes so much inside the apartment that the smell creeps into our apartment either through vents or through the attic and makes our entire apartment smell like an ashtray; she feeds, coddles and lets stray cats into her apartment but refuses to take any responsibility for them when they become troublesome; she is constantly spilling trash that is left out in her front hallway and due to the wind tunnel we have through our complex, the trash ends up in front of our door; she wakes us up at all hours of the night because she has drunken fights with the random men she brings home; and just this morning, my fiance and I were woken up by the sound of a dog barking and loud yelling, we go outside to see what was going on and there were cops swarming the complex and a K-9 unit forcefully removing one of the random guys she brought home! This was scary as he**! Our landlady knows that these things happen either because I tell her or they have happened before. So the landlady does nothing to improve the situation. She even bad mouths her daughter to the tenants, shaking her head and rolling her eyes at us because she’s heard it all before! Now my situation is even WORSE because the daughter cracked a vertibre because she was chasing 1 of the stray cats up on out roof. Well now that her back is hurt, our landlady has decided to become Mother of the Year and yelled at me for coming to her with a problem regarding her daughter! I don’t know what to do anymore and we can’t afford to move right now

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Bed Bug Issue

Christine — Mon, 20 Apr 2015 23:07:00 +0000

We have bed bugs and want to file a complaint. We found the first one just two weeks after moving in, neither of us had had any before, none of our former roommates have any at either of the houses we lived in, all of our furniture was ours before we moved in, and we only moved our stuff in friend’s vehicles who did not have bugs. So, we didn’t have any. My husband made the mistake of calling the property management immediately, and when the guy claimed the didn’t have bugs and that we must have brought them in, my husband made the comment that, "maybe, but not likely, it came from a coworker whose coat I hang mine next to stayed at someone’s house and got bed bug bites. Maybe it came from her." This isn’t the case, he followed up with her and she doesn’t have any, and that was three months before we found ours.

My question is, if we file a complaint with RPA, will his comment be held against us or make our chances worse? If we truly HAD brought them here, we’d pay for it with no questions. But we’ve seen at least 5 mattresses and two couches thrown out in the complex since we’ve been here, and the unit directly next to us was up for rent when we found the bugs, then after we sent a letter of noncompliance to the property management, they took the signs down and tore out the floors and rennovated the place, then put the signs back up and are currently trying to rent it out again. They only responded to say they contacted their lawyers and they are taking no further action and we have to pay to exterminiate.

Even if we do pay to exterminate, the bugs are most likely coming from elsewhere in the building and they’re pulling that good old line of, "you brought them here, we don’t have to pay" like so many other property managers and landlords do. So then they’ll just come back, or get worse in the whole building.

So, any thoughts?

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Apt claiming fraud and lease is null and void

Tara — Mon, 20 Apr 2015 11:04:57 +0000

My ex-husband, our son, and his then girlfriend were living in an apartment complex in Burleson that was income based. After living there for some time they moved out to a house she owned but had been in disrepair and was now livable. Within a few months the relationship fell apart and she kicked him and my son out of ‘her’ house. Due to the fact he had been a good, previous tenant the complex allowed him and my son to move back. At the time they needed to move back though, now that it was just the 2 of them, my ex was now considered to have made too much money to be allowed to live there; I’m assuming the complex must be under some kind of Section 8 housing rules. In order to help him, the office personnel knowingly altered their file so that it appeared he fit the income requirements.

Apparently they have since been audited and their actions discovered. My ex-husband was told yesterday that he and my son are going to be evicted now, in the middle of the school year, because his lease was null and void due to the fraud.

Can they evict them?

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Landlord Harassment and “Changing her mind”

Amber Webb — Fri, 17 Apr 2015 22:26:04 +0000

Hey, there. I’ll try to shorten this to something as manageable as possible.

My landlady and I have been on uneasy ground for awhile, but since April of this year she has become extremely irrational and uncooperative. In April, I sent our rent out to her on March 30. The latest it could get in was April 3, which (since we live in the same, decent-sized town) should’ve been fine. However, she claimed it took FIVE days and harassed me via text for three days. She then demanded a $59 late fee.

Fast forward. This month, we paid our rent around the same time, but I got tracking on the mail to see if it got in as late as she said. It got in right on time. However, my landlady sent me a letter claiming I violated a clause in our contract but not paying the $59 late fee ASAP super speedy quick and therefore had defaulted on all our payments — including our on-time May rent.

I emailed her about it, trying to figure out what to do, and she told me that if I paid the default ($59) ASAP, "We can still work with you if the default is fixed now." So I let her know I’d get it to her the day of, quickly got the money (I had been paid, woo) drove straight up to her house and knocked on her door to give it to her. No one answered, so I left it under the door, called and emailed her to confirm. She told me she got it, but then exploded at me for coming to her house uninvited and yaddayaddayadda she changed her mind and we STILL had to be out of the house by May 31st because "Just because we CAN work with you doesn’t mean we will."

I have records of her texts to me (she refuses to answer calls or deal with me face to face) and a witness who was with me the day of the late-fee fiasco.

I’m really tired of being harassed by this woman when I have been on-time for my rent except for the month of April, and I am tired of her trying to hold this over my head when she clearly stated that she would work with me if I paid this fee. I feel like she’s making up rules and trying to bully me, and I’m not sure what I can do to protect my rights and keep this house for one more month. Trying to deal with her face-to-face and talk it out is impossible (as she pretends she isn’t home), and she will not speak with me over the phone. I don’t like texting her because I find it unprofessional and she harasses me constantly if I don’t respond immediately to her.

Advice?

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