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Old 11-05-2010, 11:52 AM
 
Location: Nassau, Long Island, NY
16,408 posts, read 33,193,220 times
Reputation: 7338

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Quote:
Originally Posted by justus5z View Post
Honestly all I was curious with this post was to know if he could sue us for the last months rent...if anyone has ever been in this position ...

I am 100% fine with my decision and will sleep just fine tonight...and on that, maybe stop defending myself to those who see me as the bad guy . IMO he should be damn lucky he had us as tenants all this time, who pay rent on time , in cash, fix things on their own dime, take care of his house well..etc.

Thanks to everyone who offered legal advice. I'll report back what happens after court next week.
Yes, he can sue you. Theoretically anybody can sue anybody for anything in our legal system. When you go to court, make sure you are well prepared with actual documentation to give to the judge to support your side of the story. If you lose, be prepared to pay so that a judgment does not go on your credit report. Also be aware that if you lose, even if you want to appeal the verdict, you probably will have to put the amount in dispute (the 2 months' rent) in escrow with the Court in order to appeal.

Will he win? When it comes to the "apartment is not legal, therefore the contract to rent the apartment is not legal" type of argument, I have heard of it going both ways. If you look at it from another point of view, you and your family were/are LIVING in the apartment, regardless of its legality, so you owe the rent for being there. It depends on how the judge in the individual case feels ... at least when it comes to Nassau. You don't say what county you are in.

It sounds pretty scary that this guy owns multiple houses on your street. Perhaps you could post where you are located so maybe if someone in the future who is looking for a rental reads this, they can at least be alerted that this type of landlord is in the vicinity and be more cautious about who they rent from.
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Old 11-05-2010, 12:13 PM
 
15 posts, read 27,598 times
Reputation: 10
Quote:
Originally Posted by Avienne View Post
Doubtful. The original lease ran out after one year, yet the tenant kept living there for two more--even though it was soooooooo horrible for her CHILDREN! No leg, there.

A judge may throw out the landlord's suit if it's an illegal apartment (and probably will), but the tenant isn't going to get jack, either.

Too bad this won't go before Judge Judy. It would be one heck of a circus to watch, what with all the clowns involved.
What do you mean we wont get jack? We DONT WANT JACK. I dont want any money from him??

I'm sorry someone burned you, your a very nasty bitter person, but not everyone is " out to get someone" ...believe it or not , sounds like you won't, but there are good people out there still...And if you say well then why did I report it? Well wouldnt I BE BREAKING the law if I didnt? I do not want to be as bad as him.


For the record, your twisting my words completly to what YOU wanna read...its comical. I never said I was worried about the conditions for years...I said I asked him about the wires because we had been in a house fire many yrs ago and it looked scary. HE said it was done by permit and safe. HE LIED and thus in turn put us in danger. All those years we rented I assumed it was safe....It very well may be now, but the principle of the matter is a sleazy guy who lied to cover up for not wanting to PAY like everyone else.

He doesnt pay his mortages, his sewer bill hasnt been paid in 3 years, hasnt paid taxes in over a year, takes our rent but just ignores any requests for simple fixes, like a $10 smoke detector ( which we replaced, really no shirt off our back but once again, we shouldnt have had to) ..and wants US to be the bigger person? Not sure how cheaters and scammers expect others to be held to a higher standard then them. Maybe he was burned in the past, but thats no reason to do the same to us before we do to him. We are good people.

Of course we are complaining NOW....We wanted to mvoe out peacefully and he is nailing letters to our door ( with a HUGE nail that came through the door that the inspector gasped at) ...telling us hes gonna throw our stuff out b/c we have too much stuff???? , and notifing the credit agencies of a late payment that we are 99.9% sure he is not entitled to, nor did he ever try to collect as he has done since we lived here.... He lied and cheated, so OF COURSE we are gonna be mad.


We didnt sign a new lease b/c it was never offered, and b/c to me it doesnt matter if its month to month or not. If he wanted a new lease ..fine..The lease never really came up. I know that even without a lease, most things default to the old one anyway....We lived here because its actually a nice house.

And AV- no offense, or well..ok offense, but you seriously sound like the only clown here....your trying to find something to make me a bad person when it just isisnt true...Its as if you cannot believe that we arent trying to scam someone. Sounds like misdirected anger IMO.
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Old 11-05-2010, 01:37 PM
 
15 posts, read 27,598 times
Reputation: 10
Nope...he nailed them to the door....4 times, copies for us and upstairs tenants...The door he claimed cost him $5000 ....

Think what you want of me as well...I'm not the dingbat on a message board trying to egg people on and displacing all my pent up anger on others..Its kinda fun on my part too to wonder why you twist things to suit what you wanna believe....

I dont recall whining, but to each their own interpretation.

You seem to think I skipped out on rent. I seem to think that my landlord conned us and therefore is not entitled to it. Regardless, not my place to make such a decision and he is the one who choose to not come get his rent which he now wants so bad. I am a horrible deadbeat awful slummy tenant because I choose to not HUNT him down and beg him to take his rent...or ask him when he was here " please come get your rent? ...PLEASEEEE Mr. Good landlord....BWAHAHA.... HOW DARE I right????

I actually had NO ISSUE with just handing it over to him should he ask, and would have when he served us the papers.....till all the lies came out and I was advised legally not to. If someone told you legally you didnt need to continue to pay for something, would you say, " oh but its the right thing to do, I will pay anyway?" ...I think not...you don't come off as that type of do gooder Actually not a deabeat...sorry to dissapoint you. How much you wanna bet I have to take him to court to get our security back?
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Old 11-05-2010, 02:09 PM
 
8,679 posts, read 15,226,269 times
Reputation: 15341
Here's what's going to happen. You're going to go into that court room, and IF the dwelling is an illegal rental, the judge will rule against your landlord. However, unless your landlord is a complete idiot (which is entirely possible), your landlord must feel that he has a legitimate case, which would imply that your landlord has some kind of documentation stating that it's a legal dwelling. For your sake, I hope you are right in that it's an illegal rental.

Now, although the judge will rule against your landlord, and the judge will deliver a nice reprimand to your landlord, the judge will also have a few words for you. They will be along the lines of:

1. You signed a lease that had no address to send your rent checks to, and your landlord wanted you to pay on a cash-only basis, and you are telling the court that at no point, over the course of THREE YEARS, did it ever occur to you that you have entered into an illegal arrangement and that you should, for your own sake and to avoid situations like this, get OUT of that arrangement as soon as humanly possible? Rhetorical.

2. Even if it was a legal rental, you stayed in the unit despite the fact that your landlord did not do the maintenance you requested, to what you feel is the detriment of your safety. For three years? Again, rhetorical.

The fact is that you did not use common sense when entering into this agreement, and you were more than happy to exploit the situation for as long as it suited your purposes. LEARN from your mistake, and do your due diligence when finding a place to live from this point forward.

And the gavel will come down. Mark my words, you read it here first.

Then you can come back and tell us how mean and bitter the judge was for calling you out on your own boneheadedness.

As the FBI agent said in Goodfellas, spare us the "babe in the woods" routine.
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Old 11-05-2010, 03:50 PM
 
929 posts, read 2,061,473 times
Reputation: 566
Quote:
Originally Posted by Avienne View Post
This is where I say, "Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas."

However, I do want to address this:



It's low because most leases expressly and explicitly prohibit tenants from doing that. As you signed the lease willingly, going back on your end of it makes you a cheat.

It also makes you dumb, because it does you, the tenant, more harm than good. First, it generates ill will. Security is held against tenant-created damages. Most landlords I've known understand that there's a certain amount of wear and tear on an apartment and will not take money out of your security for a spot on the carpet or some chipped paint on the windowsill.

Skip out on your last month's rent, and most landlords will go through the apartment with a fine-toothed comb looking for damage and then come after you for the money. That stain on the carpet then becomes a need for full wall-to-wall. Any loose or missing knobs on a cabinet become a need to replace the cabinet. So maybe you've saved yourself the paper and postage of sending a check for your last month's rent, but now you will have court fees and will have to pay for damages.

You've also lost the interest on your security. Right now my landlord, who happens to be one of the few with a stellar reputation on Long Island, is holding two months of rent as my security. I've been here for two years, love it, and don't see myself moving any time soon. However, with my rent, that's a nice piece of change, so if and when I do move, I want it back, with the interest.

Second, tick off a landlord like that and they will report you to your credit bureaus and blackball you on future rental applications when you need a reference.

All because you were too cheap, spiteful, and lazy to write a check for your last month's rent. Dumb, dumb, dumb move.
Really?

Thank you for illustrating the jedi art of taking words out of context. You'll notice that the sentence you quoted was part of entire paragraph that talked about why that person was justified in taking such an action. I would agree that on the whole it isn't a great idea to go back on a contract, but since the contract in question was written for an apartment that is illegal then the contract is void. End of story!
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Old 11-05-2010, 04:03 PM
 
929 posts, read 2,061,473 times
Reputation: 566
Quote:
Originally Posted by cr1080 View Post
Its doesnt matter if the LL isnt paying the mortgage or whatever the case is. The tenant is STILL OCCUPYING THE SPACE. The OP admitted that they chose not to pay...its a lowlife move...Your security deposit is for coverage in the event there is damage when you leave. The OP signed a lease initially therefore they agreed to it. They then stated that they basically took it upon themselves to live off the security deposit...You ever heard two wrongs dont make a right...Dont go around praising the tenant and making the LL out to look like a devil. It doesnt take a real estate expert to realize the apartment was illegal. Therefore the TENANT is just as responsible for the "community" and losing tax money as the LL is. You call this LL a slumlord but again, the tenant was fine with this for all this time. Its only now that its an issue....I stand behind my statements.
True, it doesn't matter on a legal basis whether the LL is paying the mortgage or not. It's more of an indictment on the LL character than a legal issue. However, the LL is not legally allowed to charge rent on the property because it isn't a legal apartment. No matter whether you side with the LL or renter, neither party has a contract. Because, you can't agree to a contract that has illegal provision. Just like if you were to agree to pay me to bump off Donald Duck. I did it and you didn't pay, I have no recourse because the contract is illegal. I don't believe the renter is a saint, but they are being taken advantage of by a slumlord trying to make a quick buck.

The tenant of any apartment is not responsible of the appropriation of their rent, only for paying the rent in a timely manner. So, they are not the party at fault when it comes to not paying taxes. Also, the OP mentioned that they didn't know it was an illegal apartment until the bank notified them of this. Thus, they thought they had a legal and binding contract. They don't!
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Old 11-05-2010, 10:14 PM
 
8,679 posts, read 15,226,269 times
Reputation: 15341
Quote:
Originally Posted by tomonlineli View Post
Really?

Thank you for illustrating the jedi art of taking words out of context. You'll notice that the sentence you quoted was part of entire paragraph that talked about why that person was justified in taking such an action. I would agree that on the whole it isn't a great idea to go back on a contract, but since the contract in question was written for an apartment that is illegal then the contract is void. End of story!
Two wrongs don't make a right. End of story!
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Old 11-06-2010, 06:35 PM
 
929 posts, read 2,061,473 times
Reputation: 566
Quote:
Originally Posted by Avienne View Post
Two wrongs don't make a right. End of story!
I love idealists! So let me get this straight? You take my words out of context, then counter with a quote from my kindergarten teacher.

BTDUBS, two wrongs don't make a right, they make a law suit and a counterclaim.
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Old 11-15-2010, 10:21 PM
 
15 posts, read 27,598 times
Reputation: 10
Just settled into new place, sorta, but came back to update...was pretty funny at court..landlord had lawyer, lawyer had all wrong info....wrong amounts etc. We got a lawyer to advise us fpr free basically and say we 100% would win and especially because we only "owed" one months rent ...his lawyer approached us with using security for Oct's rent and giving us the rest of security back. We moved on the 15th, left the place in immaculate condition and got our money back. Felt better to leave on good terms. Theres still an issue with upstairs tenants, they wont leave. Judge said they dont have to pay rent, LL is not legally allowed till he converts the house, pays the fine, but they will likely get evicted now as he is allowed to evict as he gave notice.

So Alls good for us ...thanks to all for advice!

We are getting receipts now at new place, full to the max rental insurance and had the LL show us the rental permit before we moved in as theres a tenant upstairs. I think we learned a hard lesson about trust.
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Old 11-15-2010, 10:44 PM
 
Location: Full time RV"er
2,404 posts, read 6,557,519 times
Reputation: 1497
Quote:
Originally Posted by justus5z View Post
Just settled into new place, sorta, but came back to update...was pretty funny at court..landlord had lawyer, lawyer had all wrong info....wrong amounts etc. We got a lawyer to advise us fpr free basically and say we 100% would win and especially because we only "owed" one months rent ...his lawyer approached us with using security for Oct's rent and giving us the rest of security back. We moved on the 15th, left the place in immaculate condition and got our money back. Felt better to leave on good terms. Theres still an issue with upstairs tenants, they wont leave. Judge said they dont have to pay rent, LL is not legally allowed till he converts the house, pays the fine, but they will likely get evicted now as he is allowed to evict as he gave notice.

So Alls good for us ...thanks to all for advice!

We are getting receipts now at new place, full to the max rental insurance and had the LL show us the rental permit before we moved in as theres a tenant upstairs. I think we learned a hard lesson about trust.
I have been reading all the post , WOW! thanks for standing up for your rights ,Justice is sweet and worth every minute it takes. good luck with your new rental
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