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Hello. This will be a long post so please bear with me. I am currently renting a home in a community with a HOA. I have been in the home since October of 2012. We were living in another home in the development when one of the board members mentioned to my husband that there was a foreclosure house in the development that we could move into for only $1400 for a 3 bdrm house. Now this house was far from perfect cosmetically but seemed OK. So we moved in. The landlord actually told us that he didn't care if we put holes in the walls or wrecked the house....I think because it was bank owned and I'm pretty sure they were renting it under the table and keeping the money instead of giving it to the HOA . At our next lease renewal they raised the price to $1600 because they said the bank was no longer paying the taxes. Looking through sales records I believe that at this time the HOA purchased the house from the bank. We stayed but my husband and I separated and eventually divorced. I stayed in the home until the next renewal which was Feb. 2015.My boyfriend moved in with me and we were thinking of putting his name on the lease but they were trying to raise the rent yet again AND tack on 3 months worth of back rent that I hadn't paid. ( I am a single mom with 4 kids..ex husband didn't really pay child support due to illness.) So in order to fight the increase we had the house inspected by a licensed inspector. We paid a lot to do this but we felt that it would be worth it if they didn't raise the rent. The inspector found multiple problems including electrical and plumbing as well as mold. So we were able to avoid the increase and the back rent. We did ask them to fix the problems but they didn't. One of the floors in the upstairs bath is falling apart and leaks through the ceiling. We have told them this but they didn't fix it. Then we ran into financial issues and missed payments altogether. We stopped asking them to fix anything because we were trying to stay in the house as long as possible. It's very hard to find an affordable rental on LI especially when you have horrible credit. Eventually it obviously caught up to us and we received legal notices to pay what was owed or be taken to court for eviction. In September I was able to borrow money and pay all the back rent owed but not including September. The landlord got nice for a minute and finally offered to put screens on the windows as there were none and we had been complaining. They replaced the shutters to comply with the community standards but never did the screens. Financial proplems again prevented me from paying rent and again the legal notices came. I tried to send them a partial payment but they sent it back saying that they had obtained a lawyer and were going to have us evicted. Please realize the I am in no way saying they are wrong. Nobody can live for free. I did get a notice to appear in court and I hired a lawyer to buy me as much time as possible to come up with the owed money. I was able to get the money and avoid eviction. Here's my dilemma. They are raising my rent from $1600 to $2200 come April. Their lawyer contacted me to tell me this and said she will prepare a lease ( I never signed one in Feb. 2015 so we have just been month to month) Now I have no problem paying this if the house is in good condition but it's not. It has multiple safety issues . I looked online and realized the rental permit expired on Feb 7 of this year. Problem is that it's really hard to find another place to live so I want to stay here but I want it fixed. I'm worried though if I tell the landlord that it needs to be inspected that he'll make us leave cause he doesn't want to pay to fix what needs to be fixed. I don't want to call the town on him for the same reason. It's hard to move or find a place..and I am planning on leaving the state soon anyway. I don't think the lawyer knows she is preparing a lease for an illegal rental either. I wanted to tell her but I think it's better to sign the lease and then ask about inspection/repairs. I don't even know what I'm asking..just ranting I guess. Hopefully someone who sees this will have some advice on the right way to go about this..
Let's look at this not from your viewpoint, which is a tough position to be for sure but rather through the lens of he owners. You have not paid them in a timely fashion, or rather in a timely enough fashion for them to have any faith in your ability to pay your rent. You are asking them to spend more money to repair what you ask them to, and yet they have no reason to believe that you will pay them on time. Why should they do that? Now, if you were to offer them an extra month rent in advance as a show of earnest, that might be a different story. As you acknowledge, they are not wrong, so you really need to start looking elsewhere if you can't be consistent in your payments.
As to the lease, again, you are going to be throwing $$ you don't have away by allowing the lawyer to draw it up. That lease will be worthless if the rental permit has expired and it is an illegal rental. I would stop the drawing up of the lease now because the landlord may have let th rental permit lapse to get you out and lease or not it is his place to say he will not rent it illegally.
I suspect, he did this to get you and your family out, and I can't say as I would blame him. You are in a tough spot of your own doing, but you understand that already. Good Luck.
Why are you calling this an illegal rental? The HOA now owns the home, they can rent it if they want to and they can charge whatever they want. It's amazing to me that someone in your precarious financial position hires an inspector for a house they don't even own and hires an attorney to avoid a slam dunk eviction AND has enough money to move out of state. Good luck getting a decent rental in another state with your credit and deadbeat payment history.
You have mold and are letting your children live there? I would be out of there in a minute or at least be looking to leave and not trying to stay for any length of time.
Same questions as Twingles... why would this be an illegal rental? As long as the HOA owns the home and the association by-laws allow rentals, they can rent it to you. Also not sure what an "inspection" does for you... if there is a leak, there is a leak.
nuts2uiam makes some good points. You are in a bad bargaining position due to your prior payment history.
While money certainly seems to be tight, I think you are correct to involve a lawyer for a lease. Without your own attorney looking out for you, signing a lease could make your situation worse.
You write "The landlord actually told us that he didn't care if we put holes in the walls or wrecked the house" - keep in mind that unless you have that in a written contract, it means nothing. Especially since there is a new owner. If the owner (HOA) claims you caused damage to the premise, the _may_ come after you for the cost of repair.
Mold? Electric and Plumbing problems? If fixing these things are NOT in the lease, you have a few potential problems.
First, if they aren't going to bring the home up to basic living standards BEFORE you sign, it is almost guaranteed they won't after you sign.
Next, if these "broken" items aren't mentioned in the lease, it is possible that you could become responsible for the repairs after you sign. The lease may very well state that these items are in good working condition and that certain repairs are your responsibility. It depends on the lease - another good reason to talk to your lawyer.
You really need to tell your lawyer the entire story and point out all the problems. S/he will be able to advise you best. Giving your attorney incomplete information is not a good idea. They cannot protect you from something they don't know about.
Why are you calling this an illegal rental? The HOA now owns the home, they can rent it if they want to and they can charge whatever they want. It's amazing to me that someone in your precarious financial position hires an inspector for a house they don't even own and hires an attorney to avoid a slam dunk eviction AND has enough money to move out of state. Good luck getting a decent rental in another state with your credit and deadbeat payment history.
My guess is that the previous owner had taken out a rental permit that expired and now the HOA will need to do that to continue to rent. Obviously, that is a guess, but either way the OP has ZERO leverage here.
Hello. This will be a long post so please bear with me. I am currently renting a home in a community with a HOA. I have been in the home since October of 2012. We were living in another home in the development when one of the board members mentioned to my husband that there was a foreclosure house in the development that we could move into for only $1400 for a 3 bdrm house. Now this house was far from perfect cosmetically but seemed OK. So we moved in. The landlord actually told us that he didn't care if we put holes in the walls or wrecked the house....I think because it was bank owned and I'm pretty sure they were renting it under the table and keeping the money instead of giving it to the HOA . At our next lease renewal they raised the price to $1600 because they said the bank was no longer paying the taxes. Looking through sales records I believe that at this time the HOA purchased the house from the bank. We stayed but my husband and I separated and eventually divorced. I stayed in the home until the next renewal which was Feb. 2015.My boyfriend moved in with me and we were thinking of putting his name on the lease but they were trying to raise the rent yet again AND tack on 3 months worth of back rent that I hadn't paid. ( I am a single mom with 4 kids..ex husband didn't really pay child support due to illness.) So in order to fight the increase we had the house inspected by a licensed inspector. We paid a lot to do this but we felt that it would be worth it if they didn't raise the rent. The inspector found multiple problems including electrical and plumbing as well as mold. So we were able to avoid the increase and the back rent. We did ask them to fix the problems but they didn't. One of the floors in the upstairs bath is falling apart and leaks through the ceiling. We have told them this but they didn't fix it. Then we ran into financial issues and missed payments altogether. We stopped asking them to fix anything because we were trying to stay in the house as long as possible. It's very hard to find an affordable rental on LI especially when you have horrible credit. Eventually it obviously caught up to us and we received legal notices to pay what was owed or be taken to court for eviction. In September I was able to borrow money and pay all the back rent owed but not including September. The landlord got nice for a minute and finally offered to put screens on the windows as there were none and we had been complaining. They replaced the shutters to comply with the community standards but never did the screens. Financial proplems again prevented me from paying rent and again the legal notices came. I tried to send them a partial payment but they sent it back saying that they had obtained a lawyer and were going to have us evicted. Please realize the I am in no way saying they are wrong. Nobody can live for free. I did get a notice to appear in court and I hired a lawyer to buy me as much time as possible to come up with the owed money. I was able to get the money and avoid eviction. Here's my dilemma. They are raising my rent from $1600 to $2200 come April. Their lawyer contacted me to tell me this and said she will prepare a lease ( I never signed one in Feb. 2015 so we have just been month to month) Now I have no problem paying this if the house is in good condition but it's not. It has multiple safety issues . I looked online and realized the rental permit expired on Feb 7 of this year. Problem is that it's really hard to find another place to live so I want to stay here but I want it fixed. I'm worried though if I tell the landlord that it needs to be inspected that he'll make us leave cause he doesn't want to pay to fix what needs to be fixed. I don't want to call the town on him for the same reason. It's hard to move or find a place..and I am planning on leaving the state soon anyway. I don't think the lawyer knows she is preparing a lease for an illegal rental either. I wanted to tell her but I think it's better to sign the lease and then ask about inspection/repairs. I don't even know what I'm asking..just ranting I guess. Hopefully someone who sees this will have some advice on the right way to go about this..
I'll bite this troll post. Paragraphs are your friend!!
To sum this up...you just sound like a person that has a horrible financial track record. Especially when it comes to paying rent. Landlord probably does not care about legality of rental because they DON"T want you living there anymore anyway based on history.
Bottom line. What I get from this story you have written....is you are looking for any possible way to be able to live there for free!
I'll bite this troll post. Paragraphs are your friend!!
To sum this up...you just sound like a person that has a horrible financial track record. Especially when it comes to paying rent. Landlord probably does not care about legality of rental because they DON"T want you living there anymore anyway based on history.
Bottom line. What I get from this story you have written....is you are looking for any possible way to be able to live there for free!
Sadly you are right about that! That will backfire on this poster if this post is in fact real at all & not just a troll post looking for entertainment & amusement. If this Landlord is forced to go through the courts & formally evict this tenant the courts do report this to the credit bureaus. So it will show up on a persons credit report as real estate dispute. Try getting another rental or explain that to a bank if you try to apply for a mortgage. So while landlords lose money during the time a tenant lives for free once they file formal eviction with the courts....the landlord gets their payback. I did see this show up for a prospective tenant for a rental we were renting in the past. Asked them about it. Did not like their hesitation or explanation & went on to the next person. So we did give them a chance to explain it before turning them down. Their answers did not make us feel good. Guess they were not prepared enough to give the proper answers. They likely did not order their report or know it was there. Because they were shocked when we asked about it.
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