Fair Housing Law (Disability Accommodations) in Tennessee?

[yousah]

Let's go through this step by step.

In post #1 the landlord agrees to move her without a fee because of her disability. That's very accomodating because he will incur expenses.

She admits that the landlord has difficulties in finding her a new room because of availability in this complex. It is their policy to not have any empty rooms in a unit. So he again accomodates her by telling her to assist him with finding another tenant for the additional room in the unit she wants to move to.

Instead of helping with her situation she instead tells the landlord that no one would even want to assume her lease. She starts complaining about the units in general which shows me that she has a desire to get out of her lease for reasons other than her disability. She now also brings up a situation with her having a dog which certainly doesn't help with finding a suitable roommate. Imagine if she actually subletted her unit like he was going to allow- then this problem would have been solved right then and there.

She then accuses the landlord of being discriminatory because he asked about the specifics of her illness. This is a gray area. She's requesting accommodations and needs to provide details to the landlord in order for him to accomodate her. She's already not told him of her needs that were pre-existing (she admitted that) and that's created this problem for everyone. You don't need something on paper in order to receive accomodations. Her lack of understanding of this is what has created her problems. And instead of realizing that she's wasting time and money for her landlord she then continues to fight with him despite her creating this problem.

Now she accuses the landlord of discriminating when he requests more details. She's already deceived this guy by initially moving in without mentioning her disability and that's a good reason for him to now require more details to make sure that he doesn't waste more time and money if she is not being honest with him.

He then offers her this first floor unit but she refuses because she doesn't feel that she would get along together with the other roommate. What the heck is she expecting? She wants to move- the landlord finds her a room, then she refuses to take it!!! Rememeber, this is a place that does room rentals. It is extremely unreasonable of her to request a first floor unit then refuse due to not liking the other person in the other room. This is the type of place that she has chosen. It seems from her comments that she'd prefer to be in a unit all by herself with the other bedroom being vacant. The landlord rightfully refuses to basically give her two units at the cost of one.

She likely woudln't have even ended up at this place in the beginning if she disclosed her needs to have a first floor unit.

What I see is a person who has made a lot of mistakes and who is threatening a landlord with discrimination despite there being a unit that he has offered to her. She then complains about the terrible treatment she gets from the employees at this place. Gee, no kidding.

I totally support providing accomodations to people who need it. But I do not support people who use disability laws to jerk people around. It's a fact, based upon the information that she's provided, that she is trying to get out of a lease despite the landlord having offered her a suitable unit. She's using her disability as a legal weapon against this guy. This is a terrible thing to do because it makes landlords more shy about renting to people with disabilities- which is the exact opposite of what should be happening.

[ellemint]

I would suggest you get your lawyer to send a threatening letter to the management of the apartment complex, the higher the better. This letter would state that you want to be let out of your lease because they are not fulfilling their obligations as landlords, and list some of the issues such as lack of couch, lack of services etc. Threaten to sue if they will not let you out of the lease.

Often just the threat of a lawsuit is enough to get action. I'm assuming your rent is not exorbitantly high. Let's say you have 11 months left on a lease of $500 a month. It's likely that at least half-way through that time they would be able to rent the room out since you have already mentioned there are not a lot of vacant units there. So they might be looking at a loss of $2750. The legal costs for a lawsuit could cost them many thousands of dollars. It's simply not worth it for them to go that route.

This doesn't mean you actually have to sue, just threaten to, and see what happens.

Also, as others have suggested, stop talking to them on the phone or in person. Just tell them all communications will be through your lawyer.


Good luck.

[yousah]

Letting someone out of a lease for a lack of a couch that could be purchased used for maybe $100 doesn't make sense. In the real world you'll see that judges rarely allow a tenant to get out of a lease for minor items. The tenant also needs to mitigate expenses. So it's one thing to buy your own couch and take that amount off the lease It's quite another to act as if though a $100 couch gives you the right to cancel a lease.

Hopefully the landlord will also counter with a lawsuit for fraud considering that the original poster did not disclose her pre-existing need for accomodations until after she moved in and apparently decided she'd rather not stay at this place. Amazingly, her disclosure of her disability ocurred simulatneously with her decision that she also didn't want to live at this place.