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My husband and I are needing to lease/rent a new home now that our lease is up. During our lease in our current house our landlord filed an eviction on us. We were victims of the whole Target hacker debacle this past year. Our debit cards and our bank accounts were hacked and it was several thousands of dollars of damages. We thought we got everything switched over to new accounts and everything was ok. Our rent was being sent each month automatically by our bank and was automatically withdrawn with bill pay. Then three months later I get an email from the property management company saying three months of our lease payments have come back NSF. We went straight to the bank to find out how this could be. We informed the property management company we were working with the bank to find out what happened. Our bank faxed the property mgmt office documents that needed filling out they acted like they were getting them all the information. We paid our next month payment with a cashiers check and then we got served with an eviction.
Now, this is where it gets complicated. The same day we were served we got an email from them saying that if we paid all back rent plus the next month by a certain date we could continue with our lease. This date was past the eviction hearing date. Then the night before the eviction hearing the property mgmt company called us at like 4:00 pm saying "oh you need to still be at the hearing and pay at least what we filed on you at the court" Well at this point it was to late for us to get all that together by that time. We were told as long as we paid all in full by a certain date we could continue our lease and they would file with the court that we were paid in full.
We did just this we paid what was owed plus all fees etc. Now fast forward to the end of our lease and we have found out they never filed that we satisfied the default judgement and it is showing up on our credit report. They are supposedly filing tomorrow but it will not update on our credit file for another month.
We are prepared to pay our next lease all up front. By doing this will that help our chances finding a new place to lease?
We are prepared to pay our next lease all up front.
By doing this will that help our chances finding a new place to lease?
Nope. No sensible LL will EVER accept ANY advance rent payments.
Quote:
Our rent was being sent each month automatically by... with bill pay.
...three months of our lease payments have come back NSF.
bank faxed the property mgmt office documents that needed filling out
they acted like they were getting them all the information.
We paid our next month payment with a cashiers check...
Now, this is where it gets complicated.
That you didn't follow all this up with registered letters describing what you understood
and asking for them to reply **in writing** what their understanding is?
Quote:
...our landlord filed an eviction on us.
The same day we were served we got an email from them saying...
the night before the eviction hearing the property mgmt company called us...
We were told...
You need help.
There should be a consumer credit or tenant advocacy group in your town.
Call them... then go IN PERSON. Bring the documents.
You're playing catch up ball to get YOUR side of the story in writing...
and then to get a decision maker at the prop mgmt place to see it too.
It won't happen overnight or without a fair bit of effort.
Nope. No sensible LL will EVER accept ANY advance rent payments.
That you didn't follow all this up with registered letters describing what you understood
and asking for them to reply **in writing** what their understanding is?
You need help.
There should be a consumer credit or tenant advocacy group in your town.
Call them... then go IN PERSON. Bring the documents.
You're playing catch up ball to get YOUR side of the story in writing...
and then to get a decision maker at the prop mgmt place to see it too.
It won't happen overnight or without a fair bit of effort.
Good luck
I'm just curious.. why wouldn't a landlord accept an entire year's of rent upfront? It's guaranteed money and that's the most important part. I think they'd be a fool not to accept that money.
I'm just curious.. why wouldn't a landlord accept an entire year's of rent upfront?
The LL will lose their leverage for WHEN there's a problem.
(very hard to evict when rent is paid)
And anyone who isn't plain vanilla pay by the month = problem waiting to happen.
No landlord (well, decent one anyway) would ever accept a years worth of rent up front. That's a huge red flag and it gives the tenant the upper hand.
If you have an eviction and it's because of the Target breach (no excuse for not making sure all your bills are paid when your account is hacked) then you need to have documentation that you can show and prospective landlord. They might take pity on you and rent to you or they might ask, just like I am, why didn't you check and double check that all auto pays were switched when you closed the hacked acct and opened the new one???
Personally, I think your landlord was a bit harsh especially if you can prove that were part of the hack, however you did miss three months worth of rent.......one month I can see them forgiving...three?? Not on your life.
No landlord (well, decent one anyway) would ever accept a years worth of rent up front. That's a huge red flag and it gives the tenant the upper hand.
If you have an eviction and it's because of the Target breach (no excuse for not making sure all your bills are paid when your account is hacked) then you need to have documentation that you can show and prospective landlord. They might take pity on you and rent to you or they might ask, just like I am, why didn't you check and double check that all auto pays were switched when you closed the hacked acct and opened the new one???
Personally, I think your landlord was a bit harsh especially if you can prove that were part of the hack, however you did miss three months worth of rent.......one month I can see them forgiving...three?? Not on your life.
My bank was automatically removing the money from my account. So when I logged into my bank account it looked like our rent was being paid. The problem was when the target breach happened I had to open a new account. The bank never deleted my old account from bill pay so it was placing the removed money in the wrong account to pay from so payments were being made that were returned. It took the LL/Propertly Mgmt company 3 months to let us know! It wasn't us overlooking anything. We right away tried to figure out what happened since it showed in our account the money was withdrawn to be paid to them.
We paid all of the rent plus fees and have continued to live in the house. Our LL was going to renew our lease after ours ended except she is wanting a 2 year lease but we are building a home and it will be completed in a year so no need for a two year lease.
This whole story sounds a bit far fetched. Don't you check your bank accounts on-line? Missing funds due to fraud are typically returned in about 7 days max. What about all your other bills? If you have enough cash to pay a year's rent up front go get an FHA loan and stop wasting money on rentals....
I'm just curious.. why wouldn't a landlord accept an entire year's of rent upfront? It's guaranteed money and that's the most important part. I think they'd be a fool not to accept that money.
I turned down plenty of offers of full year payment up front. Most people wanted discounts i.e. pay for 10 months live there 12.
I also don’t want to deal with someone who moves out 1/2 way through a lease. I have to mitigate. Now I gotta find new tenant and then refund the unused portion.
In some cases it can be argued n court the amount up front was a deposit. I legally cannot accept more than one month rent and two or three months equal amount for a deposit.
There are too many possible issues I don’t want to deal with. And with a eviction it’s a automatic disqualification for my process
Every evictee has a complicated story about why it isn't their fault.
I'm not going to try to sort it out. I just evict everyone, which seems fair to me. Everyone gets treated the same way.
Really, for three months you never noticed that rent money wasn't disappearing from your bank account? A bit careless of you. It's not like rent is $1.95 so easy to miss.
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