Responsibility for landlord's furniture they left behind (apartment, lease, tenant)
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Hey all- first time poster. I have a quick inquiry. Forgive me if this has been discussed but I could not find a similar topic after searching.
I have been living at my apartment for two years. When we first moved in we noticed the landlord had left some furniture in the basement. We were cool with it since we didn't need all that room for storage.
We have a cat with some fierce claws who happens to like the material the couch was made of. He destroyed it. This couch had been neglected for a good 15 years and was nothing to write home about. Anyway now the landlord wants us to reupholster the couch!
We have fallen on bad terms over the past couple of months. There was a security incident which happened to my friend right outside our apartment so we do not feel as safe. We put in our 60 days and it turns out the landlord is offering the apartment for $120 less to the new tenant! We had previously asked if we could get a reduced rent because of the market and landlord said no dice. He made no mention of the reduced rent to us. I know he has no obligation legally, but morally, it would have been the right thing to do and may have persuaded us to stay.
Now I think I am in the same situation. I feel morally responsible for his furniture but I don't think I am legally responsible. There is no mention of furniture in the lease only "premises". I am not sure if his personal belongings are part of the rented premises.
If it is not mentioned in the lease, it's not a problem for you. You would not be responsible for property left in the premises, except appliances that should be mentioned in the lease. If the sofa was in the basement and you have access to the basement, do other tenants or maintenance people have access also? I'm just thinking off the top of my head, and if it's a common basement, that's your out.
If it is a private basement, the sofa needs to be mentioned as part of the lease for you to be responsible. Move, but it sounds like you can forget getting a deposit back.
You are not responsible in any legal way to reupholster the couch for more than the couch is worth....So if the couch is 15 years old the life expectation of the couch is zero and that is how you have to put it in writing to the LL and have pictures of the couch and how old it might be....
You can think it is 15 years old, but maybe it is 2.5 years old since you need to have proof...and you are living there for 2 years so it could be 2 years and 1 month old, although unlikely...
The LL also needs proof how old the couch is and anything over 5 years for a couch might not be worth that much anymore...so in the worth case it might cost you a few bucks, but I doubt it...proof is what you need in case the LL is going after you...
The landlord is definitely going after me. This is actually a scenario that happened months ago. We have since moved out. Sorry to lead you on. We had told him via e-mail we would make the repairs but other incidents (like the reduced rent) have come up and I will need help on those as well.
I just don't see what is to prevent the landlord from breaking any furniture that he leaves behind and then blaming it on the tenant. I don't think it would be legally right unless mentioned in the lease.
I agree that you aren't responsible for the LL's furniture, but I do think the situation might be more readily resolved if you weren't making such demands of your landlord.
The LL is a businessperson. They entered a contract with you to provide a product for a fixed fee. They are not obligated to renegotiate that agreement just because you want to save money. And as a businessperson with a product they are having trouble selling, they are having a sale. They are not required to offer refunds to previous customers. What moral do you think they have broken?
I agree that you aren't responsible for the LL's furniture, but I do think the situation might be more readily resolved if you weren't making such demands of your landlord.
The LL is a businessperson. They entered a contract with you to provide a product for a fixed fee. They are not obligated to renegotiate that agreement just because you want to save money. And as a businessperson with a product they are having trouble selling, they are having a sale. They are not required to offer refunds to previous customers. What moral do you think they have broken?
Agreed. That's why I said he wasn't legally obliged.
We had asked for a reduced rent based on business principles. The renting market was low and the place was not worth the money he was asking. He would not budge with us. Two months later I had gotten attacked on the doorsteps of my apartment. Since we felt we could not afford the place any longer and our lessened security we put in our 60 days. Instead of offering us a reduced rent he tries to convince us to stay. Few weeks later when he is posting craigslist ads to the apartment, the unit is $150 less a month.
If you sympathize with him in this situation then you have a similar mentality and we just won't get any further.
He's a business something, I'm not sure person is the right word. That is giving them too much credit.
Agreed. That's why I said he wasn't legally obliged.
We had asked for a reduced rent based on business principles. The renting market was low and the place was not worth the money he was asking. He would not budge with us. Two months later I had gotten attacked on the doorsteps of my apartment. Since we felt we could not afford the place any longer and our lessened security we put in our 60 days. Instead of offering us a reduced rent he tries to convince us to stay. Few weeks later when he is posting craigslist ads to the apartment, the unit is $150 less a month.
If you sympathize with him in this situation then you have a similar mentality and we just won't get any further.
He's a business something, I'm not sure person is the right word. That is giving them too much credit.
Sounds to me as if he thinks it's worth $150/mo less to get rid of you. Because frankly if you were a really good tenant he would offer it to you and not have the hassle of moving in a new tenant.
Sounds to me as if he thinks it's worth $150/mo less to get rid of you.
Well that's one way of looking at it except we never had a late rent payment, no complaints from neighbors, and very much kept to ourselves.
Are you a landlord basing this on past experience? Because if you are then this is exactly how it should sound to you and like I said in the other post if you can not empathize my situation then lets agree to disagree.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Balvenie
Because frankly if you were a really good tenant he would offer it to you and not have the hassle of moving in a new tenant.
Frankly if he was a good landlord he would have not tried to convince us to stay without offering us a $150 less nor left his storage in our rented property. Do landlords not understand the practice of good business? He wanted our money and the disputes with the security deposit which I may get into later show this. I feel he used our $1500 security deposit to cover for the losses of rent over the next year.
The flip side is he is a very bad landlord and we are good tenants and he is trying to take advantage of us. No? Or does that just not happen around here? It's always the tenants fault?
I might as well mention he charged us $600 to clean a 1 bedroom 1 bath apartment with no carpeting that was left broom ready. He did the cleaning with himself and a friend, we drove by the apartment later that day to find some of the furniture he had left on the side of the road. He approved a walk through then used pictures from before the final walk through as evidence that the place was dirty and what he had to clean.
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