Is this legal?

By Shelley Lincoln

I live in a mobile home park in WA State and have resided here for over 4 years.  Last evening my daughter took a bus to come visit and as she was walking into the park the manager (male) approached her and demanded to know who she is and where she was going.  He did not identify himself and she refused to answer his questions because she did not know who he was.  He then stated that he would follow her, and he did follow her all the way to my residence.  My question is:  Is this legal?  Is this a civil rights violation?  If this is illegal and/or a civil rights violation I would like to have links to the law(s) pertaining to this issue.  Thanks!

is this legal?

By giff

newbury mgmt. keeps on raising lot rents every year 15, 17, or20 to50 dollars a mo. nobody can afford it anymore. if your paying a mortgage, insurances, utilities, etc. we can’t do this anymore. lotrent is going to be 515 dollars a mo. that is a land payment. now they want to add $10 a mo. for having a fuel tank! is this legal? they don’t pervide any services plowing is awful, they don;t trim trees that are detramental to your home.

is this legal

By Rebecca

my utilities got shut off and my landlord wont let me get them turned back on and then they came and shut off my water and i have a 4 month old child. they are suing me and have already started to clean out house and my things are still at the house and we have not went to our court hearing yet. is that legal?

Is this legal??

By Jacob

I am a renter in a small apartment complex owned by a larger company. I have been living here for approx. 3 months and have had my premise entered TWICE without notice.

My question is, what legal action can I take if:

1) After the repair was completed, my premise was left unsecured?

 I asked for a repair and when I got home I noticed all of my windows (meaning every single one, including all rooms and main area) were left completely open. The window that is directly left of the entrance is only waist high from the ground, and EASILY accessible. This is scary because not only do I have valuables in my house, but I also have a 6 month year old daughter and wife that is home when i’m not.

I have asked the owner of the property if they would allow me out of my lease early without penalty. The owner DID agree that they would do this, the problem is, I gave all the money I had saved as a deposit that I will not receive until 30 days AFTER I move out. My only other request was that they give me back my deposit BEFORE I move out upon receiving a written 30 day notice to vacate. I also agreed that I would sign a legally binding contract agreeing to certain conditions to be fullfilled (I.E. the apartment would be left clean and in a rentable condition. If not then I would be responsible for full reimbursment etc.

I did not think this was unreasonable considering they put my family and property at serious risk leaving my apartment unsecured, ESPECIALLY with the consideration of EASE to enter (Waist high window in the front next to the door)

 PLEASE, if anybody can help me with advice, or even guide me in a direction on the best way to handle this issue I would forever be greatful.

 Thanks in advance for anybody’s help.

 Jacob

Jill Harris October 21st, 2008 6:48 am

Jacob, It looks as though your landlord is being fair. However, to get to the bottom of it… Although your landlord clearly violated the law by entering your rental without permission, and then left it unsecure; techincally the violation is not one that holds a heavy punishment. The law basically gives your landlord a slap on his hand as tells them not to do it again. You can give a bigger slap by filing a lawsuit against your landlord with the civil court in your area. But be forewarned, that you still don’t have a good case since nothing actually happened due to the landlords neglegance. If there was a crime or or theft that was a direct result of your landlords neglegance, then you would have a solid case.

Jessica October 29th, 2008 6:06 am

Jacob, All you need to do is file a complaint with the RPA (Rental Protection Agency). I would be mad if this happened to me. The last thing your landlord wants is for this to be attached to their landlord risk report. The complaint process gives you a lot of bargaining power, it turns the tables on them. I’ve used it before and was pleased with the end results– the agent working on my case really knew his stuff and by some miracle got through to my landlord. Jessica

Is This Legal

By Colby

I was going to move into an apartment with my friend. and i informed the landlord who owns the house. shes been staying at the apt for 3 months now, but there was never a physical lease written up. Now that i wannt to move in ,can she charge me security plus 2 months rent? even though the building is infested with bats and cockroaches?

Is this legal?

By Thomas

I moved into a rental trailer and signed a lease. Then I found out none of the windows open. I told the manaager and she said nothing would be done about it and if I didn’t like it I could move. Is this legal?

Pretty May 30th, 2012 12:41 am

Yes, uber illegal. The place should have a proper ventilation.

Is this legal?

By Ashley S

I left my apartment over a year ago and purcahsed a house.  I am now recieving letters from a collection agency stating that I owe them about $800.  My phone number has never changed and they did not once attempt to make contact with me stating I owed them anything.  So now I have a report against my credit report and still have no idea what I owed them money for.  I still haven’t gotten a bill and my roommate at the time who was also on the lease never recieved anything stating he owed them money nor has he had a credit agency contact him stating he owes money.  So how can I be getting notifications from debt collectors when I never was told I owe them money?

Is this legal???

By Jessica

To give some background info:

My husband, and I moved into a rental home in April 2010. The owners/landlords of this home had not seen the house in three years since they moved to Arizona. They hired a realtor to find renters but once the renter moves in, they take over. With a new baby, we were very busy trying to get everything set up in the house. A few months after we moved in, I heard a scratching sound as I walked through the hallway. I swore I kept hearing this light scratching sound, and told my husband to check it out. I knew there was going to be a squirrel or mice in the walls. He was not able to see from the attic down in between the walls. The next day, it smelt like death in the hallway. We email the landlords to let them know that something has in fact died in the walls. They tell us that pest control is our problem, and we need to have the pest control company come out to retrieve the dead animals on our dime. I know that it is not mandatory for the landlord to cover pest control in the state of Florida. Well, there was no way anyone could get to the dead animals in the wall because of where it was located. So we cut a hole in a wall (in two different rooms), and found multiple families of mice that had died. Thankfully my husband is quite the handyman, and he replaced the drywall, patched the wall so you could not even tell anything had been done. Well in one of the rooms there was 30 year old wallpaper that could not be matched. So we paid for a wallpaper steamer, and had pealed every last piece of wallpaper off. We repainted the room with Killz, and then painted a neutral color that had been approved by the owners. We did not seek any reimbursement for this since we were told it was our responsibility. Well mice kept getting in, so we called their on call handyman over to try to help us figure out where all the mice were coming from.

The handyman saw that the front gable of the house was sinking, and the roof over the front porch was sinking as well. The handyman went up on the roof, and found many soft spots and concluded that the roof had to be redone. The owners did get the roof redone pretty quickly. With the front gable, etc needing to be redone this is what caused the mice to be able to come inside the house.

While the roofers were working on the house, the owner of the roofing company happened to be their friend. He had told the owners that the back yard had good amount of weeds in it, and some branches down that needed to be cut up. We have pictures of the yard showing that it was one branch, and that the yard was not bad looking. The owners didn’t care, they decided to send a lawn company over to "winterize" the yard. Then deciding to bill us for this, which I in turn told them they would not get the money because there was no reason to have this done in the first place, they never asked us to clean it up more, and we didn’t have that kind of money laying around.

Next, the center of the garage door started to sink/cave in while it was going up or coming back down. We told the owners, and with it taking them so long to get it fixed, the metal started tearing in some spots. They blamed us, and said it looked like we hung something from the garage door and/or backed into it. The handyman could plainly see that this was not the case. Eventually, a garage door company came out and assessed the situation which they claimed was because the garage door was simply not up to date. It needed metal bars that went across to prevent the sagging. That was fixed, and the owners paid it.

Finally, it came time for us to move the heck outta there!!! Well, they found new renters that asked if we could move out a week earlier than intended. We agreed, as well as the owners that they would refund us one week of rent which is $294.00. On May-24-2011 we did the final walk through with the realtor, and successfully passed the inspection. I had steam cleaned the carpets, and went above and beyond to please these picky grumpy elderly owners. The realtor knew how much work we went through to make the house look immaculent since it was an older house. The realtor took pictures as we did, and we both left at the same time. The realtor had later sent me the walk through form that had stated we never used the irrigation since we found it broken with low flow after we moved in. The kitchen sink had a slow leak. The extra drywall, Killz, paint, etc could be found in the garage.

Two weeks later I get an email from the realtor stating that the owners were going to hold our deposit because they stated the irrigation worked just fine before we moved in. They were holding a $1,300.00 security deposit plus the $294.00 of the supposed to be refunded one week of rent. They stated there was a cracked window as well that needed to be replaced. Right before their time was up to send their list of itemized deductions, they sent their list stating:
* $200 to pay the handyman for trying to snake a drain for 4 hours
* $348.00 to pay for Roter Rooter to clear a clogged drain
* $200.00 to pay for Brandon Septic to clear, and pump their septic tank
* $150.00 to pay the handyman for hanging around with Roter Rooter & Brandon Septic
* $75.00 for time, killz, paint to repair drywall stain
* $244.97 for a cracked glass window
* $50.00 for handyman’s time
* $133.00 for new laundry room sink
Total $1400.97
So they decucted from our $294.00 check that was supposed to be refunded to us for the vacated week. They sent us a check of $192.57.

Is this legal? Everything was in great working order, as their realtor even noted. We feel that they are trying to use our security deposit for normal maitanance repairs. Help please!! (did I mention that the new rentors did move in as soon as we left so it seems like they double rented.)

is this legal?

By Jenny

Hi. I’m renting an appartment on the second floor in an old house and since the landlord has replaced the carpet in the attic-apartment above with wooden floor the noise level from my neighbors became unbearable. Even though they are considerate and try to avoid noise where possible I hear every word they talk, every drawer they open, every step they are walking. I usually have a deep sleep and additionally started to use earplugs but just their normal activity is amplified by the construction to such a level that it is impossible to have a normal conversation or sleep in any of the appartments on my floor. Because it is not really my neighbour’s fault but clearly a construction problem I wonder if it is legal that the landlord rents out these appartments without a minimum of sound protection? I would appreciate any comments about how me and my neighbours could bring the totally indifferent landlord to improve the situation. Many thanks.