Community Chat

[moonandthestars]

@SurferWife   The owner can put the house on the market for sale, but the tenant may not allow any showings.  

Glad that your experience was a nice, friendly, cooperative one - but not all are. unfortunately.  

[NicksmomESQ]

There seems to be more to the story that you're not saying.

 Let me tell you what happened to me last Spring. DH & I own a condo that we had been renting out for 30 years. The last tenant was there for 10 years.She was a middle aged divorcée. In all that time we increased her rent a total of $50. She was paying at least $350 under market per month .

  In January, before Covid, I told her that we wouldn't be renewing her lease in June because my son was graduating from law school & was getting married. We would be giving him the condo.She wasn't happy but said okay. 
  Covid shut down New York State in mid March. This tenant called me up in April & said she wasn't moving & I can't evict her because of the moratorium on evictions in the state. This woman never lost her job.She just figured she could take advantage of the situation & stay.

  She told me that she didn't like virtual apartment tours. Until she could physically see an apartment she was staying put. She also said the rents were atleast $400 more for smaller places & she was in no hurry to leave! She said she will keep paying rent . I told her that I wasn't going to renew her lease or give her permission to stay. She said that the Governor says you can't evict me. I told her that was true but the Governor didn't say I had to renew her lease.She called me several times a week to get me to consent to letting her stay. I told her that I needed the condo for my son & was never going to give her permission to stay.

  Well she ended up moving 2 weeks after her lease expired.One of the neighbors told me she told her that she didn't want to leave because she was paying cheap rent for a "large beautiful condo". 
   So yes, some people do take advantage. In your friends situation it's hard to tell because we don't know the whole story.

[SurferWife]

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@moonandthestars wrote:

@SurferWife   The owner can put the house on the market for sale, but the tenant may not allow any showings.  

Glad that your experience was a nice, friendly, cooperative one - but not all are. unfortunately.  

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@moonandthestars 

Obviously the rules are different state by state.  The owner was required to give us a 2-day advance written notice of a showing, which was fine by us.  I worked from home so my landlord understood that I was going to be there, unless it was a weekend showing.  We would run errands or go out to eat, etc.  But for a tenant to not allow a showing at all...well that certainly speaks to the lack of integrity of the tenant.

[gertrudecloset]

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@moonandthestars wrote:

@gertrudecloset   Yes, of course. And I haven't read the lease!  However, I think normally leases come with a clause for notice to terminate..  60 days?  90days?  120 days?  "reasonable'? (whatever that means!)   not sure.  Probably depends on the state.  We also don't know how long there is left on the lease.   There is much we don't know about the story, however, many people would, considering the landlord's change of circumstances,  be willing to be on the lookout for other places to rent and not take it to court.  I also glean that they have not been paying rent - legally I am sure, but it's too large a burden for this woman to carry the house now.  I really feel for this woman to have just lost her husband and to have this worry on her shoulders.

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@moonandthestarsI know all of that.  That is why I posed the questions I did to the OP @moonandthestars .  Lots of details left out.

She didn't state if she had other income besides the disability she and late husband received

She didn't state if her tenant's lease was up or if she was trying to get them out before this

She didn't state how it wound up in court because there are some states who are still abiding by the extended CDC moritarium.

More. 

[busymom22]

People seem to believe that landlords are these rich and greedy corporations when fact is most are owned by mom and pop landlords who own 5 or fewer units.

My family has rentals in California. The laws now totally favor the tenant.  My uncle had a unit in San Francisco that he wanted to give to his son for him to move into. It was rent-controlled and rented for way under market because of that. The tenant who lived there for 12 years was 62.  The law said that because of his age he could not be evicted and literally could live there until death.

The only thing my uncle could do was negotiate.  He had to pay the tenant $75k to move. 

[gertrudecloset]

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@NicksmomESQ wrote:

There seems to be more to the story that you're not saying.

 Let me tell you what happened to me last Spring. DH & I own a condo that we had been renting out for 30 years. The last tenant was there for 10 years.She was a middle aged divorcée. In all that time we increased her rent a total of $50. She was paying at least $350 under market per month .

  In January, before Covid, I told her that we wouldn't be renewing her lease in June because my son was graduating from law school & was getting married. We would be giving him the condo.She wasn't happy but said okay. 
  Covid shut down New York State in mid March. This tenant called me up in April & said she wasn't moving & I can't evict her because of the moratorium on evictions in the state. This woman never lost her job.She just figured she could take advantage of the situation & stay.

  She told me that she didn't like virtual apartment tours. Until she could physically see an apartment she was staying put. She also said the rents were atleast $400 more for smaller places & she was in no hurry to leave! She said she will keep paying rent . I told her that I wasn't going to renew her lease or give her permission to stay. She said that the Governor says you can't evict me. I told her that was true but the Governor didn't say I had to renew her lease.She called me several times a week to get me to consent to letting her stay. I told her that I needed the condo for my son & was never going to give her permission to stay.

  Well she ended up moving 2 weeks after her lease expired.One of the neighbors told me she told her that she didn't want to leave because she was paying cheap rent for a "large beautiful condo". 
   So yes, some people do take advantage. In your friends situation it's hard to tell because we don't know the whole story.

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@NicksmomESQWhat you described is a month to month tenancy when no new lease is provided.  So, yeah this was fine.  Month to month.  In NYS one month notice or more is required for month to month tenancy for landlord and tenant.

[chickenbutt]

It seems odd that a tenant can have the power to not allow an owner to show the property.   Is this universal, or just an anomaly in some places?   It just seems wrong.  The tenant doesn't have any ownership privileges, to my knowledge.

[BirkiLady]

I'm sure I'm not the only landlord in the world who hasn't gone ahead and evicted tenants during COVID. If they are disruptive to other tenants and the complaints are frequent (or to the Police), I wasn't about to worry about COVID. Checked with my attorney first, of course. (In both cases, drug use was involved. I don't want that in these lovely apartments with well-vetted renters who cannot have their reputations ruined by living among users.) Then, I gave a couple of tenants 30 days notice (at different times) during the last 15 months, had the apartments completely redone, raised the rent a bit and now have excellent long-term, quiet tenants. Everyone seems happy with their neighbors and there are no unruly disturbances!

The current tenants know I won't tolerate distuptive behavors, which is a plus for future situations. They know they are safe and I'll do it again without hesitation.

I've never had tenants who were unable to pay their rent, so am unfamiliar with "free rent" other than the COVID possibility of loosing their jobs (which none of mine did). 

[depglass]

OP here.  I didn't realize I was opening a can of worms.  Notice I called the woman "an acquaintance," not "a friend", or I would have more details on her situation.   Some bristled at the "free rent" terminology, but if one has no way to catch up the balance when the moritorium is over, that would be a free rent situation, but not of the tenant's choosing. I predict a huge economic shock in this country when the moratorium expires and unemployment benefits end.  

Edit:  I mis-spoke, the teenager was a grand daughter, not a daughter.

[SurferWife]

@chickenbutt 

My guess is it's an anomaly.  In our state (Hawai'i) our landlord had to give us a 2-day written notice (email) of a showing, and we would never even consider saying no.  Quite honestly, it was in our interest to be considerate because any new potential owner would be our new landlord, which is exactly what happened.