IF YOU ARE STILL RENTING THE SUITE OR APARTMENT AND THE LANDLORD NEEDS TO SHOW IT TO PERSPECTIVE OR FUTURE TENANTS OR HE/SHE HAS TO DO SOME REPAIR OR JUST NEEDS ACCESS FOR SOMETHING TO YOUR SUITE, YES THE LANDLORD NEEDS TO GIVE A MIN. 24 HOUR NOTICE AND THAT HAS TO BE IN WRITING AND NEEDS TO BE POSTED ON YOUR DOOR OR GIVING TO YOU PERSONALLY. HOWEVER, IF THERE IS AN EMERGENCY SUCH AS A FLOOD, OR SOMETHING ELSE THAT REQUIRES IMMEDIATE ACCESS LIKE SMOKE IS SEEN OR SMELLED IN SUITE, THE THE LANDLORD DOES NOT HAVE TO GIVE A 24 HOUR NOTICE. ALSO, JUST SAY YOUR STILL RENTING, BUT YOU HANDED OVER THE KEYS BEFORE THE LAST DAY OF YOUR LEASE, THE LANDLORD CAN ENTER THE UNIT OR SUITE. ANOTHER TIME, HE CAN ENTER WITHOUT A 24 HOUR NOTICE IS WHEN THE SUITE APPEARS TO BE ABANDONED, BUT HE MUST BE POSITIVE OF THIS FIRST.

We applied for an assignment due to ongoing issues with our rental unit. We are also being heard at the Rental Tribunal as part of the issues in the home. The other day the owner put the house up for sale. That is obviously going to make assigning the home that much more difficult for us......any direction on how we should proceed with this?

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We have been tenants of a property for two years with no problems, but all of sudden the landlord has told us that he will be doing spot checks inside the property with ten minutes notice. can they do this.

If there is nothing in the lease agreement then the landlord has no right at all to enter the property. He can only enter with your permission, and has to abide by whatever conditions you make. However, it is normal for leases to give the landlord a right to inspect - but he must give you reasonable notice, and if its not convenient for you he must fit the visit around you and not the other way around. But you are probably not in a fixed term after two years. Which unfortunately means, if the landlord decides he does not like the look of you any more he could give you 2 months notice to leave. Even if you are in a fixed term he could give 2 months notice that expired at the end of the fixed period. So its up to you to decide how flexible you want to be to keep him onside.

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In june i signed a lease and moved into a business property located in rockwell, nc (rowan county). upon moving in i found out several power outlets didn't work and one had wires hanging out of it. i informed the rental company verbally and then in writing shortly after moving in. it took more then a month before someone would come look at it and another several weeks for them to put a cover on the outlet with wires hanging out of it. they never had a certified electrician come look at the non-working outlets and never gave me a solution to the problem. it has now been 6 months. then we found out the front window leaked really bad when it rains. we ended up with a wet spot in the carpet about 8 feet long and about 3 feet into the store. it took about 2-3 weeks before someone came to seal the windows. we were then told from the two men who sealed the windows that there are actually several leaks throughout the building that has not been fixed because the landlords will not take action to do so. the reason for the leaks is because the roof is flat and there is no where for the water to go when it rains. in september we found out the heat didn't work. it was 60 degrees f. inside the building at that time. i informed the company as soon as i found out. it took a week and a half before the electric heating and air company was called to come out. they informed me it was gas heat and that they couldn't do anything about it. i passed the information onto the rental company. bout two weeks later they finally sent someone from the gas company to look at it. that was when i found out the building had not had heat since at least 1990 and the lines for the gas were cut outside the building as well as inside where it connects to the heating system. the meter had also been removed from the outside of the building. the gas company said that a building inspector would have to inspect the lines before it could be hooked up again. it has been 3 months and i have not had anyone else come in and look at the heat or try to fix it. i have been calling and sent a written notice to my landlord about the lack of heat. it is now between 40-50 degrees when i arrive at work each morning and does not get warmer then 65 degrees during the day with 2 space heaters going. just a week ago i noticed mold growing on one of the walls in my store and around the two heat and air vents (which are turned off since the heat doesn't work). i checked the other vents through out the building and noticed large amounts of mold growing around them as well as down the wall near the vents. the employees restroom also has a large moldy spot in the ceiling and has small pieces of tile falling off. the room smells extremely bad, so we keep the door closed and will not allow anyone in there. we sent a written notice to our landlord stating all the problems with the building. we also asked to terminate the lease early and if they denied our request then we would seek legal advice and contact a building inspector because we feel the building is not safe. we are able to move out at the end of december, however, i feel that nothing will be fixed and they will try to rent it out as is to another individual. should we contact the county anyway to inform them of the multiple severe problems with the building. it does state in our lease that the landlord is responsible for all repairs, however none have been made. i am most concerned about the mold in the vents. is this safe? should i just ignore it since i am able to get out of the lease?

...there should be a Municipal Building Inspector for the County... contact Him/Her and voice your concerns quickly. (Each State has different Laws that effect renting and repairs but in most cases you can withhold rent till it's fix'd...) but get Local advise first.

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Since we moved into this house there have been nothing but problems and the landlord will not fix anything. we have already contacted code enforcement but nothing has been done so far. i have 2 toddlers and the heat does not work and the house is all tile and very drafty, the stove barely worked, the fridge leaked, when you use the shower or tub which are upstairs, water would drip down and there would a very visible wet spot on the ceiling below. you can also see a huge area where the ceiling is sagging in the place where the bathtub sits on the 2nd story floor. we decided to use the money for december's rent to move into a more habitable place. i am fully aware that the landlord could file an eviction if we did not pay the rent for the month, but i am in the process of suing him for back rent for the problems we had which he refused to fix . we called him the day before christmas eve and let him know that we wanted the things fixed up to code or for him to go ahead and go to the court house to evict us. he told us that we could just pack up our things and be out as soon as we could and that he would not file eviction against us if we returned the key. we got half of our stuff moved out and the rest was packed neatly in boxes and anything else not packed was larger items which definitely could not be considered "trash." (such as nice couches, a near brand new microwave oven, a tv, a laptop computer, a computer tower, shelves, an xbox 360, etc.) we went to the house last night before dinner and every thing was still in there. today around lunch, we show up to the house and everything is gone. i called the police and they checked and none of the locks or windows had been tampered with so they said someone with a key had entered and taken the property...the police knocked on all the neighbors doors and the neighbors confirmed that they saw the landlord's brother and some others with u-haul type trucks cleaning out the house very late last night and early this morning. we were never called by the landlord to ask if we had vacated the premises, we tried calling him to discuss returning the key earlier in the week and he never answers or returns calls. we were never served a 3 day notice to pay or be evicted. we were never served any court ordered eviction papers. i looked at the county court records and he has not even filed for an eviction against us. what can be done? i have contacted a lawyer for a consultation but they can't meet with me until monday. we did file a police report for breaking and entering and theft. the police also called him and he did not answer, but they left a message for him to call them back which he has not. we also called him hundreds of times today and left voicemails and he just does not care. no we have not recovered any of the items. the neighbors said most of it was put out on the curb last night and that people were rummaging through it and taking what they wanted...also this morning was trash day so whatever nobody took was surely taken by the garbage man. and someone with a uhaul came to the house earlier this morning and took whatever else was left inside. i took pictures of every thing wrong with the house (the bathtub coming through the ceiling, the mold, etc and all the stuff on the lawn) while the police were there making my statement. the police said it is a civil matter and they cannot arrest him. we are still going to sue the landlord. we have receipts for some of the items and we have notarized statements from 3 friends who helped us pack and move stating that they know we owned the missing items. and i am fully aware that he can sue us for back rent, but it would only be partial rent since he threw our stuff out after less than a month of non payment and without even filing legally for an eviction. the items left in the house are worth easily 5 times the rent that we owe him anyway. he already has for rent signs up on the lawn! he has not even evicted us yet, or lease is not up til february.

File a police report for theft! If the police already have evidence from witnesses that the landlord and their minions took your stuff, that is theft. There is no paperwork to show that you were even to be out by a certain date other than what's on your rental agreement. EDIT: If you have filed a police report, let the police do their job. They won't just let it be, they want to make an arrest. The police can also choose to send their report to the prosecuting attorney's office to ask them to issue a warrant for the landlord's arrest. Then the P.A.'s office will surely get in touch with him. You may still end up suing the landlord in small claims.

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I recently moved out of my apartment and my old landlord is withholding a large portion of my security deposit to replace carpet throughout the apartment. here's the story: i moved in almost two years ago on september 1st, while the old tenant moved out august 30th. while doing the initial walk-through, the property manager (not landlord) and myself noted a few items, including one stain on the carpet in the living room (which i didn't think was that prevalent, to be honest - my roommate never even noticed it due to its positioning with furniture), which we sort of discussed was negligible and was not noted on the move-in report. we moved out a week and a half early out of courtesy for our landlord in case they found a tenant that needed to move in earlier (may 23rd, officially). june 15th came around and we still hadn't received our deposit, so i e-mailed her to ask about it. she claimed via e-mail that there were "several soiled areas in the living room" (my roommate did the walk-through for move-out with the property manager who only noted the one stain, the same one) and that she was withholding the deposit until she got an estimate for full carpet replacement throughout the living room and hallway. i called her to follow up, and she noted, contradictory to her e-mail, that there were two soiled spots, including about a "six foot long soiled spot where the couch was" in addition to the original. i followed up with the property manager who then gave me another story that it was the single soiled spot on the carpet, and he claims to have no recollection of our discussion upon moving in. i have asked them to check both the move-in report and prior tenants' move-out report to see if there is any note of this stain, and i am going back to the apartment to see it once more. unfortunately, i no longer have a copy of the move-in report to check on my own... they have not yet rented the apartment, and i honestly think i am being taken advantage of, as i'm sure they would not have replaced the carpet if they already had a tenant lined up. if we did indeed further soil the carpet, i would agree to pay all damages and replacement, but the fact that it was there to begin with and was considered a non-issue prior to my move-in, only to be replaced on my dime afterwards, is really bothering me. add to this the following issues: 1) we have guaranteed assigned parking, yet on the three ocassions i called the property manager, he said to "wait a few hours to see if the person there leaves" and only then to call him back to do something about it. 2) we had an issue with the bathroom sink less than a month being there and it was unusable for days until he came to do something about it and have it replaced. 3) the toilet (which was very old) caused pretty bad flooding in the bathroom into the hallway, and was in such poor condition that the shut-off didn't work. it took three calls to him that night before he called a plumber to relieve me from having to stand under the toilet with a bucket collecting water. 4) another tenant who switched apartments said that, much like our issue, the property manager did not recollect prior discussions he had regarding issues with the apartment, and attempted to have them charged for these issues. 5) in the final month of our lease, the landlord was contacting us and showing our apartment almost to a point where i would consider it harrassment. at one point, she was showing the apartment daily, sometimes multiple times a day, for the span of about 3-4 weeks. one time she arrived completely without notice and walked in on my roommate sleeping in his bedroom. we have a detailed e-mail trail of all the times she requested to show the apartment. 6) we were never issued a move-out report detailing the one stain's damage to the carpet, and now the landlord claims there are "several stains," although i've gotten three contradictory stories. i feel that we were very good tenants, always paying our rent on time and were accommodating to her showing the apartment to prospective tenants. unfortunately, i feel that i am being taken advantage of, and i don't know if there is legally anything we can do about it. do i have a case if her story is contradictory to what the damage actually is? i don't believe this one stain (although it can't be cleaned) warrants replacing the entire carpet. should i bother pursuing this, or is it a lost cause since i technically have no proof? all i want is my security deposit back... nothing more than that. i live in massachusetts, by the way. not sure if that makes any difference. also, her husband is an attorney.

It really was your fault that you did not note the stain in the carpet upon move in. It is further your fault that you lost or do not have the move in sheet showing the condition of the place. Third, your arguments about the parking don't mean anything. The argument about the sink and toilet mean nothing since it was fixed. What the other tenant said is *hearsay* and cannot be used in court. You say you have a paper trail of when the landlord emailed to show the apartment, which is when you should have said, no, if you didn't want someone trapsing in. Also, when he just showed up to show it, you could have said come back another time, so that argument means nothing to a judge in regards to your security. You should have taken pictures upon move out since you did not do a walk through with the landlord. Now, it does seem the landlord is trying to saddle you with paying for new carpet, and unless you really did a job on this carpet, all it would need is a good cleaning. If not, he would be responsible to replace it, as it is normal wear and tear after so many years. If you feel you have a case, file a small claims suit. See if the judge sees things your way. My guess is, you won't get your entire deposit back, but you might get some. The landlord would have to prove you really made a mess of this carpet and apartment to keep your deposit.

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Hi everyone, i'm having trouble with my ex landlord. we lived at their property for just over 2 years and put down a £700.00 deposit. our contract ended early this year and they never bothered to renew it. he has visited the property a few time but always rang and gave notice up until a couple of months ago when he came and we wasnt in, my brother, who's staying with me (the landlord knew this but denied it after) answered the door and he did a spot check on which he claims we were subletting he also said we were smoking in the house. he proceeded to call my partner and said we would have to leave by september as he was selling the house, so at the end of june instead of paying julys rent we put it towards another deposit and moved house. he now claims we owe him £900.00 in damages and unpaid rent and says he's taking us to court if we do not pay it, he also came to our new house making threats. where do i stand and what should i do?? anyone with a similar experience or any legal knowledge would be greatly appreciated. thanks in advance. i didnt give them notice as it was us who recieved the notice, 2 months but we left before then as we found somewhere to live. and yes there was a certain amount of wear and tear but nothing you wouldnt expect we'd lived there 2 years! our rent was £450 a month.

Whatever he said or you said means nothing unless it is in writing. If you have a lease you must follow the terms of the lease. If your lease expired, then you lease will also state whether you are to give 30 or 60 days written notice when you are going to vacate the property. You are responsible for the entire lease agreement if no written notice was given and accepted. When you moved into the property, you should have filled out a report stating the condition of the property. If you did, then there would be a checklist to determine if monies are due you, but if you broke the lease and did not pay for the remainder of the lease you are entitled to nothing.

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We live in california and rented 1 room in our house to someone we knew. we did not charge any deposit. we recently gave a proper 2 month notice and set the move out date to november 30th. he decided to move up his move out date to be november 1st. his rent was paid up until october 31st. when he started moving out his stuff we noticed a water stain on the baseboard and a little water damage was also on the walls on top of the baseboard. this was the only spot in the entire room that seems to have water damage. the water stain on the wall was about 4" in diameter and it appears to be dry. i do not know if this water damage was caused by something natural since it is on ground level, but if that was the case i would think there would be more water damage around in the room. we asked him yesturday (october 31st) when we could expect him to come get his stuff on november 1st. so we could plan our day, and he said he'll be out clubbing on oct 31st so he'll come when he feels like it because he was planning to pro-rate until november 1st anyways. since we got no time from him we had to wait around the house until he got here at 3pm. when i asked him to sign a document here is what he said: 1) he refused to sign the document that says in writing that he moved up his move out date to november 1st, and since he's only paid up until october 31st, he owed us a prorated amount for 1 day 2) he refused to sign the document that outlines the baseboard water damage and says that the landlord will have a home inspector look at the damages and it if appears to be caused by something other than natural moisture he will be responsible for the damages, he didn't sign today, (november 1st), he just came and got the rest of his stuff and left, refusing to sign anything and left with the keys. later he rang the doorbell and quickly handed the keys to us in a plastic bag and ran off. this is a guy who never told us about the water damage on the baseboard, never told us his bathtub was cracked, he ruined our whole weekend because he never made a time with us to come get the rest of his stuff so we had to sit home all day. oh, did i mention he also let our neighbors in on our side yard to install cable which took us 6 months to fight and get them to take it down because it was not in standard to our association laws. he even had the odasity to tell us he wanted to see our association by-laws because he thinks it was okay to let them in (did i say he never even asked us) he never left us his forwarding address, i do know where he works. should i send him an certified letter to his work saying we received the keys on november 1st. he owes us 1 day prorated rent and outline the water damage and mention that if the inspector determines this was not from something natural then he owes us for the property damage. he also has 2 holes in the garage he did patch up but it still needs to be painted. i am just wondering how to handle this. if you have any questions, just ask and check back because i will add the answers to this message. thanks even if i did have a deposit, could i take money from the deposit for the water damage? so to the realtor who responded: then tenant can get away with 1 day of not paying rent and ruin our whole day by not giving us a move-out time? i don't think a large rental organization would let him get off that easy. i thought he should sign the documents because that is what i thought professional rental companies did. isn't a renter suppose to sign an official move out date and time? at least this is what i remembered having to do when i rented from a professional company.

For the water stain, look outside your home. This sounds like water seepage from outside. This isn't the renters issue. I would not sign anything either. You can not mail him at work, it is not legal in CA. Mail him to the last known address. I have no idea how your day was ruined, it is not like you had to sit there or anything. But, no matter why you have to suck it up, it is part of your job as a landlord. If you want to take him to small claims over the 1 days rent you go right ahead. Filling fees will cost you more, but it sounds like you are the kind of person that enjoys being a PIA. It is 50/50 what the judge will do. You will not get anything for the stain.

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I live in an apartment building that charges rent on per person basis. i had a friend over my place for about 2 nights and my manager jumped to the conclusion that this person was staying over the entire lenghth. to prove it to herself, she would enter my property at random times and check up on me? one day she decided to change the locks on the door. at this same time, i was away for a winter break and came back home for about 10 days. when i returned, i went to pick up my keys and the landlord simply says "there is no keys" and shuts the office door on me. so, at this point all my belongings, clothes and such are at the apartment and she is refusing me the keys. being a naive and dumb student i just ignored everything and spent the rest of the semester sleeping at my girlfriends spot. since she decided to keep the keys away from me, i decided not to pay rent. this is all happening while i am bound by a 1 year term lease. she never asked for rent and or never gave me any notice to come pay or pick up my stuff. now that i am nearing my lease term, i was in desperate need of some belongings from the appartment so i decided to go again and give it another shot. at this point, the manager has turned into an angel was being super nice to me. she offered me the keys and said we can continue everything and forget about the months u havent paid. but, she says that she threw away all my belongings such as my entire wardrobe and such. and.. she used all my decorations and flat screen tv and such to show it off. apparently while i was away, without my permission she used my house and my belongings and turned the place into a model house with my stuff. and to top it all off, she throws away all my blankets and wardrobe and everything. note that this was all done without my permission. so... my question to you guys is... is all this legal?! what the hell should i do.... i am student at the university of san francisco... this is in san francisco... please help me out. thanks .

If you abandon the property, the landlord can dispose of your belongings after 30 days. She doesn't have to ask for your rent. You need to provide monthly rent without any reminder. When you stop paying rent, she can assume you abandoned the property. Sorry, kiddo, this is a tough lesson.

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Joe landlord rents out 6 cabins at the edge of his lake champlain property. one first-of-the-month, bob tenant walked his rent check over to joe’s house but lost the check along the way, probably to a strong offshore wind. so he walked over another check. he decided not to stop payment on the first because: (1) it cost $20; (2) the wind had been blowing hard all day, and the lake was 20 yards away; (3) the landlord had only 6 tenants to keep track of; surely he’d notice a duplicate. to ensure that he did, bob enclosed a note with the second check telling joe what had happened. naturally, the original check ended up in a snowdrift where jack neighbor spotted it the next morning. jack took the speckled, beat-up check to joe, who deposited it. when he noticed that his checking account balance was low by a month’s rent, bob called joe to arrange a refund or a credit, but joe maintained that bob had freely paid him twice and was entitled to nothing. ready to move anyway, bob skipped the next month’s payment and left at the end of the month, to which joe said nothing, though he did eventually return bob’s security deposit. what surprised bob about the whole thing was that some of his friends and coworkers—more than he would have expected—saw the episode as a real moral dilemma. a few said that, in joe’s position, they would have felt justified in keeping both checks. what do you think?

Most moral dilemmas involving money are reduced to legal obligations when a comprehensive contract is ironed out. In this case, Bob made three assumptions, all three of which turned out to lead to a situation where he had two valid cheques being sent to the landlord. He should have come to a legally binding agreement with Joe over the status of the lost cheque, and what to do if it was found, before giving him a separate cheque. That or he should've swallowed the bitter mouthful and put a 'stop payment' on the cheque and taken the $20 hit as a lesson well learned. Now in this case, everything worked out because Joe took advantage of a legal gray area and voluntarily overlooked another legal gray area, evening things out. For my opinion, I figure the following: A moral dilemma usually works out best when all parties behave as though they *could* have been the party having the disadvantage, and acting as they would expect to be treated if they were in that situation.

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We just moved out of a house that used to be a frat house. the walls had been painted odd colors before we moved in. the property management company was aware of it and said that they would not charge us for paint or carpet because they know it's trashed already. we got a move-in checklist that was pre-stamped by the management company and we listed the paint and carpet condition as painted odd colors and noted that the carpet was old and torn in some spots. well we moved out recently and they are keeping $2200 listed as "graffiti repair" and carpet cleaning. on top of that, they are saying we owe $820 for 5 days rent (we moved on the 5th of the month) and it looks like they did not receive payment from one of the guys for the final full month. what do we do? i've been told we can sue but we don't want the charges to hurt our credit in the meantime. the property management company waited until the 30th day to mail us our charge notice which should have been a refund check. i am getting calls from the same 800 number on a daily basis which began about 2 days after we received the letter. it is written on our move-in checklist which we have a copy of.

1) WHO did you say was aware of "damage"? Was that in writing? Did any one bother to take pictures and such BEFORE the move-in as "evidence" of pre-existing condition? If you didn't, and they say you do, sounds like you're stuck, but you can always negotiate them down. Basically, if it's NOT written down, it didn't exist. 2) You may have moved in on the 5th, but what date did the company promise you that it's ready to move in? Was it the 1st? If so, then again, you are stuck. 3) Your credit is already hurt unless you sue and win. Better decide now on what you can do based on what you got... pay, or fight.