My jurisdiction is: Oregon
Hello,
Before I get to my issue I know some of you will say contact a lawyer over the issue and we are taking the right legal steps to doing so, but I am posting this to gain more solid knowledge on this exact bizarre issue.
Last August I moved into this house with a couple of friends, I met with the landlord and we got a lease extension from him and everything seemed normal until he asked us for parent guarenteur signatures on the lease otherwise he would charge an extra $1,500 for security deposit (the current residence have been here for a year already). We thought that was fair and had 2 of our parents offering to sign the lease and our landlord exchange contacts until he stopped calling my father back. He also did with with the other tenants parent.
He then contacted us a week later and said he wants a $1,500 deposit either way (he already has $1,500 deposit from the first year this would be split between all of us at qty 5) and wants our parents signatures. This is what caused us to be rather suspicious on why and for a good week he kept heckling my parents and getting involved with personal issues that I wont disclose here since it's not relevant. So the time came when I had a 2 month trip planned to go around the US, had my rent amount all lined up appropriately then he demanded this money 2 days before I was about to leave. He then sent my father a new lease after not agreeing to the first one stating he needed their signatures and wanted deposit from all of us. When my father tried to contact him to sign the lease he wouldn't pick up his phone or call him back, he also did this to the other tenant here and disappeared, so no final lease was agreed on and we had not heard from him until May 2009.
He contacted one of the other tenants about our broken garage windows which we agreed to get someone to fix it and pay for it, he said he would like to have it done as soon as possible. We started calling glass companies to get size and certain amounts then our landlord wanted to have a walk through the house on May 10th, 2009 (remember that date as it's important for later). After the walk through he then wanted everyone to get together and talk about issues he saw in the house.
The Meeting:
So we had the meeting and at this time we introduced him to a new tenant that moved in. They met eachother and everything seemed fine, the landlord brought an application for him to fill out to live at the residence and then he discussed the following in the meeting...
- Garage windows must be fixed (no given date or anything, we told him we had been contacting places and would be fixing it).
- Dirt in sliding door must be cleaned.
Another thing to note that apparently he didn't receive rent until the 11th (use this for later in the post) and the walkthrough was the 10th and he never mentioned anything.
That was it.
Fast Forward to May 16th, 2009:
Our landlord shows up in the morning because the previous day he got a call from the neighbors saying we were on the roof. He then ranted about it which we understand but then gave us a paper with the following...
$50 fine for being on the roof
- I don't even know the full legal rights if he can just charge us for this without a warning or anything. We are very confused on this.
$50 fine for not fixing garage windows by May 15th
- He never gave us a date that we agreed on in the meeting which was on the 12th.
$145 Rent Late Fee
- Apparently he didn't receive our rent checks until May 11th, he never said anything in the meeting and as it is our responsibility to make sure we get rent in on time he just tacked it on the overall fees.
$300 for Pet violation according to Lease
- Another tenant had a pet (cat) and he saw the cat and said he must pay this and remove the pet within 5 days. This is understandable but once again there was no lease that was signed.
All of the fines were posted due date of IMMEDIATELY and when asked what that means (due date) he told us to google what immediately means.
------
So we have the fines he contacted us with, no due date, no lease or oral agreement. Something seemed wrong as he kept tagging things on and he has never done this before, he seemed so understanding during the meeting and told us to fix the windows as fast as we could and now we are confused on what to do and what legal ground we have (I have read the tenants laws) on eviction and if we can get a 30 day cause notice.
Another issue is when the original tenants moved in they payed for first and last months rent of tenancy, so what happens to the money they paid for the LAST month?
He also accepted our checks for rent, they are charged and everything a long time ago, so can he evict us for 'late' rent? We have never received a warning ever.
The big twist of this issue
So it seemed we were going to find a way to pay the fees to stay here, but out of curiosity we searched for other houses that we would maybe think about moving in incase of eviction.
We searched craigslist and found OUR HOUSE LISTED FOR RENT POSTED ON MAY 9th, 2009. Yes that is right he posted the place on craigslist before we had a walkthrough, before we had a meeting, before we introduced him to the new tenant (which he gladly accepted his application and money for it) and before any of these fines.
This is the big issue that he has intended to get us out of the house somehow, he is pretending we are on a lease that doesn't exist and has listed the house for rent already and has not told us we would be kicked out or eviction notice.
I hope someone can comment and give me any advice you have because this issue could end up not being very pretty for anyone. Something is legally super wrong. I'm sorry about the long post but it's a very bizarre issue.
Hello,
Before I get to my issue I know some of you will say contact a lawyer over the issue and we are taking the right legal steps to doing so, but I am posting this to gain more solid knowledge on this exact bizarre issue.
Last August I moved into this house with a couple of friends, I met with the landlord and we got a lease extension from him and everything seemed normal until he asked us for parent guarenteur signatures on the lease otherwise he would charge an extra $1,500 for security deposit (the current residence have been here for a year already). We thought that was fair and had 2 of our parents offering to sign the lease and our landlord exchange contacts until he stopped calling my father back. He also did with with the other tenants parent.
He then contacted us a week later and said he wants a $1,500 deposit either way (he already has $1,500 deposit from the first year this would be split between all of us at qty 5) and wants our parents signatures. This is what caused us to be rather suspicious on why and for a good week he kept heckling my parents and getting involved with personal issues that I wont disclose here since it's not relevant. So the time came when I had a 2 month trip planned to go around the US, had my rent amount all lined up appropriately then he demanded this money 2 days before I was about to leave. He then sent my father a new lease after not agreeing to the first one stating he needed their signatures and wanted deposit from all of us. When my father tried to contact him to sign the lease he wouldn't pick up his phone or call him back, he also did this to the other tenant here and disappeared, so no final lease was agreed on and we had not heard from him until May 2009.
He contacted one of the other tenants about our broken garage windows which we agreed to get someone to fix it and pay for it, he said he would like to have it done as soon as possible. We started calling glass companies to get size and certain amounts then our landlord wanted to have a walk through the house on May 10th, 2009 (remember that date as it's important for later). After the walk through he then wanted everyone to get together and talk about issues he saw in the house.
The Meeting:
So we had the meeting and at this time we introduced him to a new tenant that moved in. They met eachother and everything seemed fine, the landlord brought an application for him to fill out to live at the residence and then he discussed the following in the meeting...
- Garage windows must be fixed (no given date or anything, we told him we had been contacting places and would be fixing it).
- Dirt in sliding door must be cleaned.
Another thing to note that apparently he didn't receive rent until the 11th (use this for later in the post) and the walkthrough was the 10th and he never mentioned anything.
That was it.
Fast Forward to May 16th, 2009:
Our landlord shows up in the morning because the previous day he got a call from the neighbors saying we were on the roof. He then ranted about it which we understand but then gave us a paper with the following...
$50 fine for being on the roof
- I don't even know the full legal rights if he can just charge us for this without a warning or anything. We are very confused on this.
$50 fine for not fixing garage windows by May 15th
- He never gave us a date that we agreed on in the meeting which was on the 12th.
$145 Rent Late Fee
- Apparently he didn't receive our rent checks until May 11th, he never said anything in the meeting and as it is our responsibility to make sure we get rent in on time he just tacked it on the overall fees.
$300 for Pet violation according to Lease
- Another tenant had a pet (cat) and he saw the cat and said he must pay this and remove the pet within 5 days. This is understandable but once again there was no lease that was signed.
All of the fines were posted due date of IMMEDIATELY and when asked what that means (due date) he told us to google what immediately means.
------
So we have the fines he contacted us with, no due date, no lease or oral agreement. Something seemed wrong as he kept tagging things on and he has never done this before, he seemed so understanding during the meeting and told us to fix the windows as fast as we could and now we are confused on what to do and what legal ground we have (I have read the tenants laws) on eviction and if we can get a 30 day cause notice.
Another issue is when the original tenants moved in they payed for first and last months rent of tenancy, so what happens to the money they paid for the LAST month?
He also accepted our checks for rent, they are charged and everything a long time ago, so can he evict us for 'late' rent? We have never received a warning ever.
The big twist of this issue
So it seemed we were going to find a way to pay the fees to stay here, but out of curiosity we searched for other houses that we would maybe think about moving in incase of eviction.
We searched craigslist and found OUR HOUSE LISTED FOR RENT POSTED ON MAY 9th, 2009. Yes that is right he posted the place on craigslist before we had a walkthrough, before we had a meeting, before we introduced him to the new tenant (which he gladly accepted his application and money for it) and before any of these fines.
This is the big issue that he has intended to get us out of the house somehow, he is pretending we are on a lease that doesn't exist and has listed the house for rent already and has not told us we would be kicked out or eviction notice.
I hope someone can comment and give me any advice you have because this issue could end up not being very pretty for anyone. Something is legally super wrong. I'm sorry about the long post but it's a very bizarre issue.
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