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Landlords that foster adversarial relationships like that are doomed to be burned even harder by tenants that get fed up with their nonsense, especially when la

Landlords that foster adversarial relationships like that are doomed to be burned even harder by tenants that get fed up with their nonsense, especially when landlords refuse to hold up their end of the contract while expecting tenants to be 100% flawless. So many of the contracts I've had to sign have been filled with half-assed provisions that the landlord refuses to follow up on. If the landlord tried to hold my feet to the fire over something so banal as rent being slighty late I would lawyer up immediately.

GhostVII 8y ago
Why would you lawyer up if they started the eviction process for being late on rent? What legal recourse would you have? In Canada it takes something like 2 months to evict someone, it's not like you would be out on the streets the next day. If you pay a few days later the eviction process would probably be stopped and there would'nt be an issue.
- fzeroracer 8y ago
  Because there's a clear difference in how they view the responsibility of tenant vs landlord. They're effectively holding a tenant ironclad to the contract while not holding themselves to the same standard. A great example is that a few years ago I signed an apartment lease that indicated the community was supposed to be gated. Now I didn't particularly care about that fact, but that's how it was advertised and sold to me. When I arrived, the gates were broken and had been broken for over a year. Two years later when I was moving onto my next job, the gates were still broken despite it being advertised and in the lease. This never became an issue for me because the location was flexible in other ways but it's an example of where had they been a hardass to me, I would've responded with equal tenor. Flexibiliy can be a two way street.
  - icebraining 8y ago
    As a landlord, I can tell you that many tenants do the exact same thing: harangue us over minor stuff that isn't even in the contract, while they're constantly late on payment, disruptive, unresponsive, etc. It's human nature to hold others in an higher standard than ourselves, hence the proverb "Physician, heal thyself". By the way, your claim that "landlords that foster adversarial relationships like that are doomed to be burned even harder by tenants" is, unfortunately, not been my experience. Being lenient and understanding only got us a year of lost rent and an apartment destroyed. But you're right that landlords should uphold their end of the bargain, too.
ryanwaggoner 8y ago
Said as someone who has never run rentals before. Being nice and kind and understanding and sympathetic with tenants will rapidly drive you into financial ruin. I’ve owned multiple units for over a decade and it’s definitely given me a different view on the trustworthiness of the average individual. A surprising number of people lie, steal, and cheat without any apparent hesitation or remorse, regardless of how well you’ve treated them. The only thing that works is being fair but firm. Stay detached and professional and enforce the contract you both agreed to. If you give people much leeway, at least half the time it’ll be worse next month or the month after. Downward spiral and pretty soon you’re out thousands of dollars.
- yardie 8y ago
  For years I wondered how one of my neighbors was able to get away with paying rent that was almost half of what the rest of us were paying. The neighborhood was slowly gentrifying and while the rest of us were seeing 7-10% lease increases hers was small or none at all. Apparently paying rent on time for over a decade means something. When we bought our own place our landlord at the time was really sad to see us go and she said we were her best tenants ever. At first I thought she was being cordial but after hearing other renter stories I think she really meant it. 2 years on time and we got 100% of our deposit back.
chrisseaton 8y ago
> something so banal as rent being slighty late Getting rent from you is the only reason the landlord is doing the whole enterprise in the first place! It’s not a banal side detail of the deal. And how do you think they pay their bills? Using your rent. If you pay late what do you think they have to do? You could cause them to default on something else.
Gustomaximus 8y ago
> If the landlord tried to hold my feet to the fire over something so banal as rent being slightly late I would lawyer up immediately. Really? So you can pay $500+/hr to be told pay your rent.... And I would argue that someone that wants to lawyer up because they dont feel they have to pay their rent on time is a tenant you want out of the house. The reality is once you send the notices most people will pay their rent and be less likely to be late in future as boundaries are set. And as someone that has tenants, there are people that need this treatment or you become their overdraft account and it will only get bigger and bigger until you send the eviction notice. And that's not to say there are exceptions. I've told someone to stop paying while they took time off work for cancer treatment, even thought they said they had savings as I know they didn't have much and wanted to take stress on them.
- fzeroracer 8y ago
  So it's okay for tenants to set similar boundaries, right? Like for example if a landlord is not living up to their end of the contract. Which is ultimately what I'm getting at. In reality I've never encountered a landlord that actually adheres to their contractual obligations fully, and depending on how they act towards me informs in turn how I act towards them. And again, at that point I would be both seeking somewhere else to live as well as taking them to court to break out of the lease due to them not fulfilling their obligations. Now if they actually do everything right on their end then I have less of a problem with them being strict to their tenants.
SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
> If the landlord tried to hold my feet to the fire over something so banal as rent being slighty late I would lawyer up immediately. If you were in breach of contract (which is far from "banal") I seriously doubt you would be the first one "lawyering up". You certainly wouldn't win in any case.
- fzeroracer 8y ago
  Read my other post here. There are degrees to being in breach of contact and immediately jumping to an eviction notice because a tenant is a day late would be absurd. And as I keep mentioning but it seems to be conveniently ignored landlords are allowed to get away with breach of contract all the time in my experience as a renter. Which gets back to the point I keep belabouring: Tenants are expected to be perfect while landlords are not. Now can you explain why this is the case?
  - ryanwaggoner 8y ago
    As you said, there are degrees. Paying your rent on time is 90% of being a good tenant. Going back to your other example, yeah, the gate was broken, but as you said, you didn’t actually care. I’m guessing you never complained. So how is that all that relevant? Not saying the landlord shouldn’t fix it, but you’re just making excuses. You don’t actually care. Suggestion: pay your rent on time and none of this will ever be an issue. And I wouldn’t bother “lawyering up” when you fail to pay your rent and get an official demand to pay what you owe. The law is not on your side and most courts will take a very dim view of the excuse that the gate is broken, especially when you never cared enough to complain.
    - fzeroracer 8y ago
      It's still according to the post I replied to a breach of contract on their end. Which would entitle me to taking a harsh legal view (the equivalent of immediately going to eviction) and take them to court. Since you seem intent on missing the point people take an absolutist view towards a tenants responsibilities while taking a lax one towards landlords.

GhostVII 8y ago

Why would you lawyer up if they started the eviction process for being late on rent? What legal recourse would you have? In Canada it takes something like 2 months to evict someone, it's not like you would be out on the streets the next day. If you pay a few days later the eviction process would probably be stopped and there would'nt be an issue.

fzeroracer 8y ago
Because there's a clear difference in how they view the responsibility of tenant vs landlord. They're effectively holding a tenant ironclad to the contract while not holding themselves to the same standard. A great example is that a few years ago I signed an apartment lease that indicated the community was supposed to be gated. Now I didn't particularly care about that fact, but that's how it was advertised and sold to me. When I arrived, the gates were broken and had been broken for over a year. Two years later when I was moving onto my next job, the gates were still broken despite it being advertised and in the lease. This never became an issue for me because the location was flexible in other ways but it's an example of where had they been a hardass to me, I would've responded with equal tenor. Flexibiliy can be a two way street.
- icebraining 8y ago
  As a landlord, I can tell you that many tenants do the exact same thing: harangue us over minor stuff that isn't even in the contract, while they're constantly late on payment, disruptive, unresponsive, etc. It's human nature to hold others in an higher standard than ourselves, hence the proverb "Physician, heal thyself". By the way, your claim that "landlords that foster adversarial relationships like that are doomed to be burned even harder by tenants" is, unfortunately, not been my experience. Being lenient and understanding only got us a year of lost rent and an apartment destroyed. But you're right that landlords should uphold their end of the bargain, too.

ryanwaggoner 8y ago

Said as someone who has never run rentals before. Being nice and kind and understanding and sympathetic with tenants will rapidly drive you into financial ruin. I’ve owned multiple units for over a decade and it’s definitely given me a different view on the trustworthiness of the average individual. A surprising number of people lie, steal, and cheat without any apparent hesitation or remorse, regardless of how well you’ve treated them. The only thing that works is being fair but firm. Stay detached and professional and enforce the contract you both agreed to. If you give people much leeway, at least half the time it’ll be worse next month or the month after. Downward spiral and pretty soon you’re out thousands of dollars.

yardie 8y ago
For years I wondered how one of my neighbors was able to get away with paying rent that was almost half of what the rest of us were paying. The neighborhood was slowly gentrifying and while the rest of us were seeing 7-10% lease increases hers was small or none at all. Apparently paying rent on time for over a decade means something. When we bought our own place our landlord at the time was really sad to see us go and she said we were her best tenants ever. At first I thought she was being cordial but after hearing other renter stories I think she really meant it. 2 years on time and we got 100% of our deposit back.

chrisseaton 8y ago

> something so banal as rent being slighty late Getting rent from you is the only reason the landlord is doing the whole enterprise in the first place! It’s not a banal side detail of the deal. And how do you think they pay their bills? Using your rent. If you pay late what do you think they have to do? You could cause them to default on something else.

Gustomaximus 8y ago

> If the landlord tried to hold my feet to the fire over something so banal as rent being slightly late I would lawyer up immediately. Really? So you can pay $500+/hr to be told pay your rent.... And I would argue that someone that wants to lawyer up because they dont feel they have to pay their rent on time is a tenant you want out of the house. The reality is once you send the notices most people will pay their rent and be less likely to be late in future as boundaries are set. And as someone that has tenants, there are people that need this treatment or you become their overdraft account and it will only get bigger and bigger until you send the eviction notice. And that's not to say there are exceptions. I've told someone to stop paying while they took time off work for cancer treatment, even thought they said they had savings as I know they didn't have much and wanted to take stress on them.

fzeroracer 8y ago
So it's okay for tenants to set similar boundaries, right? Like for example if a landlord is not living up to their end of the contract. Which is ultimately what I'm getting at. In reality I've never encountered a landlord that actually adheres to their contractual obligations fully, and depending on how they act towards me informs in turn how I act towards them. And again, at that point I would be both seeking somewhere else to live as well as taking them to court to break out of the lease due to them not fulfilling their obligations. Now if they actually do everything right on their end then I have less of a problem with them being strict to their tenants.

SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago

> If the landlord tried to hold my feet to the fire over something so banal as rent being slighty late I would lawyer up immediately. If you were in breach of contract (which is far from "banal") I seriously doubt you would be the first one "lawyering up". You certainly wouldn't win in any case.

fzeroracer 8y ago
Read my other post here. There are degrees to being in breach of contact and immediately jumping to an eviction notice because a tenant is a day late would be absurd. And as I keep mentioning but it seems to be conveniently ignored landlords are allowed to get away with breach of contract all the time in my experience as a renter. Which gets back to the point I keep belabouring: Tenants are expected to be perfect while landlords are not. Now can you explain why this is the case?
- ryanwaggoner 8y ago
  As you said, there are degrees. Paying your rent on time is 90% of being a good tenant. Going back to your other example, yeah, the gate was broken, but as you said, you didn’t actually care. I’m guessing you never complained. So how is that all that relevant? Not saying the landlord shouldn’t fix it, but you’re just making excuses. You don’t actually care. Suggestion: pay your rent on time and none of this will ever be an issue. And I wouldn’t bother “lawyering up” when you fail to pay your rent and get an official demand to pay what you owe. The law is not on your side and most courts will take a very dim view of the excuse that the gate is broken, especially when you never cared enough to complain.
  - fzeroracer 8y ago
    It's still according to the post I replied to a breach of contract on their end. Which would entitle me to taking a harsh legal view (the equivalent of immediately going to eviction) and take them to court. Since you seem intent on missing the point people take an absolutist view towards a tenants responsibilities while taking a lax one towards landlords.