6 ms·

>* There's a general fear of being a landlord. Tenants have a lot of legal rights, and the risk of inviting someone onto your property who could start squatting

by e40 2y ago

>* There's a general fear of being a landlord. Tenants have a lot of legal rights, and the risk of inviting someone onto your property who could start squatting or doing drugs and not being able to evict them is beyond the pale for most families.* This is a big problem in a lot of places. It's really hard for cities to strike a good balance between renters and owners, and I think few do it well. Especially for the edge cases (really bad owners and renters).

ReptileMan 2y ago
The balance simple - renters have total rights as long as they pay on time and there is no damage on the property except normal wear and tear and 0 when when not paying. You as landlord can't say anything as long as the property is not damaged for the duration of the contract. You always renegotiate at market rates. There is no concept of squatting and evictions are fast. That's it. Works like a charm. No bullshits like rent control or whatever.
- singpolyma3 2y ago
  This is ideal if you're a landlord, but hell if you're a tenant.
  - baggy_trough 2y ago
    That is quite an overstatement.
  - lotsofpulp 2y ago
    The courts should be speedy at forcing landlords to rectify problems just as the courts should be speedy at forcing out squatters. There is no reason either should take 6 months+ to litigate (real world example). I even had an email from the tenant stating they would start paying again if we would reduce the rent. No damage, no question about the facts, just someone who knew that worst case scenario is 6 months free housing for them, simply because that’s how long paperwork apparently takes. End result? I’m even more selective to who I rent out to, and the costs are borne by innocent people who just don’t happen to have sufficient history.
    - TimorousBestie 2y ago
      I’m all for higher property taxes to increase courtroom bandwidth, but I doubt most landlords are.
      - lotsofpulp 2y ago
        I am. I say hit everyone with a marginal land value tax rate too, so the more land value you own (even via partnerships), the higher your tax rate is.
      - vondur 2y ago
        Those higher property taxes will be passed on directly to the renters.
        TimorousBestie 2y ago
        Landlords typically despise property taxes (and land value taxes, c.f. sibling comment) because they have to pay them even if their property is unoccupied. They’d much rather pass on the cost of higher rental insurance, or failing that an income tax hike. But anyway, generally speaking, I think they benefit on average more from a slow and inefficient judicial system. The occasional 6+ month eviction battle is a rare negative outcome that comparatively few landlords have to deal with.
        lotsofpulp 2y ago
        Prices are not solely a function of the seller’s cost of goods sold. Supply and demand determine price, so if there is sufficient supply, then rents will be too low for large landlords to recoup their tax costs, so they will be incentivized to sell the property. This means less rent seeking, and higher supply of housing for buyers.
    - throwaway2037 2y ago
      > The courts should be speedy at forcing landlords to rectify problems just as the courts should be speedy at forcing out squatters. This raises an interesting point. In the United States, in the last 30 years, many states have introduced a voluntary "family court" system. If both sides opt-in during divorce proceedings, then the process can be much faster, cheaper, and lower friction. What if there was something similar for renters and landlords? I think it is worth a try.
  - rdm_blackhole 2y ago
    Why would it be hell? In France it can take years to evict people who stop paying rent. So now 90% of all rental contracts have an insurance for non-payments included in the contract. A few bad apples forced every other tenant to pay more in rent just because politicians decided that squatters had more rights than the owners. And god have mercy on your soul if you decide to take back what is yours when you get tired of waiting for the justice system to do it's job. If you do, you'll be the one the cops will come for, not the squatters.
    - throwaway2037 2y ago
      > now 90% of all rental contracts have an insurance for non-payments included in the contract. This is interesting. I never knew about it. I am surprised that it has never come up on HN before. In Japan, it is similar, but I don't know the history. (If I had to guess, it is probably related to the destroyed economy after the war.) If you have a "rich uncle" or work for a famous company, they can be your rental contract guarantor, but most people pay for third party insurance. I'm not sure how I feel about it. Mostly, it feels like a regressive tax on the poorest.
      - rdm_blackhole 2y ago
        You also sometimes need a guarantor and you need a CDI (indefinite work contract) to be able to rent in the first place. If you are on a short term contract (1 year or less) or if you are a student or out of work, then good luck to you. Then what happens in practice is that the owner will contract an insurance policy via the real estate agency that manages the rental property. As a result of this, in the end if the insurance company deems you to be too high risk, then they won't insure you and the owner will not take the risk to rent his dwelling without it even if they like you and want you to live in their rental. So what we have is a de-facto rental market that is controlled by a few insurance companies who decide the fate of the tenants. The owner, the real estate agency don't really have much power in terms of decision. For the owner it makes things easier, they don't really have to think too much. Their rent is guaranteed by the insurance company and for the real estate agency, they can always turn down "undesirable" tenants by claiming that the insurance company rejected their application. The tenants most of the time have no idea about this stuff. As you put it, it is a hidden tax on the tenants because the price of the insurance is now baked in the rent that is paid by everyone, good tenants or bad tenants alike. When I was working in RE 11 years ago, the insurance cost something like 2 to 3% of the monthly rent and then another 5 to 7% got paid to the real estate agency managing the rental. Today, I reckon, after all the inflation from the past few years, most likely 15% of the rent is gone before the owner sees a dime each month. As you can imagine this is not a very good incentive to put your apartment on the market. And that is not even touching on the various rent control policies that have been rolled out in the last few years in certain cities which have exacerbated the rental crisis.
  - ReptileMan 2y ago
    How is me being untouchable as long I pay on time a hell?
  - bluecalm 2y ago
    Limiting tenants' rights is good for vast majority (95%+ at least) of tenants. The way it is there are more and more obstacles (insurance, requiring proof of contract/work, very high deposits etc.) to just rent an apartment or a house. If the government thinks everyone deserves a roof then the government should build cheap, simple housing of last resort instead of forcing the property owners to take the risk.
    - sir0010010 2y ago
      Tenants rights are not only about how long you get to stay without paying rent. Not being able to compel your landlord to remove pests, mold or fix noisy steam radiators is not something that would benefit the vast majority of tenants.
      - bluecalm 2y ago
        Yeah, sure those are needed but they are not the reason you have to jump through hooves and pay ridiculous deposits just to rent an apartment. I know quite a few landlords. None of them would complain about stricter rules and obligations when it comes to maintenance. What they think about every day is non paying or otherwise problematic tenants. This affects the process they use to decide who to rent to and the demographic they are willing to rent to as well. The effect is that honest people find it difficult to rent an apartment because abusers run rampant and the system protects them. In some European countries you need to prove you have stable job and get recommendation from the previous landlord to even be in the consideration and then you basically have to go for an interview. It's a ridiculous and humiliating process which wouldn't exist if landlords could throw out abusers without much hassle.
    - singpolyma3 2y ago
      Ban deposits and proof of work requests like we have here
- TimorousBestie 2y ago
  > You always renegotiate at market rates. As long as RealPage and friends exist, market rates are whatever they say they are. There’s no free market in real estate.
  - Aloisius 2y ago
    There are now eight antitrust lawsuits against them by seven states + the DOJ. The DOJ and some states have started adding major landlords to their suits as well (since it is a cartel). Sadly, courts move slowly so it will probably be years before a decision.
    - archagon 2y ago
      Trump’s DOJ will side with capital.
      - NekkoDroid 2y ago
        I would only assume after they each individually had a $5mil 1 on 1 dinner at Mar-a-Lago
    - BrenBarn 2y ago
      It doesn't matter how many suits are pending, it matters how many win and how stiff the penalties are.
- gs17 2y ago
  > as long as the property is not damaged According to who? Landlords already tend to exaggerate to try to keep your security deposit, tenants would have no motivation to admit to damages after the lease ends. If the answer is "go to court", then "evictions are fast" will have to be amended.
  - KennyBlanken 2y ago
    [flagged]
- ethersteeds 2y ago
  I think this completely elides the point the gp was making about the edge cases being the hardest part. As siblings have pointed out, even establishing "no damage to the property beyond normal wear and tear" is frequently contentious and not self-evident. Rights (and courts) exist precisely because parties frequently represent the facts of a situation to their maximal benefit. Also, while reasonable people can agree that there's room to improve the balance on tenants rights, the idea of swinging from "total" to "0" rights based solely on payment status doesn't strike me as the debate's end.
  - ReptileMan 2y ago
    It works wonders for utilities and telcos. You stop paying your bills - your phone is dead, you have no internet and electricity in X days after skipping an invoice. Why should be leasing real estate any different?
    - floatrock 2y ago
      It is expensive to be poor because of feedback loops. If you lose a job and miss a paycheck this month, maybe you need an extra month to get back on your feet. If you lose housing right away, it's gonna be harder to find a job ("why is your suit wrinkled? why do you smell like you haven't taken a shower in a week?"), which makes it harder to get an apartment that would stabilize things. We have safety nets so the smallest bump doesn't shoot you right to the bottom. It shouldn't be indefinite, and the problem is finding how many months of friction should exist before we reach "this aint gonna get better", but instant-cutoff quickly becomes a feedback loop of shit.
      - lotsoweiners 2y ago
        Ok but we have plenty of other safety nets. Govt programs like SNAP, Unemployment, TANF, etc. We have other potential safety nets such as family, churches, various other organizations that help out, friend’s couches. I don’t understand why a small time landlord who probably doesn’t have huge cash flow on a property should be unable to pay the mortgage on the property for 6 months or a year. It doesn’t seem right to me.
- e40 2y ago
  Berkeley, CA in the 80s (90s?) a lady went into the hospital for an extended stay and rented her place. She had a verbal agreement that they'd leave when she got out. She got out, they didn't leave. Last I heard about the case it was 10 years later and they were still there. Yeah, I know, Berkeley. Rent control was very anti-landlord. But "rents have total rights as long as they pay" sounds too harsh to me.
  - archagon 2y ago
    I feel for the lady, but the problem is that she didn’t get it in writing. Renter protections are almost orthogonal.
    - eddythompson80 2y ago
      Yeah, that’s usually the answer. At the end of the day, never communicate with your tenant except through a lawyer or an officer. Corporate is much better fit for rent than small scale landlords. No emotions involved, no trust required, and they can achieve economy of scale with legal fees.
    - thaumasiotes 2y ago
      > Renter protections are almost orthogonal. You think something other than renter protections was stopping her from kicking her squatter out?
      - tomjakubowski 2y ago
        It's not squatting if the tenant is paying rent.
- schnitzelstoat 2y ago
  I agree, but most of the tenants' rights and left-wing groups reject this. They seem to want the landlord to take on the government's role to provide social housing and therefore you shouldn't be able to kick them out for non-payment, contracts should be very long (>5 years, or even indefinite), there should be rent control instead of market rates etc.
- loglog 2y ago
  "renegotiate at market rates" is extremely tenant-punishing, because the cost of moving for the tenant is much higher than the cost of finding a new tenant for a landlord. It becomes better if you remove the "renegotiate" part and couple the allowed rent increase to some index.
  - flask_manager 2y ago
    Why should an individual landlord have to subsidize an individual tenant? Its a scale of social interaction that doesnt make any sense. This can have lots of issues. Imagine something like a good school zone changing, an event that may not be accounted for by the index. Insurance and taxes are determined by current value, that is partially determined by market rent, but the landlord cant adjust. This also hurts a specific landlord when it comes time to sell, making a tenanted property potentially less valuable (and reducing the incentive to take on a tenant at all). This does not impact the general property value mind, as the tenant only benefits and creates this problem if the index is below the market. If you want a fair balance, "its mine as long as I pay market rent" is pretty good. "its mine as long as I pay indexed rent" is not great, as it removes the financial benefit of capital investment from the landlord.
  - ReptileMan 2y ago
    Yes picking carboard boxes from the store and stuffing them in the tiny US cars for a couple of blocks is a great cost. If you as a tenant want to lock a rate - sign long term contract. Then a year or six months before expiring start renew talks. Don't forget that market also changes - you may be in a better position too. Look - I support the idea of people owning their own homes and renting being the exception than the norm. But you can't solve housing shortage by making the market for whatever stock there is even more inefficient. The brejnevki in the soviet union were terrible quality wise, but they get the job done in providing shelter from the elements for the rapidly urbanizing country. In East and South East Asia they are also quite proficient in building massive 30 stories high rises.
    - lupusreal 2y ago
      I get what you're saying, but you're just not going to get a sofa, large dresser or cabinet, or anything like that into an American car, large as they are. Minivans or pickup trucks are a different story, which is a big part of the reason they're popular despite the online derision.
- bell-cot 2y ago
  I strongly suspect that you've never been a landlord. Nor a particularly perceptive tenant in rental housing. Nor seen any police/tenant/landlord cases. Plus, the policy goal of allowing small-scale stuff like ADU's is to encourage people to become landlords. "Your tenant has total right" rules have the opposite effect.
- MakersF 2y ago
  Not only that, after X months of not paying the landlord can request an eviction, and from the moment the eviction is requested to the moment its executed the government pays the rent to the landlord (I believe 3 is reasonable for X, but it can be higher or lower). I'm a renter and always have been a renter, but it has always been crazy to me that the cost of people without a house is dumped on the unlucky landlord. If the decision is that this cost must be put on society, at least it should be spread among all citizens/landlords (e.g. with a tax on rent). Not having the government paying while waiting for the eviction is the same as now: the government can just take ages. The risk to landlords when the renters doesn't uphold the contract needs to be limited. This is also the reason why an insurance would be an inferior solution: there is still no incentive for the government to intervene fast. We might find out that it's preferable to build social housing rather than paying rent to landlords, and the government starts actually doing something about it
KennyBlanken 2y ago
> This is a big problem in a lot of places Where is your evidence of this "big problem"? No state allows what you describe. This being some sort of widespread problem is a myth that's been running around for decades after Pacific Heights which was part of Hollywood cashing in on white fright in the late 80's early 90's. For example, in super-liberal Massachusetts: if you are one day late with your rent, the landlord can start eviction proceedings. The tenant is given time to find legal assistance and respond - shockingly, you can't just slap an eviction notice on the door and bounce someone onto the street. You have to prove to a judge that your tenant isn't doing what they should be doing, or is doing things they shouldn't be. Shockingly, your tenant has a right to defend themselves. Do people abuse the process? Sure, some do. They get away with it at most once, because...there's a record of it all in housing court and eviction proceedings are pretty much a deathblow with any landlord doing their homework. > the risk of inviting someone onto your property who could start squatting or doing drugs and not being able to evict them is beyond the pale for most families.* ...which is why landlords screen tenants for employment/income and renting history, search for records under their name in housing court, and google them to see if they have any arrests in the news, etc. Come on. > Especially for the edge cases (really bad owners and renters) Bad landlord far outweight bad tenants in this housing market. Whereas one tenant might make one landlord's life difficult, one bad landlord can make hundreds if not thousands of people's lives miserable and dangerous. Daniel Ohebshalom is a great example: https://www.nyc.gov/site/hpd/news/017-24/nyc-s-infamous-worst-landlord-surrenders-is-en-route-rikers-hpd-nyc-sheriff-s-office https://www.nyc.gov/site/hpd/news/017-24/nyc-s-infamous-wors... That press release is the culmination of something like a decade of housing rights advocates trying to get the city to do something about him. And what did he do? Soon as he go out of jail, he started harassing his tenants: https://nypost.com/2024/05/01/us-news/nycs-worst-landlord-indicted-for-tenant-harassment-weeks-after-being-jailed-over-building-violations/ https://nypost.com/2024/05/01/us-news/nycs-worst-landlord-in... This isn't some anecdote. Barry Singer, with an average of 1,804 open HPD violations across seven buildings Alfred Thompson, with an average of 1,285 open HPD violations across 15 buildings Karen Geer, with an average of 1,193 open HPD violations across seven buildings Melanie Martin, with an average of 1,132 open HPD violations across four buildings Claudette Henry, with an average of 1,130 open HPD violations across 15 buildings https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/nyc-worst-landlord-list-2024/ https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/nyc-worst-landlord-list... That list is a "hundred" of the top violators and it's likely the list of landlords with more than a dozen violations is probably more like "thousand" range or higher. In my city, landlords are infamous for charging all sorts of illegal fees and also stealing people's security deposits under the guise of made-up cleaning and repair expenses; the courts have repeatedly ruled normal cleaning and simple repair (like fixing picture hangar hooks) is not valid reason for using someone's security deposit - it's part of the cost of doing business. You can take them to housing court - and maybe eventually get your money back - but in the meantime you're definitely not getting your lease renewed so you're left needing to find a new place...without a reference, which pretty much tanks your chances of finding another apartment because the market is so tight.

by e40 2y ago

ReptileMan 2y ago

The balance simple - renters have total rights as long as they pay on time and there is no damage on the property except normal wear and tear and 0 when when not paying. You as landlord can't say anything as long as the property is not damaged for the duration of the contract. You always renegotiate at market rates. There is no concept of squatting and evictions are fast. That's it. Works like a charm. No bullshits like rent control or whatever.

singpolyma3 2y ago
This is ideal if you're a landlord, but hell if you're a tenant.
- baggy_trough 2y ago
  That is quite an overstatement.
- lotsofpulp 2y ago
  The courts should be speedy at forcing landlords to rectify problems just as the courts should be speedy at forcing out squatters. There is no reason either should take 6 months+ to litigate (real world example). I even had an email from the tenant stating they would start paying again if we would reduce the rent. No damage, no question about the facts, just someone who knew that worst case scenario is 6 months free housing for them, simply because that’s how long paperwork apparently takes. End result? I’m even more selective to who I rent out to, and the costs are borne by innocent people who just don’t happen to have sufficient history.
  - TimorousBestie 2y ago
    I’m all for higher property taxes to increase courtroom bandwidth, but I doubt most landlords are.
    - lotsofpulp 2y ago
      I am. I say hit everyone with a marginal land value tax rate too, so the more land value you own (even via partnerships), the higher your tax rate is.
    - vondur 2y ago
      Those higher property taxes will be passed on directly to the renters.
      - TimorousBestie 2y ago
        Landlords typically despise property taxes (and land value taxes, c.f. sibling comment) because they have to pay them even if their property is unoccupied. They’d much rather pass on the cost of higher rental insurance, or failing that an income tax hike. But anyway, generally speaking, I think they benefit on average more from a slow and inefficient judicial system. The occasional 6+ month eviction battle is a rare negative outcome that comparatively few landlords have to deal with.
      - lotsofpulp 2y ago
        Prices are not solely a function of the seller’s cost of goods sold. Supply and demand determine price, so if there is sufficient supply, then rents will be too low for large landlords to recoup their tax costs, so they will be incentivized to sell the property. This means less rent seeking, and higher supply of housing for buyers.
  - throwaway2037 2y ago
    > The courts should be speedy at forcing landlords to rectify problems just as the courts should be speedy at forcing out squatters. This raises an interesting point. In the United States, in the last 30 years, many states have introduced a voluntary "family court" system. If both sides opt-in during divorce proceedings, then the process can be much faster, cheaper, and lower friction. What if there was something similar for renters and landlords? I think it is worth a try.
- rdm_blackhole 2y ago
  Why would it be hell? In France it can take years to evict people who stop paying rent. So now 90% of all rental contracts have an insurance for non-payments included in the contract. A few bad apples forced every other tenant to pay more in rent just because politicians decided that squatters had more rights than the owners. And god have mercy on your soul if you decide to take back what is yours when you get tired of waiting for the justice system to do it's job. If you do, you'll be the one the cops will come for, not the squatters.
  - throwaway2037 2y ago
    > now 90% of all rental contracts have an insurance for non-payments included in the contract. This is interesting. I never knew about it. I am surprised that it has never come up on HN before. In Japan, it is similar, but I don't know the history. (If I had to guess, it is probably related to the destroyed economy after the war.) If you have a "rich uncle" or work for a famous company, they can be your rental contract guarantor, but most people pay for third party insurance. I'm not sure how I feel about it. Mostly, it feels like a regressive tax on the poorest.
    - rdm_blackhole 2y ago
      You also sometimes need a guarantor and you need a CDI (indefinite work contract) to be able to rent in the first place. If you are on a short term contract (1 year or less) or if you are a student or out of work, then good luck to you. Then what happens in practice is that the owner will contract an insurance policy via the real estate agency that manages the rental property. As a result of this, in the end if the insurance company deems you to be too high risk, then they won't insure you and the owner will not take the risk to rent his dwelling without it even if they like you and want you to live in their rental. So what we have is a de-facto rental market that is controlled by a few insurance companies who decide the fate of the tenants. The owner, the real estate agency don't really have much power in terms of decision. For the owner it makes things easier, they don't really have to think too much. Their rent is guaranteed by the insurance company and for the real estate agency, they can always turn down "undesirable" tenants by claiming that the insurance company rejected their application. The tenants most of the time have no idea about this stuff. As you put it, it is a hidden tax on the tenants because the price of the insurance is now baked in the rent that is paid by everyone, good tenants or bad tenants alike. When I was working in RE 11 years ago, the insurance cost something like 2 to 3% of the monthly rent and then another 5 to 7% got paid to the real estate agency managing the rental. Today, I reckon, after all the inflation from the past few years, most likely 15% of the rent is gone before the owner sees a dime each month. As you can imagine this is not a very good incentive to put your apartment on the market. And that is not even touching on the various rent control policies that have been rolled out in the last few years in certain cities which have exacerbated the rental crisis.
- ReptileMan 2y ago
  How is me being untouchable as long I pay on time a hell?
- bluecalm 2y ago
  Limiting tenants' rights is good for vast majority (95%+ at least) of tenants. The way it is there are more and more obstacles (insurance, requiring proof of contract/work, very high deposits etc.) to just rent an apartment or a house. If the government thinks everyone deserves a roof then the government should build cheap, simple housing of last resort instead of forcing the property owners to take the risk.
  - sir0010010 2y ago
    Tenants rights are not only about how long you get to stay without paying rent. Not being able to compel your landlord to remove pests, mold or fix noisy steam radiators is not something that would benefit the vast majority of tenants.
    - bluecalm 2y ago
      Yeah, sure those are needed but they are not the reason you have to jump through hooves and pay ridiculous deposits just to rent an apartment. I know quite a few landlords. None of them would complain about stricter rules and obligations when it comes to maintenance. What they think about every day is non paying or otherwise problematic tenants. This affects the process they use to decide who to rent to and the demographic they are willing to rent to as well. The effect is that honest people find it difficult to rent an apartment because abusers run rampant and the system protects them. In some European countries you need to prove you have stable job and get recommendation from the previous landlord to even be in the consideration and then you basically have to go for an interview. It's a ridiculous and humiliating process which wouldn't exist if landlords could throw out abusers without much hassle.
  - singpolyma3 2y ago
    Ban deposits and proof of work requests like we have here
TimorousBestie 2y ago
> You always renegotiate at market rates. As long as RealPage and friends exist, market rates are whatever they say they are. There’s no free market in real estate.
- Aloisius 2y ago
  There are now eight antitrust lawsuits against them by seven states + the DOJ. The DOJ and some states have started adding major landlords to their suits as well (since it is a cartel). Sadly, courts move slowly so it will probably be years before a decision.
  - archagon 2y ago
    Trump’s DOJ will side with capital.
    - NekkoDroid 2y ago
      I would only assume after they each individually had a $5mil 1 on 1 dinner at Mar-a-Lago
  - BrenBarn 2y ago
    It doesn't matter how many suits are pending, it matters how many win and how stiff the penalties are.
gs17 2y ago
> as long as the property is not damaged According to who? Landlords already tend to exaggerate to try to keep your security deposit, tenants would have no motivation to admit to damages after the lease ends. If the answer is "go to court", then "evictions are fast" will have to be amended.
- KennyBlanken 2y ago
  [flagged]
ethersteeds 2y ago
I think this completely elides the point the gp was making about the edge cases being the hardest part. As siblings have pointed out, even establishing "no damage to the property beyond normal wear and tear" is frequently contentious and not self-evident. Rights (and courts) exist precisely because parties frequently represent the facts of a situation to their maximal benefit. Also, while reasonable people can agree that there's room to improve the balance on tenants rights, the idea of swinging from "total" to "0" rights based solely on payment status doesn't strike me as the debate's end.
- ReptileMan 2y ago
  It works wonders for utilities and telcos. You stop paying your bills - your phone is dead, you have no internet and electricity in X days after skipping an invoice. Why should be leasing real estate any different?
  - floatrock 2y ago
    It is expensive to be poor because of feedback loops. If you lose a job and miss a paycheck this month, maybe you need an extra month to get back on your feet. If you lose housing right away, it's gonna be harder to find a job ("why is your suit wrinkled? why do you smell like you haven't taken a shower in a week?"), which makes it harder to get an apartment that would stabilize things. We have safety nets so the smallest bump doesn't shoot you right to the bottom. It shouldn't be indefinite, and the problem is finding how many months of friction should exist before we reach "this aint gonna get better", but instant-cutoff quickly becomes a feedback loop of shit.
    - lotsoweiners 2y ago
      Ok but we have plenty of other safety nets. Govt programs like SNAP, Unemployment, TANF, etc. We have other potential safety nets such as family, churches, various other organizations that help out, friend’s couches. I don’t understand why a small time landlord who probably doesn’t have huge cash flow on a property should be unable to pay the mortgage on the property for 6 months or a year. It doesn’t seem right to me.
e40 2y ago
Berkeley, CA in the 80s (90s?) a lady went into the hospital for an extended stay and rented her place. She had a verbal agreement that they'd leave when she got out. She got out, they didn't leave. Last I heard about the case it was 10 years later and they were still there. Yeah, I know, Berkeley. Rent control was very anti-landlord. But "rents have total rights as long as they pay" sounds too harsh to me.
- archagon 2y ago
  I feel for the lady, but the problem is that she didn’t get it in writing. Renter protections are almost orthogonal.
  - eddythompson80 2y ago
    Yeah, that’s usually the answer. At the end of the day, never communicate with your tenant except through a lawyer or an officer. Corporate is much better fit for rent than small scale landlords. No emotions involved, no trust required, and they can achieve economy of scale with legal fees.
  - thaumasiotes 2y ago
    > Renter protections are almost orthogonal. You think something other than renter protections was stopping her from kicking her squatter out?
    - tomjakubowski 2y ago
      It's not squatting if the tenant is paying rent.
schnitzelstoat 2y ago
I agree, but most of the tenants' rights and left-wing groups reject this. They seem to want the landlord to take on the government's role to provide social housing and therefore you shouldn't be able to kick them out for non-payment, contracts should be very long (>5 years, or even indefinite), there should be rent control instead of market rates etc.
loglog 2y ago
"renegotiate at market rates" is extremely tenant-punishing, because the cost of moving for the tenant is much higher than the cost of finding a new tenant for a landlord. It becomes better if you remove the "renegotiate" part and couple the allowed rent increase to some index.
- flask_manager 2y ago
  Why should an individual landlord have to subsidize an individual tenant? Its a scale of social interaction that doesnt make any sense. This can have lots of issues. Imagine something like a good school zone changing, an event that may not be accounted for by the index. Insurance and taxes are determined by current value, that is partially determined by market rent, but the landlord cant adjust. This also hurts a specific landlord when it comes time to sell, making a tenanted property potentially less valuable (and reducing the incentive to take on a tenant at all). This does not impact the general property value mind, as the tenant only benefits and creates this problem if the index is below the market. If you want a fair balance, "its mine as long as I pay market rent" is pretty good. "its mine as long as I pay indexed rent" is not great, as it removes the financial benefit of capital investment from the landlord.
- ReptileMan 2y ago
  Yes picking carboard boxes from the store and stuffing them in the tiny US cars for a couple of blocks is a great cost. If you as a tenant want to lock a rate - sign long term contract. Then a year or six months before expiring start renew talks. Don't forget that market also changes - you may be in a better position too. Look - I support the idea of people owning their own homes and renting being the exception than the norm. But you can't solve housing shortage by making the market for whatever stock there is even more inefficient. The brejnevki in the soviet union were terrible quality wise, but they get the job done in providing shelter from the elements for the rapidly urbanizing country. In East and South East Asia they are also quite proficient in building massive 30 stories high rises.
  - lupusreal 2y ago
    I get what you're saying, but you're just not going to get a sofa, large dresser or cabinet, or anything like that into an American car, large as they are. Minivans or pickup trucks are a different story, which is a big part of the reason they're popular despite the online derision.
bell-cot 2y ago
I strongly suspect that you've never been a landlord. Nor a particularly perceptive tenant in rental housing. Nor seen any police/tenant/landlord cases. Plus, the policy goal of allowing small-scale stuff like ADU's is to encourage people to become landlords. "Your tenant has total right" rules have the opposite effect.
MakersF 2y ago
Not only that, after X months of not paying the landlord can request an eviction, and from the moment the eviction is requested to the moment its executed the government pays the rent to the landlord (I believe 3 is reasonable for X, but it can be higher or lower). I'm a renter and always have been a renter, but it has always been crazy to me that the cost of people without a house is dumped on the unlucky landlord. If the decision is that this cost must be put on society, at least it should be spread among all citizens/landlords (e.g. with a tax on rent). Not having the government paying while waiting for the eviction is the same as now: the government can just take ages. The risk to landlords when the renters doesn't uphold the contract needs to be limited. This is also the reason why an insurance would be an inferior solution: there is still no incentive for the government to intervene fast. We might find out that it's preferable to build social housing rather than paying rent to landlords, and the government starts actually doing something about it

KennyBlanken 2y ago

> This is a big problem in a lot of places Where is your evidence of this "big problem"? No state allows what you describe. This being some sort of widespread problem is a myth that's been running around for decades after Pacific Heights which was part of Hollywood cashing in on white fright in the late 80's early 90's. For example, in super-liberal Massachusetts: if you are one day late with your rent, the landlord can start eviction proceedings. The tenant is given time to find legal assistance and respond - shockingly, you can't just slap an eviction notice on the door and bounce someone onto the street. You have to prove to a judge that your tenant isn't doing what they should be doing, or is doing things they shouldn't be. Shockingly, your tenant has a right to defend themselves. Do people abuse the process? Sure, some do. They get away with it at most once, because...there's a record of it all in housing court and eviction proceedings are pretty much a deathblow with any landlord doing their homework. > the risk of inviting someone onto your property who could start squatting or doing drugs and not being able to evict them is beyond the pale for most families.* ...which is why landlords screen tenants for employment/income and renting history, search for records under their name in housing court, and google them to see if they have any arrests in the news, etc. Come on. > Especially for the edge cases (really bad owners and renters) Bad landlord far outweight bad tenants in this housing market. Whereas one tenant might make one landlord's life difficult, one bad landlord can make hundreds if not thousands of people's lives miserable and dangerous. Daniel Ohebshalom is a great example: https://www.nyc.gov/site/hpd/news/017-24/nyc-s-infamous-worst-landlord-surrenders-is-en-route-rikers-hpd-nyc-sheriff-s-office https://www.nyc.gov/site/hpd/news/017-24/nyc-s-infamous-wors... That press release is the culmination of something like a decade of housing rights advocates trying to get the city to do something about him. And what did he do? Soon as he go out of jail, he started harassing his tenants: https://nypost.com/2024/05/01/us-news/nycs-worst-landlord-indicted-for-tenant-harassment-weeks-after-being-jailed-over-building-violations/ https://nypost.com/2024/05/01/us-news/nycs-worst-landlord-in... This isn't some anecdote. Barry Singer, with an average of 1,804 open HPD violations across seven buildings Alfred Thompson, with an average of 1,285 open HPD violations across 15 buildings Karen Geer, with an average of 1,193 open HPD violations across seven buildings Melanie Martin, with an average of 1,132 open HPD violations across four buildings Claudette Henry, with an average of 1,130 open HPD violations across 15 buildings https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/nyc-worst-landlord-list-2024/ https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/nyc-worst-landlord-list... That list is a "hundred" of the top violators and it's likely the list of landlords with more than a dozen violations is probably more like "thousand" range or higher. In my city, landlords are infamous for charging all sorts of illegal fees and also stealing people's security deposits under the guise of made-up cleaning and repair expenses; the courts have repeatedly ruled normal cleaning and simple repair (like fixing picture hangar hooks) is not valid reason for using someone's security deposit - it's part of the cost of doing business. You can take them to housing court - and maybe eventually get your money back - but in the meantime you're definitely not getting your lease renewed so you're left needing to find a new place...without a reference, which pretty much tanks your chances of finding another apartment because the market is so tight.