7 ms·

Or landlords who want to follow the law, but aren't sure what it is, trying to make sure they are doing things right.

ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
Here on Long Island (NY), most apartments are illegal (addition/remodeled single-family homes). Many of them make you sign a lease, anyway, but they can get dismissed by any law student. Every now and then, some municipality claims that it will be "fighting illegal apartments," but they die quick deaths. If they got serious about it, the homeless population would explode, and a lot of folks would leave the state. Also, I believe that most of the rules that apply to apartments, come from municipalities, not states.
- gruez 1y ago
  >Here on Long Island (NY), most apartments are illegal (addition/remodeled single-family homes). Many of them make you sign a lease, anyway, but they can get dismissed by any law student. What does this mean in practice? Courts won't enforce late fees or unpaid rents? Landlords can't evict bad tenants? Renters can terminate leases without any penalty?
  - ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
    Pretty much. Landlords get in a lot of trouble, for renting illegal apartments. I have friends that rented apartments, and had Pacific Heights-type[0] problem tenants. The COVID era was a horror. Many tenants just stopped paying rent entirely. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Heights_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Heights_(film)
    - pixelatedindex 1y ago
      > Landlords get in a lot of trouble, for renting illegal apartments. Do you have a source for this because I’m not convinced. Maybe a small portion do but the majority face no penalties. When I was in college the number of questionably legal homes for rent was insane, but I didn’t have time to go after them. A friend of mine did and won, but it required a lot of time. Most of the time the landlord does what they want and the renters don’t have the resources to go after them. You make it sound like it’s the renters who take advantage of the landlords but most of the time it’s the landlords who do whatever they want. The ones who stopped paying rent probably were doing so legally because a lot of them were forced to not work.
      - bombcar 1y ago
        Anything legal involves time and effort, but you certainly cannot do a "rapid eviction" on an illegal or unscheduled apartment. Landlords naturally (e.g., by the nature) have the upper hand because they have the desired thing - the rental. Tenants often have the legal upper hand, but the whole job of the landlord (even good ones!) is to work out which tenants know how to play the game and not rent to them.
        pixelatedindex 1y ago
        > but you certainly cannot do a "rapid eviction" on an illegal or unscheduled apartment. But isn’t that the risk? You’re doing illegal stuff so you’ll attract sketchy folks. > whole job of the landlord (even good ones!) is to work out which tenants know how to play the game and not rent to them. Sounds like discrimination to me, tbh. But you can’t prove it so that makes it “fair” I guess
      - ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
        I probably could find references, but I’m not really up for arguing on the Internet. The laws are quite harsh, but enforcement, not so much.
      - terminalshort 1y ago
        In this case it sounds like "do whatever they want" for the landlords means entering into a mutually agreed upon contract to rent their house when they aren't allowed to by the nonsensical nitpicky rules. But "do whatever they want" for the tenants means squatting. So, yeah, it sounds like the tenants are the ones taking advantage. Tenants can get away with murder.
        pixelatedindex 1y ago
        Look at rentals in college towns… education is already expensive so the tenants just want cheap housing. This attracts many landlords of the slumlord variety but because there’s a contract involved they’re given a pass. But even then they don’t necessarily abide by the contract and students don’t have the time and money to deal with small claims court so they just pay up (or accept the loss). Landlords absolutely take advantage of this situation. As for squatters, yeah they’re taking advantage of lax enforcement but they’re few and far between despite what you’d read on the internet. > Tenants can get away with murder. Sounds like hyperbole I guess my rant is just that renters get shit on because of a few squatters but landlords barely ever get criticized because there’s a contract involved. Some of the stuff I’ve read on the contracts isn’t even legal but a lot of tenants aren’t savvy to cross check laws or they’re owned by huge conglomerates who use stuff like RealPage.
  - hrimfaxi 1y ago
    Yes, at least in some towns on the US east coast, if you didn't register your rental with the town. And not only that, but you also would have to pay treble damages and all moving costs associated with them vacating your illegal rental.
    - ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
      Yup. That treble-damages thing is a kicker. Can't get it, though, if they don't have it. Most folks don't want to saw off the branch they are sitting on, though, so they play nice.
      - hrimfaxi 1y ago
        Would be an interesting service if someone developed a scraper to identify these illegal rentals. Why get an airbnb when you can get paid to stay somewhere for a few months?
- Spooky23 1y ago
  It’s not the homeless population, it’s more to do to with the folks who own the apartments. Local politics and local real estate are birds of a feather.
- terminalshort 1y ago
  This is the failure mode of bureaucratic government. The personality type of bureaucrats means that the rules will proliferate endlessly. Karens never sleep. Eventually the rules get so onerous that it becomes impossible to comply and everybody operates in violation of the rules. Everybody know that actual enforcement of the rules would be catastrophic, so they noncompliance is ignored. The economy reverts to the same unregulated and "unfair" state that the ruling Karens feared in the first place, but arbitrary enforcement continues anyway as the bureaucrats need to justify their existence by continually enforcing the rules. The number one rule of business becomes "keep your head down" because anything that attracts the attention of the bureaucrats will be immediately enforced, while the other 99% of violators are allowed to peacefully continue violating. Stagnation and slow decay takes hold as any sort of disruptive innovation is instantly shut down.
  - bombcar 1y ago
    When I am dictatorKing, I will make the first line of the constitution (which won't matter because I'm dictatorKing (yes, the camelCase is important (yes I'm nesting parentheses))) be that a mandatory and invulnerable defense against any crime, claim, or tort is that the law is not enforced regularly.
    - jermaustin1 1y ago
      How does that work for something like speeding, where they will charge you with everything, then let you off with a different infraction that doesn't actually have anything to do with the laws you supposedly broke. They do that enough times, and all of a sudden now speeding is legal because no one was charged with speeding, but with "driving with an invalid instrument". This would basically get rid of the "easy plea downs" and basically make fighting against the book the norm. IRL example: I once pulled out of my driveway and passed a stopped school bus (with lights on, but no stop signs extended) on a divided highway (barrier between my side of the road and theirs), a cop saw me do that, went around the barrier and pulled me over a couple minutes later. I was charged with something that was going to instantly take my license away. I went to my local courthouse on the designated day, the prosecuter brought me in and told me he would drop the charges to failure to stop at a stop sign. I said I didn't pass a stop sign, and that the bus didn't have them extended, just stopped with lights on, across a highway from me. Prosecutor said, that I'm allowed to argue that in front of a judge along with paying some large sum, and potentially lose my license, or take a point, and pay $150 today and be done with it. I chose the latter.
ryandrake 1y ago
This is just a nicer way of saying what OP posted. "I want to charge as much as I can, but I want to follow the law and do things right."
- eadmund 1y ago
  Everybody wants to charge as much as he can. Workers do the same: we all want to charge as much for our labour as possible. Unions do the same thing too. Everyone also wants to pay as little as he can, too. Fortunately, as long as there are many buyers and many sellers, the market tends to find efficient prices. When there is a monopoly or a monopsony, though, prices get out of wack.
  - Bjartr 1y ago
    > Everybody Not everybody everybody. Some people want to charge/pay/receive the maximum reasonable amount. Where "reasonable" is informed by social norms. The existence of so many amoral corporations, and sociopathic individuals running them, has absolutely skewed social expectations though. Such people are certainly less common, but they do exist (anecdata of one, me) Homo economicus does not actually exist.
    - walkabout 1y ago
      My experience is that kids have to be taught “‘fair’ is what the market will bear” because they start out feeling quite strongly that it’s not true. Tons of kids aren’t taught that, some of them start businesses, and they may struggle to make ends meet (or at least to thrive like they could be) because raising prices to market rates feels so unfair to them that they won’t do it unless prodded to and told it’s ok by someone else (and they still might not) I definitely am not convinced market-rate-is-ethical-and-fair is natural thinking for most people, or the kind of thing they want to do. (I’ve been the one telling people they should raise prices and I still can’t shake the feeling that it’s kinda wrong…)
      - terminalshort 1y ago

Here on Long Island (NY), most apartments are illegal (addition/remodeled single-family homes). Many of them make you sign a lease, anyway, but they can get dismissed by any law student. Every now and then, some municipality claims that it will be "fighting illegal apartments," but they die quick deaths. If they got serious about it, the homeless population would explode, and a lot of folks would leave the state. Also, I believe that most of the rules that apply to apartments, come from municipalities, not states.

gruez 1y ago
>Here on Long Island (NY), most apartments are illegal (addition/remodeled single-family homes). Many of them make you sign a lease, anyway, but they can get dismissed by any law student. What does this mean in practice? Courts won't enforce late fees or unpaid rents? Landlords can't evict bad tenants? Renters can terminate leases without any penalty?
- ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
  Pretty much. Landlords get in a lot of trouble, for renting illegal apartments. I have friends that rented apartments, and had Pacific Heights-type[0] problem tenants. The COVID era was a horror. Many tenants just stopped paying rent entirely. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Heights_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Heights_(film)
  - pixelatedindex 1y ago
    > Landlords get in a lot of trouble, for renting illegal apartments. Do you have a source for this because I’m not convinced. Maybe a small portion do but the majority face no penalties. When I was in college the number of questionably legal homes for rent was insane, but I didn’t have time to go after them. A friend of mine did and won, but it required a lot of time. Most of the time the landlord does what they want and the renters don’t have the resources to go after them. You make it sound like it’s the renters who take advantage of the landlords but most of the time it’s the landlords who do whatever they want. The ones who stopped paying rent probably were doing so legally because a lot of them were forced to not work.
    - bombcar 1y ago
      Anything legal involves time and effort, but you certainly cannot do a "rapid eviction" on an illegal or unscheduled apartment. Landlords naturally (e.g., by the nature) have the upper hand because they have the desired thing - the rental. Tenants often have the legal upper hand, but the whole job of the landlord (even good ones!) is to work out which tenants know how to play the game and not rent to them.
      - pixelatedindex 1y ago
        > but you certainly cannot do a "rapid eviction" on an illegal or unscheduled apartment. But isn’t that the risk? You’re doing illegal stuff so you’ll attract sketchy folks. > whole job of the landlord (even good ones!) is to work out which tenants know how to play the game and not rent to them. Sounds like discrimination to me, tbh. But you can’t prove it so that makes it “fair” I guess
    - ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
      I probably could find references, but I’m not really up for arguing on the Internet. The laws are quite harsh, but enforcement, not so much.
    - terminalshort 1y ago
      In this case it sounds like "do whatever they want" for the landlords means entering into a mutually agreed upon contract to rent their house when they aren't allowed to by the nonsensical nitpicky rules. But "do whatever they want" for the tenants means squatting. So, yeah, it sounds like the tenants are the ones taking advantage. Tenants can get away with murder.
      - pixelatedindex 1y ago
        Look at rentals in college towns… education is already expensive so the tenants just want cheap housing. This attracts many landlords of the slumlord variety but because there’s a contract involved they’re given a pass. But even then they don’t necessarily abide by the contract and students don’t have the time and money to deal with small claims court so they just pay up (or accept the loss). Landlords absolutely take advantage of this situation. As for squatters, yeah they’re taking advantage of lax enforcement but they’re few and far between despite what you’d read on the internet. > Tenants can get away with murder. Sounds like hyperbole I guess my rant is just that renters get shit on because of a few squatters but landlords barely ever get criticized because there’s a contract involved. Some of the stuff I’ve read on the contracts isn’t even legal but a lot of tenants aren’t savvy to cross check laws or they’re owned by huge conglomerates who use stuff like RealPage.
- hrimfaxi 1y ago
  Yes, at least in some towns on the US east coast, if you didn't register your rental with the town. And not only that, but you also would have to pay treble damages and all moving costs associated with them vacating your illegal rental.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
    Yup. That treble-damages thing is a kicker. Can't get it, though, if they don't have it. Most folks don't want to saw off the branch they are sitting on, though, so they play nice.
    - hrimfaxi 1y ago
      Would be an interesting service if someone developed a scraper to identify these illegal rentals. Why get an airbnb when you can get paid to stay somewhere for a few months?
Spooky23 1y ago
It’s not the homeless population, it’s more to do to with the folks who own the apartments. Local politics and local real estate are birds of a feather.
terminalshort 1y ago
This is the failure mode of bureaucratic government. The personality type of bureaucrats means that the rules will proliferate endlessly. Karens never sleep. Eventually the rules get so onerous that it becomes impossible to comply and everybody operates in violation of the rules. Everybody know that actual enforcement of the rules would be catastrophic, so they noncompliance is ignored. The economy reverts to the same unregulated and "unfair" state that the ruling Karens feared in the first place, but arbitrary enforcement continues anyway as the bureaucrats need to justify their existence by continually enforcing the rules. The number one rule of business becomes "keep your head down" because anything that attracts the attention of the bureaucrats will be immediately enforced, while the other 99% of violators are allowed to peacefully continue violating. Stagnation and slow decay takes hold as any sort of disruptive innovation is instantly shut down.
- bombcar 1y ago
  When I am dictatorKing, I will make the first line of the constitution (which won't matter because I'm dictatorKing (yes, the camelCase is important (yes I'm nesting parentheses))) be that a mandatory and invulnerable defense against any crime, claim, or tort is that the law is not enforced regularly.
  - jermaustin1 1y ago
    How does that work for something like speeding, where they will charge you with everything, then let you off with a different infraction that doesn't actually have anything to do with the laws you supposedly broke. They do that enough times, and all of a sudden now speeding is legal because no one was charged with speeding, but with "driving with an invalid instrument". This would basically get rid of the "easy plea downs" and basically make fighting against the book the norm. IRL example: I once pulled out of my driveway and passed a stopped school bus (with lights on, but no stop signs extended) on a divided highway (barrier between my side of the road and theirs), a cop saw me do that, went around the barrier and pulled me over a couple minutes later. I was charged with something that was going to instantly take my license away. I went to my local courthouse on the designated day, the prosecuter brought me in and told me he would drop the charges to failure to stop at a stop sign. I said I didn't pass a stop sign, and that the bus didn't have them extended, just stopped with lights on, across a highway from me. Prosecutor said, that I'm allowed to argue that in front of a judge along with paying some large sum, and potentially lose my license, or take a point, and pay $150 today and be done with it. I chose the latter.

ryandrake 1y ago

This is just a nicer way of saying what OP posted. "I want to charge as much as I can, but I want to follow the law and do things right."

eadmund 1y ago
Everybody wants to charge as much as he can. Workers do the same: we all want to charge as much for our labour as possible. Unions do the same thing too. Everyone also wants to pay as little as he can, too. Fortunately, as long as there are many buyers and many sellers, the market tends to find efficient prices. When there is a monopoly or a monopsony, though, prices get out of wack.
- Bjartr 1y ago
  > Everybody Not everybody everybody. Some people want to charge/pay/receive the maximum reasonable amount. Where "reasonable" is informed by social norms. The existence of so many amoral corporations, and sociopathic individuals running them, has absolutely skewed social expectations though. Such people are certainly less common, but they do exist (anecdata of one, me) Homo economicus does not actually exist.
  - walkabout 1y ago
    My experience is that kids have to be taught “‘fair’ is what the market will bear” because they start out feeling quite strongly that it’s not true. Tons of kids aren’t taught that, some of them start businesses, and they may struggle to make ends meet (or at least to thrive like they could be) because raising prices to market rates feels so unfair to them that they won’t do it unless prodded to and told it’s ok by someone else (and they still might not) I definitely am not convinced market-rate-is-ethical-and-fair is natural thinking for most people, or the kind of thing they want to do. (I’ve been the one telling people they should raise prices and I still can’t shake the feeling that it’s kinda wrong…)
    - terminalshort 1y ago