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Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD
Contacted an attorney so editing this out

Queen Elizatits fucked around with this message at 18:17 on May 25, 2010

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Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD
I have a rental property issue that I would really appreciate some advice on. This is in Kern County California.
My husband is in the military and we received orders to California from SC. We wanted to rent and went through AHRN, which is a military website that lists rental properties. We mistakenly believed that we would be pretty safe renting a house through there sight unseen. Turned out to be a mistake but hopefully we can do something. We are having a lot of issues with the house. Too many to go through here but some highlights

-We have been here less than a month, we have had two electricians out. The first we paid for because we wanted a dryer plug (re)installed. The second because the power went out in the house and we couldn't get the power back on in the living room/dining room so the landlord sent out someone(two days after we called them). Both electricians have told us the circuit breaker panel for the house is unsafe and should be replaced. The first electrician directed us to information showing that this panel has been recalled in other countries, not the USA though, and has been the subject of a successful class action lawsuit. The second electrician told us he has seen several cases where houses burnt down because of this thing sending fires over the paper coated wires. In our case the problem was the circuit breaker for the living room caught fire.
The landlords have been advised of this issue and their response is they never had a problem so it doesn't need to be replaced.

-There are four entry doors to the house. We were not given keys to three of those doors. The landlord told us they would bring them by over two weeks ago but they haven't. One of the doors was recently painted shut. When we finally got it open we discovered it can't be locked because it wasn't mounted properly. I called multiple times about the fact we couldn't lock the house and they never got back to me. They called the next day wanting information about my husbands boss, I guess for their files, and acknowledged they had gotten the messages about the door, and that just happens with that door sometimes.

-The kitchen sink isn't properly sealed and it leaks. There is mold growing under the sink.

-The hot water faucet for the washing machine leaks so much it can't be used.

-The stove that came with the property is ancient and has fire damage. It isn't insulated and basically the oven part can't be used, it heats up the wall too much. The burners, when you can get them to light at all, won't stay lit. But it keeps pumping out gas. We asked them to please just take this stove away and we will buy our own. They won't and they said we could pay to store it if we wanted.

-A lot of the outlets in the house aren't covered. None of them are GFCI.

-Three of the exterior doors have damaged/missing weather stripping

Lots of other little things but these are the important ones. We have been trying to be patient, they told us they would send us plumber and an electrician two weeks ago and we haven't heard anything. My husband got a hold of them today and asked why we hadn't heard anything, apparently they have been on vacation. He told them that some of the things in this house are violating health & safety codes and the woman yelled at him(I could hear her over the phone speaker) that "Did he really want to go there?" I have no idea what that means, and my husband asked her to go over the email we were sending with the issues and to please get back with us, she hung up.

I know we could have avoided this by not renting unseen, and believe me we have learned that lesson for the future. But is there anything we can do now? We would rather not move out, the house is really close to the base, the neighbors are wonderful people, and it has a huge backyard. Is there any forcing a landlord to take action on anything of the things I mentioned?

An example of the door:

Click here for the full 966x1288 image.


Outlet for the stove and the fridge

Click here for the full 1288x966 image.


Mold under the sink

Click here for the full 1288x966 image.

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD

Javid posted:

Google up "[state] renter's rights" - in most cases you can do stuff like pay yourself to have it repaired and then deduct it from your rent, if the landlord fails to get off their rear end. But READ THE RIGHTS first.

Thank you very much for the help, I actually had looked into that but I am having a hard time figuring out what kinds of things would be covered by this. It looks like in California I could say have the outside of the house repainted if the paint is chipping, which it is, but that isn't a huge concern for me. The big one is the problem with the electrical panel and I can't figure out if we could have that taken care of and deducted from the rent.

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD

Nitramster posted:

Why would I have to pay for storage when she has been using my stuff everyday she's had it?

You may not agree with it but that poster is right, she could be charging you storage for whatever you left in the apartment. Going to court over this would be pretty stupid just pay her the money she wants for the chair.

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD

terrorist ambulance posted:

In my jurisdiction, what you described would render a dwelling uninhabitable, and a landlord who refused to fix it would get some free sex from the government (and not the good kind).

Do you mind posting a bit more information about this? We are going through a similar situation in California, in our case it is a problem with the circuit panel in the house. We have talked to the city building inspector and he advised us that he will have to shut off our electricity if the issue isn't fixed. The landlord is refusing to do anything so we are going to have to break the lease and leave. The landlord is threatening to keep our security deposit if we do.
In addition to the fire hazard with the panel there is also mold in the kitchen and a possible mouse infestation, it seems kind of crummy that the landlord could keep our security deposit when they are the ones refusing to do anything about the problems and we would stay in the house if we could. Maybe if they thought they could get in trouble with the city they would be more willing to return our money to us.

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD

Incredulous Red posted:

You really need to talk to a tenants union. What part of California?

Kern County, we're in California City.

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD
I don't know if this is exactly a legal question but I think this is the best place to ask. I have posted a few times in this thread about a problem with the landlords/owners of the house we are renting. I won't go into the whole thing again but basically there have been multiple issues with the house since we moved in the end of July that they have refused to fix. A week and a half ago after trying and failing to get a hold of them over the phone/through email for almost a month we advised them that we were going to go speak to a lawyer to find out our options. The email we sent only stated that at this time we were seeking legal advice, it was two sentences long.
Yesterday we received three emails from the landlords. The first email was three pages long and in no way professional. The basic sum up of it was that we had never ever told them about any problems with the house and this was the first they were hearing of it and they didn't appreciate us threatening them. The second email we received several hours later was them accusing us of cancelling all the appointments they had made to try and fix the problems with the house and them advising us that they were making appointments for a plumber and an electrician to come out and fix the issues and if we couldn't be home they(the landlords) would be there and let them in.
The third email, the one that is really worrying me, stated they were coming to the house Wednesday to inspect the ongoing water damaged we had caused by having a leaky faucet and that this was not optional, if we weren't there they were coming in. They went on to say that they would call the police if our dogs were there and then went on about dangerous dogs. The landlords have never seen our dogs, they have been to the house twice before and neither time the dogs were there so there is no reason for them to think they are dangerous. The only reason they know we have dogs is that they are on the lease. My dogs are extremely friendly, and I am in no way nervous of them biting a person. What I am worried about is the landlords lying and saying they did. The other thing that worries me is the last time the landlords came to the house they got in a fight, it started with them arguing over what they wanted for dinner, the wife sprayed the husband in the face with a bleach cleaner, and the husband started screaming.
After all that my question is, would it be reasonable for me to call the police and request that someone be present when they come? Is that something police even do?
My husband is in the military, the lawyer we are using is through base legal, and unfortunately there is no way of getting a hold of him before tomorrow or I would ask him.

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD
Oh sorry, I should have been more clear. We will be there tomorrow when they come and I could take the dogs for a ride to the park or something. I guess I am just worried that if they lie about something happening it would help to have a third party present.
I don't really understand how dog bite investigations go but I guess if they call the police or animal control and they show up and there aren't any dogs home it will hopefully be obvious the landlord is lying.
And Wyatt, we were hoping to move on base. When we talked to base legal we hadn't gotten any of these emails and the lawyer was hoping if we offered the landlord half the security deposit they would let us break the lease. But the first email made clear that they would take us to court for the whole years lease if we tried to move. So who knows.

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD

Incredulous Red posted:

Well, that's the advantage of having a neighbor look after them: you get a witness that the dogs weren't even there.

This seems like it should be obvious but it honestly never occurred to me, thanks very much for the idea.
After sending us that email telling us exactly what time they would be here and we better be ready or the police would be called etc they showed up an hour late. And decided they wouldn't come in the house. They gave us a key they said would work in the back doors(it didn't) and left.
The plumber they said had to come yesterday never showed up and didn't answer his phone/return our messages. Called the landlord about him and it turns out he's a personal friend of theirs, and the only plumber they want working in the house.
Someone please tell me we will be able to break this lease without paying them a year of rent

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD

Cortel posted:

Hah, thanks for all the replies. She pretty much refuses to go to a doctor (actually she entirely refuses) for some stupid reason. Also the pickle jar is filled with pennies and I'm not sure why she put it there, as the door doesn't auto-shut. Maybe it was windy a few days ago?

As a person who burns their hands frequently cooking I can tell you that burn is going to hurt a lot and she is an idiot for not going to the doctor. What advice exactly does she want from this thread?

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD

Incredulous Red posted:

Start documenting everything, including dates, times and substance of contacts or correspondence between you and the landlord. Once you've got the documentation you'll have a couple options, but get the photos, correspondence, and whatever first, then come back to us. contact your local tenant's union. If you don't have one, come back and somebody here will point you in the right direction.

From awhile back but still having problems with the landlords. I incorrectly assumed I would be able to find the tenants union for this area on my own and haven't had any luck. I contacted someone from an LA tenants union hoping they could point me in the right direction but no. I live in Kern County California and if anyone could tell me if we have a tenants union or if there is someone I could contact in their place I would be very grateful.

Condensed situation/update: Moved into a house the end of July. Within 2 days of moving in we had electrical problems, the electrician the landlord hired advised them that the entire panel needs to be replaced as it is a fire hazard. Landlords have been telling us they were just waiting for an estimate from the electrician and they would have it replaced. This week we finally contacted the electrician ourselves to ask about the estimate and it turns out that the landlords are refusing to pay him for the original work he did and they never requested the estimate.

We can't use the hot water faucet for the washing machine because it leaks. We were told we weren't allowed to fix this ourself and that they would send a plumber. They sent us a threatening email demanding we be home a certain day for the plumber and he never showed up. Our washing machine needs to use the hot water faucet even on the cold/cold cycle for every setting above normal so basically we can't wash things like blankets and haven't been able to since we moved in.

A new fun thing, apparently the roof leaks in the back room. We live in the desert and it doesn't rain much here so we just found this out last week. Well the roof leaked and filled the house with something that smells like unfixed male cat pee.

We have been documenting everything and we took pictures of everything the week we moved in.

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD

Incredulous Red posted:

Contact these guys: http://www.co.kern.ca.us/code/celinks.asp.

Thanks very much, I will do so

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD
I've posted a few times in here about our ongoing issues with our rental house. The landlords are still refusing to make repairs. One of the problems is a leaking hot water faucet. I would really appreciate anyone looking over this letter I'm sending them with this months rent check and giving me your opinions. I have no experience with anything like this and I don't want to make some stupid mistake.

quote:

Mr. & Mrs. K

We are writing in regards to the ongoing issue with the plumbing in the house we are renting from you located at xxx CA. Specifically the fact that that the hot water faucet for the washing machine hook-up leaks and cannot be used, and as such we are unable to properly use our washing machine. We first notified you of the issue when we moved into the house in the end of July 2010. We have contacted you multiple times regarding this issue and you told us you would have a plumber out. You emailed us September 14th and told us the plumber would be at the house September 15th. The plumber never arrived. We have been unable to contact the plumber you told us to use, xx Plumbing at xxx-xxxx, we have called and left numerous messages and he has never called us back. I called and spoke with you Mrs. K on September 27th and you told us that you would call the plumber and set up another appointment. We still never heard back from him. We called you again and left a message on September 28th and you have never gotten back in touch with us.
Under California law we are entitled to remedy the problem and deduct the cost from the rent if you do not attend to the problem within a reasonable amount of time, California Civil Code 1941-1942.5. We intend to do this if the faucet is not repaired before November 15th and deduct the repair cost from the December rent check.

Regards,

I don't want to leave the impression that I've ignored the very helpful advice from people in this thread, so I'll add that I did contact the people incredulous red found for me but while they cover the county we live in they don't cover this city specifically. They told me to contact the building inspector for this city which I have done. He referred us to a private home inspector who came out, did the inspection, and has disappeared. We can't get in touch with him, nor can the city inspector, nor can the base lawyer who has also been assisting us. So hopefully he turns back up soon, gives us our report, and maybe that will be enough so we can break the lease and move out. But until that happens I would really like to be able to get some of the repairs done to make the house more livable.

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD

Dr. Video Games 0050 posted:

Youre a loving retard. What happened if it was a more serious condition, and I was some elderly man? The system didn't work and they didn't have a failsafe in case ONE nurse didn't answer. That's sad.

I also know nothing about IV's, had a machine that was CONSTANTLY beeping at me, and it was trying to suck air out of a shriveled bag. I know nothing about this stuff as I'm usually very healthy, so I was really paranoid.

I also loving hate the idea of needles to begin with, so having one in for a 5 day stretch didn't sond too appealing.

My friends dad cut off two if his fingers with a circular saw a few years ago in Ontario. The ambulance picked him up, went back to their building, and left him in the back for almost an hour while they did a shift change. The family went to a lawyer and they were told it wasn't worth trying to pursue. I'm actually really interested to see what advice you get from legal aid as it seems like there is very little accountability in Ontario for people in the medical field.

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD
What I don't understand is why people want to protect some idiot who admitted to driving drunk, hitting someone, and then leaving them to die? Why shouldn't Hughmoris' friend be properly punished? Does being a lawyer automatically side you with the person who committed the crime?
I'm genuinely curious about this, not trying to be an rear end.

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD
Help me legal thread I need advice. I live in Kern County California. I've posted multiple times about my landlords in this thread and received very helpful information.
Well December 19th the ceiling in a back room addition collapsed. We called and emailed the landlords multiple times but did not hear back from them until the 26th. The email was quite confrontational, blaming us for the collapse because we should have driven to their house(~50 miles away) to let them know instead of phoning or emailing. They stated they would send a repair person out but that they would not be providing notice as to when. This sparked an exchange back and forth with us saying that if the repair person was coming that day or the next we understood that 24 hours notice would not be possible but if it was going to be any later than that we needed to know the day at least and we reminded them of the civil code that covers this. The best they would do would provide was "maybe between Tuesday and Friday". We asked for the repair persons name so we could call them and find out when they were coming but they would not provide that. When we advised them that we had spoken with base legal and that a range of dates just wasn't acceptable since someone needed to be in the house they wrote back that they had contacted their attorney because we were breaking the law.
We wrote back again asking for the name of the repair person and the name and phone number of their attorney. They wrote back this afternoon saying that they, the landlords, along with a repair person and the police would be coming by sometime tomorrow. The police being necessary because of the way we were acting.
Something else that may be relevant is that we had the city building inspector out today who told us that the addition where the roof collapsed was installed "illegally" and upon checking no permit had been issued. We think this may be why they are refusing to give us the repair persons information, in the past they have sent their friends out to the home and lied about them being licensed contractors.

That's a lot of background for my question, sorry for the wordiness. Base legal has advised us that the home is no longer considered habitable and we need to move out. We will be out by tonight. My question is should either my husband or myself be present whenever they show up tomorrow or would sending them a registered letter advising them we are leaving be better?

Edit, should add base legal is now closed for the day and we received the email from them about the police too late in the day to get in touch with anyone there

Queen Elizatits fucked around with this message at 00:04 on Dec 30, 2010

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD

Feces Starship posted:

This isn't answering your question definitively and might be already saying something that you already know, but for the purposes of helping you understand what's going on I'd just like to say this: your lawyer is going to help you make a claim that an implied contract of habitability, which accompanies any residential lease, has been broken. This claim should be able to get you out of your lease completely and maybe earn damages too should situations be perfect, but in order to have such a claim be enforceable you will need to leave the premises; not doing so would mean that the apartment is habitable per se. That might not make sense but them's the laws.

I think this means that you should go the "registered letter" route as it would increase the chances of the lease being abrogated due to uninhabitable conditions.

Thanks very much for the help. They never did call the police apparently but we followed your advice and went the letter route.

Related question, we are trying to get the electricity taken out of our name and the woman I spoke with at the electric company says they can't do anything if they can't access the meter. The meter is inside the back room I mentioned previously and the landlords won't let them in. Anyone have any experience or advice for this? I'm having a hard time believing they can just keep the electricity in our name but I don't know what to do.

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD
In California does breaking your lease cancel your right to a final walk through or itemized list of damages?

I have been scouring the civil code and can't find anything that says this but it also seems to assume walks throughs and such are done while you still live there.

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD

Busy Bee posted:

I will be driving into Canada from the US this weekend and will be bringing a friend who is on a non-supervised probation. Technically, he is not supposed to leave the country. His understand is that just as long as he does not get arrested in Canada, he will be fine. Are we going to have trouble crossing the border?

You might get lucky crossing the boarder but it's a really stupid idea. He will probably be denied entry and if that happens once he might not be allowed back in Canada ever.

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD
I am sure it depends on what country you are talking about but I know Canada for example the form is worded that the guarantor needs to witness you signing it in person. I had to renew my Canadian passport a little while back and ran into the same problem you did.

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD
Wanted to pop in with a big thank you to everyone in this thread who helped me with my landlord issues awhile back, and an especially big thank you to Incredulous Red for all the links and such he found for me. We went to small claims today and the judge ordered them to pay back our security deposit, filing fee, and prorated rent for the rest of the month after we moved out. Our landlord tried to argue with the judge which was the best part of the entire thing.

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD

entris posted:

I'm moving to kinskter's area, and I'm going to open a new law firm that focuses on Alternative Dispute Resolution, where I arrange consensual duels, with fists, knives, guns, whatever, and I'm going to make a killing because apparently that's how they settle things where he's from. I'll probably watch The Lincoln Lawyer too because that looks like it combines violence and lawyers in a successful format.

I remember when I lived in Charleston there was this case of a fellow shooting another fellow in the back and he was charged with something regarding dueling. It was already interesting enough because I had no idea there were any laws about dueling but what topped that is he had just gotten out of prison after being convicted of injuring another person in a duel.

I know kinkster is just trolling but here you go friend , you can't go around hurting people even with their consent

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD

Konstantin posted:

Seems awfully risky for the prosecutor to charge under that very old statute when they could just charge under first degree murder. A good defense attorney could muddy the waters enough to put the outcome in doubt, especially since there probably isn't any precedent less than a century old.

I wish I could find a follow up. The only other article I can find has a little bit more information but not much http://archives.postandcourier.com/archive/arch09/0909/arc09248610249.shtml

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD
There are groups in CA that will help you if you are low income with lease issues and I would highly recommend you seek them out. Breaking a lease because you don't want to pay it is going to get you in trouble. But if you are saying you are breaking the lease because they didn't complete repairs that is a totally different thing.

I wouldn't count on them taking some car you don't want anymore as payment, if you decide not to pay and they take you to court they will have options on how they want to collect, it won't be up to you.

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD
I have a question about small claims in CA. We sued our exlandlords and won. It has now been 30 days since the decision was mailed and we haven't heard anything back from them.

My question is, if they appealed which is what we assumed would happen, are they obligated to let us know they are appealing within the 30 days? Or will we not be informed until a court date is decided and we receive a summons?

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD

beejay posted:

I think you are out of luck. If you have lived there that long and then all of a sudden you want out of your lease for neighbors smoking it will seem a little fishy. People smoke in apartments. They also cook smelly food and grill out and make noise and other things that are just part of living in an apartment building. When you look for a new place you might find a building that is non-smoking.

Legally speaking (not a lawyer not legal advice) if you leave early you will probably have to pay the rest of your rent until they find someone to live there. Evidently in PA there is no legal need for the landlord to rent the apt out (duty to mitigate damages) either so that's unfortunate.

I'm obviously not a lawyer either, my only qualifications are having spent way to long this year learning about landlord/tenant law in CA but I think beejay is right. One of the examples given in the Nolo tenants rights book I have is actually close to your situation and the conclusion is that if you didn't specifically request a no smoking apartment and have that mentioned in your lease you can't break a lease because the smell is now bothering you.

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD

drat Bananas posted:

What's the best way to ensure you get your security deposit back at the end of a lease (in Texas) at an apartment that the internet says never refunds it back? Pictures, obviously, but before signing the lease? After signing but before receiving keys? Pictures signed by management? They get copies and I get copies? Special clause in the lease about the pictures? I just want to avoid all loopholes they might try.

No matter where you rent you should always do an initial walk through with the landlord. Make an list of any damages/issues and take pictures of everything. We took pictures, numbered them, gave the landlord a list of damages and a CD with all the pictures. And yes get them to sign the list and both of you get copies.

Can't answer when you have to do the initial walk through there, here it has to be done within a week of moving in.

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD
Yes it sure could. Person A needs to go talk to his immigration attorney.

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD

aarfo posted:

Anything you do legally will be length and costly - you might be able to pursue a restraining order locally under best circumstances.

Your best plan of action is a non-legal one - contact his ISP and report what he's been doing and ask them to put a stop to it.

This is the best advice. I used to work for time warner and they took customers harassing other people pretty seriously. I remember one case in particular where they got the police involved.

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD
I don't quite understand how the pdf you linked would apply to you, you said he was parked half on the sidewalk and half on the road. The pdf is talking about vehicles being towed off private lots.

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD

AttackBacon posted:

I have some immigration related questions.

My ex-wife recently emailed me a request for my Social Security Number to fill out a form I-751, Petition to Remove Conditions on Residence: (http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/us...00045f3d6a1RCRD)


You should go talk to an immigration lawyer about this. I'm about to apply to do the same thing your ex is trying to do and I was told there were very few reasons I would be allowed to stay if we were divorced.
Not that there is any chance we are getting divorced, it's just one of the things the lawyer went over with us.

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD
Back in 2010 my husband, active duty USAF, received orders from South Carolina to California. We put our house in SC on the market and found a buyer. Started doing the paperwork, entered into a contract with sale contingent on her being approved for financing. She put $500 into escrow.

Long and annoying story short we went through all the preparations of moving out two months before we had planned because she wanted to move in right away. Her Realtor showed up a day before the house inspection was planned asking if they could do it right then because the house inspector couldn't come the next day. We said no because we were on our way out the door for something else. After that we didn't hear from her or her agent for four weeks. We called the house inspector and he told us that the buyer had actually cancelled the inspection not him.

After weeks of the Realtor not responding to calls or emails we went to his office and his boss told us he would make sure he called us the next day.

About week later we received an email from him stating the buyer wasn't buying the home because she had been denied financing. This didn't make any sense because she had already told us she was approved.

Our agent contacted the buyer's bank. We have an email from the representative the buyer was dealing with stating that she had been approved for a mortgage but the buyer backed out after being told that she could not get a grant from the bank for the down payment.

We have a prior email exchange between our agent and the buyers agent stating that the home sale was not contingent on her receiving a grant, only a mortgage, and that she had the money for the down payment.

A few weeks ago we received a letter from her asking for us to sign over the escrow. I responded that I wasn't willing to sign over the entire amount but I would sign over half.

This week we received a summons to small claims court in SC. She is suing us and the real estate company she used for the escrow and court fees.

I would love advice on how people would handle this. We didn't end up selling the house, it went into foreclosure, and to my thinking it seems like she violated the contract and isn't owed the escrow at all but I could certainly be wrong. I'm not even sure how small claims would work in a case like this where we live on the other of the country.

Queen Elizatits fucked around with this message at 02:29 on Aug 18, 2011

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD
Obviously ianal but tenant law is very interesting to me so I dug around landlord tenant law in MA. Are there more than two apartments being rented out in this building? If there isn't it looks like the mice are your responsibility.

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD
Oh well cool then, if you haven't had your meeting yet you may want to refer them to the State Sanctuary Code for MA (105 CMR 410)

quote:

Cockroaches and Rodents: The landlord must maintain the unit free from rodents, cockroaches, and insect infestation, if there are two or more apartments in the building.

quote:

Duty to Provide Habitable Premises
You must provide habitable apartments and common areas for the entire tenancy in accordance with the minimum standards of the State Sanitary Code which seeks to protect the health, safety, and well-being of your tenants and the general public...
...

Infestation: Landlords must maintain the common areas and apartments free from rodent, insect and other infestation if there are two or more apartments in the building.

And here are the tenant remedies

quote:

Rent Withholding
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that when a landlord fails to maintain a dwelling in habitable condition, a tenant may properly withhold a portion of the rent from the date the landlord has notice of this breach of warrant of habit-ability. Rent withholding can be a useful tool to force repairs, but it is a serious step and should be dealt with carefully. You may want to get legal advice before withholding your rent since the landlord may try to evict you for non-payment of rent.

You may withhold a portion of your rent if:

You have appealed to your landlord in writing to make the necessary repairs or
Your local Board of Health has inspected your apartment and found health code violations and notified your landlord or
You are current in your rent up until the time your landlord learns of the problem, you are not the cause of the problem, and the unsanitary conditions do not require the apartment to be vacated to make repairs.
Deciding how much to withhold is based on each situation. You need only pay the fair rent for your unit given its defective condition. Once the landlord has repaired all defects, the tenant must pay all withheld rent (M.G.L. c. 239, § 8A).

Repair and Deduct
You may make emergency repairs in an apartment or common living area and deduct up to four months future rent to pay for them, if three conditions are met:

The local Board of Health or other code enforcement agency has certified that the present conditions endanger your health or safety; and
The landlord receives written notice of the existing violations from the inspecting agency; and
The landlord is given five days from the date of notice to begin repairs or to contract for outside services and 14 days to substantially complete all necessary repairs. (The inspecting agency or court may shorten this time frame.)
Remember: If you contract to make repairs and then deduct the cost from the rent, you must retain a receipt. Further, if the costs are deemed to be unreasonable, you will only be able to deduct that portion which is reasonable.

If you qualify under the requirements of “repair and deduct,” you may treat your lease as void. You then have the right to move out if you choose not to make repairs. However, you must pay the fair rental value for the period you occupied the apartment, and you must vacate within a reasonable period of time (M.G.L. c. 111, § 127L).

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD
Well for what it's worth I took my landlord to small claims and wrote up my entire case in here. I won too thanks in a big part to all the helpful advice I received in here.

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD

Macaronic posted:

I've posted in this thread before about the custody fight going on between my ex and myself before - since then, we have more or less settled on an informal visitation schedule, but are still 'figuring out' child support. We were on semi-friendly terms, with me letting him take our son out to see his parents or to activities some weekday evenings (he has our son from 10-3 weekdays, but both of his parents are teachers so they wouldn't get to see him otherwise) and so long as legal stuff didn't get brought up we could spend one or two hours together with our son. I thought everything was going well, until last night.

My ex came over to take Elijah to gymnastics, and ended up staying for about an hour and a half afterwards while I did dishes. I was bathing our son when he started speaking about custody - he was starting to get riled up when I asked him to leave. He then proceeded to follow me around the house, blocked me in rooms and screamed at me for twenty minutes while I asked him to leave. I threatened to call the police, but he knew my phone was in the living room, and continued to guard me in my bedroom. For this entire time, our son was in the bath tub unsupervised (he is two), and I finally got myself into the bathroom with him and tried to close to door behind me, which my ex kicked open, spraining one of my fingers in the process.

In the bathroom, he continued screaming, and even yelled at our son to 'be quiet' because he was starting to whine and cry. I told him to leave one last time, and he finally relented, but not before punching the wall about six inches in front of my face, leaving a huge dent in the drywall.

TL;DR/Ex who I share joint custody of our son with loses his temper, threatens me and screams at our son, and punches the wall.

So my question is... where can I go from here? I plan on getting our locks changed (he has a spare key), and cutting off all contact between the two of us. Would I be in the wrong to try and get emergency sole custody of our son? He's been having these outbursts more and more frequently lately, and I suspect it has to do with drug use, but have no proof of it. I've taken pictures of the wall and am going to get my hand checked out by a doctor (two of my fingers are swelled to double their normal size).

I'm sorry for making this so E/N, I'm not comfortable with speaking to my family or friends about this - a lot of our friends are mutual, and I don't want them thinking less of him for how he acts when he's upset.

Thanks for your advice, goons.

I hope you called the police so there is a police report.

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD

Should be sleeping posted:


As far as the retainer fee being steep, I know what you mean. But we've called quite a few places in Kern County, and that seems to be the standard fee, even for the so called "affordable" attorneys. If you guys can refer to somebody else that would start for less, let us know. We make enough money to afford a good lawyer, but our savings are poo poo because we just moved and used it to put money down on our new house.

Oh hey I live in Kern County too. I'm on my phone and can't search but have a look through this thread for posts by Incredulous Red. I needed legal help a few months ago and he linked an organization that provides no cost legal help for qualifying families.

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD

Chronos13 posted:

Need some help here. While driving, I entered an intersection during a yellow light. It turned red while I was going through it and a camera took my photo and I was cited a $300.00 ticket. Is there any way I can fight this? If it helps, it was in Salem, Oregon.

Reading statute 811.265 sounds like you aren't supposed to enter the intersection during a yellow light.

Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD
Back in March I took my exlandlords to small claims court for our security deposit. I won the case, didn't hear anything from them and they didn't file any additional paperwork. I went through the process of garnishing his wages. He is a teacher in California. His employer was served with the wage garnishment September 7th and returned it to the sheriffs office September 16th. He is paid monthly.
I haven't received any payment or any other notice. I was hoping people with more experience in this sort of thing could give me an idea of how long it usually takes after an employer receives a wage garnishment notice until it actually happens.

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Queen Elizatits
May 3, 2005

Haven't you heard?
MARATHONS ARE HARD
Where is this?

Also what is the tenant asking to be fixed?

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