Location: Lorain County, Ohio
A small bit of backstory:
Three years ago, my family (My mother, father, and myself) moved into a rental home in which we signed a 1 year lease agreement. In April of last year (2015) that 1 year lease lapsed and we have been on a month-to-month agreement since.
Current issue:
The residence that my family occupies has a mother-in-law suite attached to it. It is viewed as it's own residence, with it's own address. My landlord had never rented out the mother-in-law suite during our residency at this location. But in June of this year (2016) a close friend of mine (Rob) had split with his girlfriend and was looking for a place to stay. My father contacted our landlord and asked permission if Rob could rent out the mother-in-law suite, in which our landlord agreed too. Our landlord said that Rob could move in and he would write up a lease agreement for Rob. Rob moved into the suite on approximately June 10th 2016. My father, who had discussed the arrangement with our landlord passed away on July 10th of 2016.
A little information of Rob's residency and the living conditions of the mother-in-law suite:
The mother-in-law suite has a severe mold problem, due to the residential property flooding nearly every time it rains, no hot water, and neither the stove nor refrigerator work. Rob has no furniture, and is basically only using the suite to sleep in at night.
So anyway, fast forward to this month. Our landlord had never written up a lease agreement for Rob, nor has he ever even spoken with Rob in person or on the phone. Last week, Rob comes home from work to a note from our landlord lying on his bedroom floor that says "hey this is your landlord, give me a call so we can settle up." Our landlord claims that Rob owes him 3 months rent at $200 per month based on their verbal agreement. But since Rob had never actually signed a lease, or even a verbal contract, he wanted to negotiate terms with our landlord, therefore he did not pay our landlord anything as of yet.
Today, my mother received a certified letter evicting Rob from the mother-in-law suite claiming that we (the occupants of the actual house) were in breach of a verbal contract with our landlord. The letter states that he must be moved off of the premises by Aug 27th 2016 at which time the locks will be changed and his belonging will be put in storage if they are still there.
The certified letter is dated and notarized on the date of Aug 19th 2016, but was not delivered until today, giving Rob 1 day to move from the suite.
So my questions are as follows:
If the mother-in-law suite is a separate residence, is an eviction notice address to my mother evicting Rob from a completely separate residence even legally binding?
Is Rob in breach of a verbal contract if he himself has never communicated with the landlord in any way whatsoever?
My father may have had a verbal contract with our landlord, but A: he is deceased and B: is it even legally binding to make a verbal contract on the behalf of someone else?
In the certified letter, it states that he is being evicted under breach of verbal contract, lack of payment, and it sites multiple lines of the original lease agreement that my mother, father and myself signed 3 years ago, which has since lapsed and not been updated. So our landlord is citing a 2 year lapsed lease agreement for a residence that Rob does not occupy in order to evict him from an entirely different residence. Is this even legal?
I am willing to concede being wrong, but the whole thing is fishy to me. A verbal contract with my dead father made on behalf of Rob for a residence that we don't occupy (and is probably not even legally rent-able due to its conditions) is being used to evict Rob, but cites lines of our lapsed lease agreement as reasons for eviction.
Submitted August 26, 2016 at 11:23PM by GAMMAKONG http://ift.tt/2bmjDCm legaladvice
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