So before I even start, I just want to mention that I am recently 22 years old, this is my first ever apartment on my own, and so I was very ignorant to a lot of warning signs concerning this "landlord."
In April of this year I subleased on an apartment with the option to extend the lease and become a tenant in August. I opted for this because it is extremely hard to find a place in Seattle right now, especially in the location that I'm in, and especially on my student budget. (Not going to go into the other personal reasons as to why I extended, but TL;DR a lot of shit was happening and it was just easier for me to extend the lease and move on to other things.) Since April, I have never met or even spoken on the phone to the landlord. Also since April, he has demonstrated extremely unprofessional behavior and just plain ignorance over the apartment. For example, I was told on move in rent was $802, I paid the amount and received an email that I had paid too much and rent was $760. I was then told there was a credit on the account, so the next month I only paid around $500. I was then told me and my roommate had late fees because we didn't pay the full amount of rent, which suddenly went back up to $802 due to an "error with the utilities being billed." This month I found out I am actually dealing with a Property Management Agency after he emailed me to say that I was somehow liable for the remainder of the balance on the apartment when it was in fact a payment error from the new roommate because they switched payment systems and never emailed him about it. (I've since looked through the lease several times, and nowhere in it does it say I am liable for the whole payment should someone miss a payment.) I was also not informed that the lease extension was for another /12 months/ until I got the lease back, with my name already signed onto it, saying it was extended until August of next year.
It should also be noted that the lease is not actually a real lease, and is merely a lease addendum, adding myself, the old subletter, and the new roommate onto the lease. The actual lease has amounts and information in there from 2014. He never even bothered to update it to the current amount of rent until this month.
When I moved in I was told I needed to give the security deposit to the girl I was subleasing for. When my other roommate moved out a few months later to move into an apartment with her boyfriend, the guy she found to sublease paid her a security deposit. They are the original tenants, and for some reason I absolutely do not understand, the "landlord" keeps the deposit, and it's even stated in the lease that deposits are supposed to be handled between tenants. In fact, the whole lease is riddled with unnecessary fees and lines pretty much stating "You guys work it out between yourselves."
When I put up an ad for the apartment I was contacted by now roommate, but after talking to him and his boyfriend I emailed the landlord and said I was not comfortable with them as roommates as they did not seem to have any real plan for income/life when they moved here, and the vibes one of the boyfriends gave me made me uncomfortable and sketched me out. He emailed me back and essentially bullied me into keeping them as roommates because they had already paid an application fee and in not so many words told me to fuck myself. Again, I have never dealt with this sort of thing before, so I had absolutely no idea what to do or say and never brought it up again.
When I contacted the roommates about the security deposit it was agreed that he would pay me half then and half when he got here. He is now refusing to pay the other half of the security deposit because, according to him, the house was "filthy." I have absolutely no way to express how inaccurate this was. The room he took over needed to be dusted, the refrigerator/freezer needed to be cleaned out, and that's pretty much the extent of the "filth." I am not a filthy person, and it's an unfortunate thing to admit, but I grew up in substandard conditions due to one reason or another, so to say I was extremely turned off and annoyed with his attitude is an understatement. I brought up the remaining security deposit to him several times, and each time he completely ignored me. Even going so far as to outright skip answering that part of a question I sent him in a text.
When it became clear that he was not going to give me the remaining deposit I knocked on his door and he told me "I'm having a hard time justifying paying the security deposit when I don't know what it's being used for and the landlord is doing nothing to correct the situation." (He emailed the landlord about his concerns and the landlord, again, emailed back and said it was his problem.) I got extremely frustrated and angry at this point because I refuse to live here for another year and I want to get my security deposit back so I can use it for another apartment/to break my lease. I've brought this up to him several times and each time he keeps telling me "Well you can find someone to pay you the rest of it."
All of my friends say that that's what I should do, but I don't think it's fair to ask someone else to pay for something that he knew he needed to pay, and I 100% can tell you already when he decides to move out he'll be asking for the full deposit even though he's not paid it in full. They have even slyly mentioned several times how much bigger my room is than theirs and how when I move out they'll move into it. I only ever mentioned I was looking at apartments because they mentioned it, and now their tune is completely changed and they're trying to "help" me find people to sublease and take over. I've told them it makes me uncomfortable and I'm not moving just yet, yet they keep doing it. Regardless of his feelings on the state of the apartment when he moved in, I was wondering what, if any, legal action could be taken concerning this. Completely removing him and his boyfriend from the situation (who isn't even supposed to be here, as the lease states the max occupancy is 2), I no longer wish to deal with the "landlord" as the rent was just raised by almost $80 and I refuse to pay $900/mo to a person I've never even met, has bullied and threatened me, and who does absolutely nothing for the apartment.
Submitted August 18, 2016 at 10:37AM by barcelonas http://ift.tt/2beCn48 legaladvice
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