So my boyfriend and I moved into a basement apartment on June 1 that we found through a realty company. Since the day our lease started, we have been experiencing water leakage problems. It was determined that it was due to a broken pipe underground. After many other problems with the apartment, mold, mice, cracked ceiling seams, broken refrigerator, etc in the last few months, we decided to have a city housing inspector come in and take a look. We were tired of sleeping on the living room floor for 3 weeks while the mold problem was being remedied aka being 'treated' and painted over. Our issue is that the source of the moisture (two different sources) were still not fixed.
When we were complaining about the mold, he said that it wasn't the 'bad type of mold' basically saying he thought we were overreacting, he said in his 20 years he's never had this much contact with a tenant... He has called us millennials for expecting prompter replies to our requests for repairs.
There is chronic moisture in the apartment despite the having purchased a dehumidifier, which is kept on at all times. During the mold problem, we did not sleep in the bedroom for health reasons. We had to purchase an airbed to sleep on the living room floor for three weeks while the problem existed. The 8-drawer dresser had to be thrown away since the mold had permeated through the back into the drawer area were clothes were stored. Because of the water and mold problems, I had to have my clothes laundered twice. We have not been able to fully unpack because of potential water damage. Because of the initial water flooding and mold issues, we have not been able to use this unit to the as a proper two room unit that we signed a lease for.
The inspector said that in the city's database, it lists the house has having a finished basement, but with a living space of 0. He then connected us to a zoning specialist who informed us that the apartment actually does not have a Certificate of Occupancy, so it shouldn't have been rented to us in the first place. The original inspector said that in addition to multiple code violations, the unit would likely not qualify for a Certificate of Occupancy in the first place because it doesn't meet the requirements of being a habitable living space. (Most importantly, more than 1/2 of the floor-to-ceiling ratio is below the adjoining ground. aka below grade).
We figured it would be easier to have a civil conversation about our issues before taking legal action, so in the beginning of Sept, we asked to mutually terminate the lease, and the landlord said no, we are held accountable to the end and that he believed he had taken reasonable measure to address our issues. He said he would have the realtor list the apt for rent though and we would be held responsible until a new tenant was found.
It took a week for the realtor to even list the apartment on their website, and more than two weeks to even advertise it. The realtor was nasty to me on the phone saying that the process will follow his process. Everyone I tried to pass along to expedite the situation bowed out because they refused to pay a full month's realtor fee when they really weren't working with one.
After looking up more about tenant's rights, we found out that it is actually illegal to rent a unit without a certificate of occupancy:
Chapter 148 of the General Laws is hereby amended by inserting after section 34D the following new section: Section 34E. (a) Any owner, occupant, lessee or other person having control or supervision of any building or structure, or representing that he has control or supervision of any building or structure, who, knowingly, recklessly or negligently, causes or allows said building to be illegally occupied, shall be punished by a fine of not more than $15,000 or by imprisonment in a house of correction for not more than 2 ½ years, or both. For the purposes of this section, “illegally occupied” shall mean: — (1) Occupation of any dwelling unit created by formal or informal division or partition within a building or structure without issuance of a proper building permit and certificate of occupancy issued in accordance with the provisions of the State Building Code.
Finally, 4 months after the initial water problem, when the inspector sent the citation over, we also sent a letter of surrender of the unit. Walked out the door that very day and saw that the whole front yard was finally being dug up to repair the pipe after 4 months. Our landlord said "you have a lease, see you in court" in addition to some other condescending words.
My landlord has a law background, he has been the mayor of our city twice, it's hard for me to believe that he doesn't know better than to rent out a space that violates sanitary housing codes AND does not have a Certificate of Occupancy for it. AND he continues to try to do so to someone else after we have had it all documented. I wonder if he thinks he can get away with it, have people look the other way, or even cover up how he has handled the situation. What are our rights?
We are moving out today (end of the month). He has not responded to our letter. We already paid our last month's rent upfront, so I imagine we will have to fight for that back... or any other costs.
Additionally, is the realty company also accountable for renting us this unrentable unit? Are we entitled to a refund of the realty fees? It pains me that we coughed up a full month of rent to sign for a place that was a living hell for 4 months.
TLDR: I have a lease for an illegal apartment. Our landlord has threatened to take us to court. What should we do?
Submitted September 29, 2016 at 11:06PM by sleunger http://ift.tt/2duCjjR legal
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