Is this really what renting is like now? (Pennsylvania, USA)
Just coming back into the rental market after owning a home for a short time. I found a place that would be great. Then, I got the lease.
This thing is a nightmare. Here are a few of the greatest hits:
- The lease lists my rent and then says they can charge "additional rent" which is "all added charges, costs, and fees for the duration of this lease." So, sounds like they can just make up a number and add it to the rent and I have to pay it?
- The landlord will make a "good faith effort" to make the apartment available to me when my lease starts. Shouldn't the landlord actually do that, not just make any sort of "effort" to do it, "good faith" or otherwise?
- If the unit is damaged such that I cannot live there while repairs are being made, the landlord "may" issue me a credit for the days I can't live there. What criteria will the landlord use? If they decide not to, that means I'll be paying rent for an apartment I cannot occupy?
This is a short lease — I've seen much longer in my time renting — but even so, I could come up with a dozen more examples like this. What is going on here? I've read the law in the area, and I suspect some of the clauses in here are actually unenforceable. For example, the lease allows for automatic rent increases at lease renewal without notification while the law requires 60 days notification, and it requires me to notify 14 days after notification of a rent increase if I do not accept where the law says I have 30 days to do so.
But how did we get here? I just want to pay a specified amount every month in order to be able to live in a space someone else owns. This should be relatively simple, but it's turned into this weird whack-a-mole game where every lease is a document of all that landlord's past tenant grievances they are trying to now avoid in the future, along with any other unreasonable terms they think they can get away with. Regardless of what the law is, the lease can say anything. If I read it and decline to sign, the next person will probably just sign it and hope for the best.
For those of you who are renting, how do you deal with this sort of stuff? Are there reasonable landlords still out there? Is the right way to buy a home just to escape from unreasonable lease terms, even if you don't really want to own?
Update: Possibly important context- This property is in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Generally they will need to be able to enumerate and justify the items that constitute "additional rent." These would be things like an additional charge for owning a pet, cleaning fees for if you (or a pet) befoul a common area, or charges for amenities like storage lockers or bike parking. They can't just charge you random sums of money. And they will need to inform you of them ahead of time.
It's not up to the landlord to decide what a good faith effort is, it's up to a court when you sue them for not making the space habitable. This is an out for cases such as natural disasters, structural or safety issues, or similar factors outside the landlord's control that makes the apartment not available.
Tenant's protection laws vary by municipality, but generally this is another instance where the criteria for causes to not issue a credit will be up for courts to decide if you contest it. Generally the reasons why they might not issue a credit is if the repair is for something you did, such as starting a fire in an apartment. Or if some crazy extenuating circumstance happens, like the whole town burns down or something.
The other parts about rent increases and stuff are just dumb. In any case where a contract disagrees with the law, it's the law that matters. Such contractual terms are unenforceable.
What mechanism forces them to do this? I would expect all of those things enumerated in the lease itself, and I would want it clear in the lease that the additional charges enumerated here are the extent of what I could be charged for "rent." This is written much too open-ended for something I could comfortably agree to.
What's the mechanism for deciding what a good faith effort is? Is it going to court? In my mind, if the property I'm renting hasn't been delivered to me on the date we both agreed upon, the landlord has not held up their end of the bargain and the terms of the lease have been violated. Of course, if the landlord isn't required to deliver the property on time in the lease, then the terms haven't been violated… but that's why I'm not inclined to agree to this.
It looks like this would be easy to write into the lease rather than using language that makes it appear I agree to just let the landlord decide whether or not to credit me. Can I live in the apartment I'm paying for? If not, is that my fault? If not, I get credited for the rent I would have paid. Seems fairly straightforward.
I think you're right, but I don't want to start a relationship with a landlord by trying to figure out which clauses in the lease contradict the law and would not be enforceable. That seems to me like a red flag that I've stumbled into the wrong landlord.
At a first pass general common decency. At a second level litigation or the threat thereof.
If an earthquake destroys the property before you move in, it is physically impossible for the landlord to hold up their end of the bargain despite all good faith efforts to do so. I think most people would agree that it would be unreasonable to hold them to anything when their building has been turned to rubble. The determination of what constitutes a good faith effort or not is up for a court to decide.
Everything seems straightforward until real life gets involved and all the edge cases hit. If these things were actually straightforward the legal profession wouldn't need to exist.
It could be. Or it could just be that they pulled a template off the internet from a different state or haven't updated their lease language since the legal standards have changed.
That's nuts. Everything you described is illegal here in Ontario Canada! Landlords must use the standard rental agreement and all apartments (except new ones, fuck you Doug Ford) are rent controlled (max inflation or 2%, whatever is lower).
Getting politicians to do this is nearly impossible and our current conservative government is definitely trying to dismantle these rights.
Edit: it's also currently pretty much impossible to kick out a tenant who pays on time. I have very cheap rent and I'm never moving until I get a house.
You think its good but from an AB landlord's perspective, that 2% rent control is a good way to drive LL's out of the market. With a variable mortgage on one house my payments have gone from 1400/mo just over a year ago, to just over $2200 last month. Combined with tax and insurance increases, my expenses are up almost $900 a year.
A 2% increase in rent would mean an increase of only $47 a year. Which makes owning the place quickly unsustainable. So if I sell to a homeowner there are now two less units on the market. If thousands of us small time LL's sell there are now thousands less units on the market. And what happens when supply shrinks as demand grows? Prices WILL go up. Which is why you end up with all kinds of methods that LL's use to get rid of tenants who are WAY under market rent in ON.
There are only two provinces with strict rent control in Canada - BC and ON. And guess which two provinces have the highest rents and tightest markets in Canada? Rent control does not work in the long run.
i’m not making a claim for or against rent control, but these two provinces have the highest population, as well as the highest demand for housing, so it’s not as straightforward as you claim
Fair. Although Id argue that the current demand for housing in Calgary, AB is the highest in the country right now. Eg. Demand for main floor suites has pushed rent from about 1500 to 2300/mo in just over a year and it shows no sign of slowing down. It will be the new Toronto soon but there is no way a UCP government is going to bring in strict rent control. The only restriction here is that you can't raise rent more than once in a year - which is also why ON and BC investors are flocking to buy property here.
It’s interesting that you look at the market as split into rented or owned, rather than invested or owner occupied. Neither is inherently right or wrong, obviously, it’s an arbitrary distinction - but I’d definitely be considering a sale from a landlord to a resident as increasing the availability to people who want to live in a given area rather than reducing the availability to those who specifically want to rent.
Either way it’s going to boil down to whatever increases absolute supply of units the most in the long run, though, so that’s not to say I necessarily think rent controls are the answer. Incentivising/backing massive amounts of co-op and other cost neutral non-profit housing seems the way to go in order to shift the market as a whole.
Yes, the long-term effects are why I’m in favor of mild rent control (for the state of California it’s 5% + cost of living) but not anything stricter. The combination of variable-rate mortgages and strict rent control is particularly bad.
I don’t understand why the Canada real estate market is so supply-limited, though. Given that real estate is so expensive and new housing isn’t under rent control, why aren’t a lot more apartments being built?
Several reasons why there aren't more apartments - a big one is that average build apartments aren't that profitable so the ones that are being built will either be higher end or condos, neither of which helps the 'average joe' find an affordable place to live.
Its VERY pricey to build or buy in many Canadian cities. Im not as familiar with apartments as I am with houses, but the house I paid 205k for about 15 yrs ago, would sell for close to 600k now. But to replace it with a new one like the ones just down the street would be over 830k. Just insane. So to even rent that out and just break even on your mortgage you'd have to charge $5k a month. Thats bananas! This is a very middle class, average suburban neighborhood, nothing fancy, but who the hell can afford a 5k rent payment for an average neighborhood house?
Yes, then the next question is why new buildings are so expensive. They’re very expensive in California, too. It seems like a worldwide phenomenon, but there are often local reasons?
Construction Physics has lots of articles about why attempts to build housing more cheaply have failed, in the sense that it doesn’t actually save very much money, so there’s little incentive to change. I guess it’s just difficult.
Even if only higher-priced housing can be built, it should have an indirect effect, because it does remove some well-off people from the markets for other kinds of housing. It isn’t useless.
This is sort of like how the market for new cars affects the market for used cars. More new car sales should mean less competition for used cars, and new cars eventually become used cars.
Car prices seem to be going up too, though.
I’m seeing something of a chicken and egg problem there, though - presumably land cost is a big chunk of that $830k, and of the extra $400k you’ve gained on your place, and that’s going to be directly supported by the other options in the local market, which are influenced by supply, which depends on the cost to build, which…
It’s turtles all the way down, basically, and in a lot of cases the status quo directly benefits those who make the choice whether or not to change things. None of that is to suggest it’s simple - quite the opposite, the whole problem seems wildly complicated and interconnected - but I do think some kind of external influence is needed to break the deadlock.
The one tool in the Bank of Canada's toolbox is the current massive rise in interest rates. Its at least stopping new house prices from escalating as quickly as many people cannot pass the stress test (If the current 5 yr mortgage rate is 6% then you have to qualify as if it was 8%). If the developers cant sell they eventually moderate prices. That's where we're at now. And if rates go any higher people will end up losing their homes so we're at the tipping point.
The other one that Pierre Polievre has hinted he would push is forcing a reduction in red tape to get new housing built. I experienced that hassle just in getting a new basement suite approved and its sorely needed, the whole process is a royal pain.
Another one that would help is allowing things like pre built homes and tiny homes in typical suburban neighborhoods but no one wants to have them next door. Cant say Id be thrilled either, but it would help if you could put a $150,000 home on a lot instead of a 400,000 stick built home.
Funny, but, as I was thinking about how to solve this problem, a standard rental agreement was one thing that occurred to me. I didn't know it was an actual thing that existed anywhere. 😅 Good work, Ontario!
I'd like to see something like this happen in the US. I figure that will actually come to pass once we've implemented single-payer healthcare and solved the climate crisis. 🙄
I could even see having a standard rental agreement and then offering landlords the option to use their own, but in that case, they would need to pay into a fund that provides legal counsel for each prospective tenant. This would present landlords with a tradeoff: they can have their onerous lease agreement, but it's going to cost them several thousand dollars per prospective tenant to do so. In cases where having a custom lease agreement is really critical, this would still allow for it to happen while generally providing protection for renters.
Most of the larger provinces in Canada have them. I live in BC and we have a Residential Tenancy Board. They have a standard rental agreement form that you print off, mark off what's included, and can add addendums at the end. It's fantastic as a landlord and a tenant. Addendums can get weird, but they can't supersede the law. And if a tenant files an RTB complaint about eviction or rent increases, they generally can't be removed from the property until the case is settled.
It's got its up and downs from both sides, but it also mostly protects tenants from being wrongfully evicted/removed. Still happens... But less so, I guess?
They're the EULAs of real estate. Often they just put in things that aren't enforcable to scare people. I'm not a lawyer and I'm certainly not your lawyer but AFAIK you simply cannot sign your rights away.
However, if you can't afford a lawyer to pick that fight over what parts are enforcable if you need to, then it is effectively signing your rights away.
Agreed, if it’s not legal, it remains non legal even when signing. But you need to fight it in court, which is a hassle. You can fight it directly with the landlord, before signing, but they might choose someone else.
I wanted to say that regulation (like in other countries) can help a lot in these cases, but it has to be enforced. And often it isn’t, so the problem remains.
My state, Arkansas, has absolutely zero renters rights. The lease can have literally any condition that isn't prohibited by federal contract law. Renters' can have zero expectations for delivery of a rental unit, habitability, etc
Also, a landlord can have you charged for a crime and jailed for not paying rent. It's often used as a quicker way to bypass the eviction process.
Arkansas is one of, if not the, worst states for tenants rights. I believe it's the only place in the US where landlords can just have a tenant arrested like that.
The vast majority of states have some degree of tenant protections, and many of them are quite strict.
For example in MA, many shady things that landlords try to get away with (illegally withholding security deposits, for example) are punished by automatically awarding triple damages to the tenant.
Definitely not my experience. Much of that 100% not legal here in NY state. If you're in the US, even small towns should have some kind of housing board or urban development. Contact them for resources. Keep this lease even if you don't plan to ever rent with this landlord so you have something to give the housing board or urban development board. If your town is large enough/proactive enough, you might even have a tenant advocacy group you can contact.
Also, leases are not set in stone. If you find a place that has a couple of things in the lease you don't care for, ask for changes to be made. Obviously this particularly landlord sounds very shady so I wouldn't bother trying to negotiate with them, but many other landlords who aren't corporations or who don't own vast swaths of homes are perfectly reasonable human beings and will change the lease if the changes are reasonable enough.
To answer your last question, I've rented from landlords who own 1-2 properties. They've been perfectly reasonable and wonderful humans - so they're still out there. My wife and I used to chill on the porch or living room and have a beer with our landlord when he'd come by to fix things or do minor seasonal maintenance.
I'm pretty sure a lot of this is illegal here (in Philadelphia) as well… but it doesn't stop it from going into the lease! 😅 Then, the tenant is left having to decide whether to comply or hire a lawyer.
Your note about your experience is very reassuring. Thank you for sharing it. I'll keep looking!
Im the head of a LL group in our city and closely follow the largest one in our province. Something Ive learned from watching the comments in our groups is that there are two main kinds of LLs. There are the ones who go into it for a business and as such they try to do some research, but many of them learn the ropes along the way, finding out about the laws and regulations as they go. They get things sorted.
The other is the accidental LL. The one who inherited a house and didnt know what to do with it so they are renting it out. Or they moved in together and decided to keep renting out one place. They dont necessarily know anything about being a LL but they put in an ad and are surprised to find the place easy to rent - and then all hell breaks loose because they dont have a foggy clue what's legal or not or how to vet a tenant.
That makes sense. I don't think any of this is malice on the landlord's part, but I definitely still think it's a problem. Don't want to touch it with a ten-foot pole.
Like I mentioned in the OP, I suspect this happens because the lease agreement evolves to try to protect against every minor grievance a landlord has with any tenant, while writing those additional clauses to be as broad and favorable to the landlord as is possible within the limits of the English language. I think this is probably counter productive in the end. The people who will sign these leases are the people who don't read them and the people who, as a result, are likely to violate them or do other unreasonable things that will force the landlord to plug further "leaks" in their lease agreement.
I'm a reasonable person who takes their legal contracts seriously, so I'm reading this thing and saying, "Absolutely not!" In the meantime, I would probably be a tenant that would make this landlord's life super easy, and, if the landlord is actually a reasonable person, it would be a great relationship for both of us.
Fair enough. And like you, I read all legal documents carefully. I also hand over the lease and sit with my new tenants while they read the entire lease. Much better to have a few minutes of awkward silence while they read then to have questions come up later that were already answered in the lease.
I'm renting out my old apartment so I'm technically a landlord. Every time I see these US renting stories online I think "wow, I'm such an amazing landlord!"
Jokes aside, here in Portugal all of those things would fall afoul of legal protections, I think, including inflation control (rent updates are explicitly decreed by law every year).
OP didn't say they're in the US and these are, indeed, illegal or unenforceable in most (all?) of the US, and OP may be misunderstanding the implications. @NaraVara's comment gives a good, quick explanation.
Sorry. I am in the US. Philadelphia, PA.
Renting out a property here is extremely risky (too?), so I have a good notion of how a landlord might be trying to protect themselves. But even if the clauses aren't exactly enforceable, it has also been suggested in another comment that the tenant could be unwilling to litigate due to the expense and time investment required (litigation here is much cheaper, though it can still take quite a while, depending on the type of court). Here the landord just can't kick you out, period, and can't charge you anything not previously established in the contract.
US has been the general assumption by others, and is also a reasonable assumption since non-americans are usually more likely to point out where they're from (as seen elsewhere in this discussion too).
Yeah, this is the rub. The law provides some protection from stuff like this, but access to the law — and to those protections by extension — is extremely expensive, in terms of both time and money. $200/hour would be cheap, and I suspect the total cost something like this would be $10k and would take 18 months if everything goes as smoothly as possible… and you'll still have to live somewhere while all that is happening! If you're still living in the place you're suing, that's probably going to be a really bad time for you.
I wonder if any of that is enforceable. In Australia almost everything is standardised and there is nothing really that you can add to the rental agreement that is valid or enforceable.