Apartment Leases

Darkewolfe

I've been renting a room for several months now, with no major problems. Recently there've been escalating tensions over space in the house, and interactions between the landlord and renters have gone cold. Last Saturday the landlord said he had a lease he wanted us to review, but when no one was in the house at the same time he didn't present it. (I was around most of the weekend.)

Yesterday he e-mailed us copies of the lease, I had a few concerns and forwarded it on to my father so his lawyer could look at it for me. All three of the renter's responded to the e-mail with the equivalent of, "Let's meet, discuss and sign it next weekend." My response included the information that I needed time to have the lawyer look it over.

The landlord responded that while that was fine, the lease had to be signed by May 1, which doesn't leave me time to get in touch with my father, who travels. I find it odd that we're moving from never having any sort of lease to a lease that has to be signed four days after its initial presentation. He kind of has us over a stump here, since without a lease we also have no renter's rights. Anyone have any ideas why he might have such a strict deadline, or advice on what to do if things go south?

Thanatos

Darkewolfe wrote: »

I've been renting a room for several months now, with no major problems. Recently there've been escalating tensions over space in the house, and interactions between the landlord and renters have gone cold. Last Saturday the landlord said he had a lease he wanted us to review, but when no one was in the house at the same time he didn't present it. (I was around most of the weekend.)

Yesterday he e-mailed us copies of the lease, I had a few concerns and forwarded it on to my father so his lawyer could look at it for me. All three of the renter's responded to the e-mail with the equivalent of, "Let's meet, discuss and sign it next weekend." My response included the information that I needed time to have the lawyer look it over.

The landlord responded that while that was fine, the lease had to be signed by May 1, which doesn't leave me time to get in touch with my father, who travels. I find it odd that we're moving from never having any sort of lease to a lease that has to be signed four days after its initial presentation. He kind of has us over a stump here, since without a lease we also have no renter's rights. Anyone have any ideas why he might have such a strict deadline, or advice on what to do if things go south?

Are you living in the landlord's house, or is it just a property the landlord owns that he's renting to you?

Because if he's just renting the place to you, lease or no lease, you absolutely are a tenant, and have all the protections that go along with that.

Darkewolfe

I'm not sure I understand the distinction, unless you mean am I renting an entire property from him, or just living in the house he lives in. I am renting a room in the house he lives in. The city is full of tiny block houses. This one has three bedrooms, a livingroom, two bathrooms and a kitchen. Two people rent rooms, the landlord and his girlfriend occupy the third. The rest is shared space.

Thanatos

Darkewolfe wrote: »

I'm not sure I understand the distinction, unless you mean am I renting an entire property from him, or just living in the house he lives in. I am renting a room in the house he lives in. The city is full of tiny block houses. This one has three bedrooms, a livingroom, two bathrooms and a kitchen. Two people rent rooms, the landlord and his girlfriend occupy the third. The rest is shared space.

Then you may or may not be a tenant according to local laws. You should call up a local tenant's association, see what the laws are, or just ask your dad's lawyer.

vytrox

Lease or not, whenever you rent something there should be some sort of rental agreement before you move in.

Like Thanatos said your rights are going to vary greatly depending on where you are. Generally speaking though if he lives in the house it will be easier for him to kick you out.

I don't understand why you can't just pay your May rent and tell him to give you a week to sign the lease.

witch_ie

You should do what makes you feel comfortable with regard to the lease, but most rental agreements are standard and do not necessarily require the use of a lawyer. Is there a reason other than just feeling secure signing the lease that you want a lawyer to look at it? Is there something in it that you don't agree with?

Darkewolfe

Sorry about disappearing for a bit. The landlord refuses to let us have an internet connection, and I haven't swung through the forums while at the office recently. An ultimate summary of what transpired can be abbreviated to: The landlord didn't want tenants any longer and decided to include provisions in a lease and "house rules" contract to drive the tenants to move out. There was no formal lease originally, although there were some verbal agreements. I wasn't sure what was going to happen and so was concerned what my legal options might be, but we reached an easy solution when the other tenant and I found new places to move into next month.

Thanks for the responses, sorry I wasn't ultimately more useful in providing details when it was relevant. I was panicking over a total of... let's see... something like 30 pages of lease and miscellaneous rules, some of which were pretty disturbing to someone who might not have been able to move out if some things hadn't fallen into place.

shutz

Maybe this is "out-of-scope" for this forum, but since you won't be signing that lease anyway, I'm curious to read some of the clauses and rules that had you worried. If you can post some of these here, we could comment and/or laugh at the landlord for being so abusive.

If the landlord was able to fill 30 pages with rules and stipulations, some of them are bound to be entertaining.

I just signed a lease with a new landlord last Friday, and he used the standard lease contract that can be bought at various office supply stores here in Québec. The only addition was a one-page sheet that listed (in a multi-generational, photocopied, very small dot-matrix type) a bunch of expected and reasonable rules (who's responsible for shovelling snow, whether pets are allowed, that sort of thing. It was so old that for a few of the rules, he made it clear that he was flexible (such as the "no exterior antenna can be installed" when I saw that some of the other tenants already have digital satellite dishes up, and he confirmed that he was ok with that as long as I consult with him on the placement before installation.)