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Anyone familiar with King County (WA) tenant/renting laws?
neville
The Worst Gay(Seriously. The Worst!)Registered User regular
The Worst Gay(Seriously. The Worst!)Registered User regular
Keith & I are living in King County in Washington.
Our landlords are violating our lease; they have a "24 hour repair guarantee"
Under the terms of it, they will waive every day's rent until a repair is completed if it isn't done within 24 hours.
We've had over 20 pages of complaints by their documentation (seriously). Stuff that just never got fixed right... Several things which were not cosmetic problems took 5, 6, or 7 times to finally get fixed.
Now that we have made it "official" (I filed a BBB complaint against them), they are starting to be extremely hostile towards us (one of the office people will not deal with us at all, apparently) and are enforcing things on our lease that isn't done for others and wasn't before
I have looked into laws and it looks like Arbitration is the way to go.
I'm also considering small claims or perhaps hiring a lawyer, but its over $3000. So I don't want to spend half that just getting a lawyer on the matter.
Anyone else familiar with the laws here?
The problem is they do come to "repair" it.... their repair people are just beyond terrible and do a horrible job. In my book, saying "DURRR I FIXED IT" 7 times before you get it right doesn't mean you did it right the first 6.
The last formal meeting we had, the Senior Property Manager told me our facts were "opinion" and then busted out with: "Well, you're entitled to your opinion. Isn't that what makes our country great?"
Our landlords are violating our lease; they have a "24 hour repair guarantee"
Under the terms of it, they will waive every day's rent until a repair is completed if it isn't done within 24 hours.
We've had over 20 pages of complaints by their documentation (seriously). Stuff that just never got fixed right... Several things which were not cosmetic problems took 5, 6, or 7 times to finally get fixed.
Now that we have made it "official" (I filed a BBB complaint against them), they are starting to be extremely hostile towards us (one of the office people will not deal with us at all, apparently) and are enforcing things on our lease that isn't done for others and wasn't before
I have a pet hedgehog, who they have known about.
He NEVER leaves his cage. He doesn't smell or make any mess.
The ONLY reason they know about him is because they have come through our apt numerous times because their repair guys are incompetent, hence we keep complaining.
Now they are demanding a $400 pet deposit, $200 of which is refundable.
Way too convenient to happen NOW and not 2 months ago
He NEVER leaves his cage. He doesn't smell or make any mess.
The ONLY reason they know about him is because they have come through our apt numerous times because their repair guys are incompetent, hence we keep complaining.
Now they are demanding a $400 pet deposit, $200 of which is refundable.
Way too convenient to happen NOW and not 2 months ago
I have looked into laws and it looks like Arbitration is the way to go.
I'm also considering small claims or perhaps hiring a lawyer, but its over $3000. So I don't want to spend half that just getting a lawyer on the matter.
Anyone else familiar with the laws here?
The problem is they do come to "repair" it.... their repair people are just beyond terrible and do a horrible job. In my book, saying "DURRR I FIXED IT" 7 times before you get it right doesn't mean you did it right the first 6.
The last formal meeting we had, the Senior Property Manager told me our facts were "opinion" and then busted out with: "Well, you're entitled to your opinion. Isn't that what makes our country great?"
neville on
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I would hold them to the waiving of rent, not to the time that the idiot showed up and says it's fixed, but when it's actually fixed, although I would expect them to fight you on this.
Unfortunately, you can't do anything about them enforcing rules, even if they aren't enforcing them on others. Unless they are doing it because of race, religion, sex, age or others that are federally protected under the discrimination laws, and even if this was the case, it would be hard to prove.
I would fight this tooth and nail. I would ask to see their pet policies IN WRITING, because it is HIGHLY UNUSUAL for landlords to require any kind of pet deposit for a small caged animal. If they still demand payment of the deposit, I would tell them since they were aware of your pet earlier and didn't require a deposit that the best you can do is pay them half the deposit, and make sure that they put the words pet DEPOSIT on the receipt. Unless it's a pet FEE, they have to refund it, or charge you appropriate fees, like pet stains or other damage. If you do end up paying a pet fee make sure that you do a walk through when you move out so they can point out all the things that they are going to dock you for. Blame everything on the pet, so that it has to come out of the pet deposit first, since you probably won't see that money back anyway. That way they can't keep your money for the pet, and then dock your other deposit.
I wouldn't bother with a lawyer. It will cost a lot of money, and what are you really going to get out of it? I would just look into moving elsewhere if possible. You could even tell them that they are breaking the terms of your lease and try to get out of your lease that way. Apartment managers are pretty used to screwing people over and most people don't ever bother to fight back because of the hassle.
Best of luck
I met with one of the two managers today (the lower ranked one).
She felt they upheld their end by getting a repair guy to our apartment "whenever it was requested."
The fact they didn't do it right?
Well, she said I was a robot and had expectations past which "normal people" could meet.
"We can't fix it perfectly the first time, we're not machines"
Uhh. THEN WHY DO YOU HAVE A GUARANTEE?!
Oh, then she cried and called me a liar.
Overall great meeting, 10/10.
I don't want to just "move out" because that's giving in. I'd be happy to compromise on 1 month's rent refunded and perhaps let us move out/break out lease without penalty. At this point I don't WANT to live there, but I'll be damned if I give them another cent for anything that isn't directly for rent.
I'm going to at least consult a lawyer later to find out what he thinks.
However, I'd look for a new place of residence.
This is definitely a state-by-state situation. In PA, if you have any sort of pet, you HAVE to tell the landlord or its grounds for voiding the lease & eviction (99% of the time losing your security deposit to boot) whether the lease mentions pets or is silent.
My advice is that if you're so intent on battling over this, invest in an attorney. They'll take you 10x more serious if you have representation. Otherwise, cut your losses and leave.
At least send something certified mail.. start the documentation trail... conversations in the office won;t hold up anywhere that decides the outcome of this.
Librarians harbor a terrible secret. Find it.
But I digress.
There's probably something regarding your situation in the RCW Chapter 59.18, but I'll be damned if I can make sense of it. It seems that sections (2) and (7) of RCW 19.18.060: Landlord -- Duties pertain to the repair situation, however, your Senior Property Manager could be right in that the quality involved is "opinion." Hate to say it, but you would need Arbitration.
You're entitled to it. At least you would only be required to pay half of the fee. The only case in which you'd not want to take that route is if the landlord has failed to remedy a "condition [which] deprives the tenant of hot or cold water, heat, or electricity, or is imminently hazardous to life" within 24 hours, or remedy a "condition [which] deprives the tenant of the use of a refrigerator, range and oven, or a major plumbing fixture supplied by the landlord" within 72 hours, or "Not more than ten days in all other cases."
If that's the case, you can do any of this shit, which would get you out of your lease without penalty (but no rent refunds, unless it's pre-paid).
It's all a confusing mess wading through this, though--the state attorney general's webpage has a decent list of landlord-tenant resource links, including one regarding cheap legal counseling.
I've watched enough People's Court to know that if you do end up small claims court or something, you will need to have done this sort of thing.
Also, it seems like you have a list (or a copy of the list they made) of repair requests and when it was actually completed. This would be very important in small claims court too.
Finally, get a copy of the lease (if for some reason you dont have one) and a copy of that guaruntee (hopefully it was in the lease).
Obviously, IANAL, but these things will all be very important if worst comes to worst. Hell, maybe if something extremely crazy happens (I think the guaruntee is crazy enough, who does that?) you could take them to People's Court and get on. That way, you both get paid and you get to be on TV!
I agree, the rental company is skimping both on their repair people AND their office staff, but unfortunately that's what we have to deal with.
My friend mentioned my issue to his lawyer who deals with real estate. He said to NOT, under any circumstances, threaten to sue unless we fully intend on doing it. Saying "If you do not ____________ or we will sue" and then we don't sue means we are extorting them.
That seems odd, but I suppose it could be viewed as such, so we're being cautious.
We're already planning to check out some new places, since vacating (at some point) seems prudent. But we're not giving up on a settlement of some sort from them.
The limit in WA State is $4000 in Small Claims which is fine, since we will be seeking $3070 + fees + lost wages on the day of court for Keith & myself (if that is allowed, I'll ask)
We've been going back and forth with the BBB now.
Their response to the fact we have over 100 pages of documentation proving our case (and 4 witnesses) is basically "Nuh uh."
So I'm fairly sure this'll go to court, so we probably can't really discuss much else about it. :P