New Mexico. My husband and I have been renting this place for 2,5 months. The owners are two female attorneys.


1) Before we signed the contract, we asked about all costs and specified also hidden costs. We asked particularly about the costs for washer and dryer in the houses laundry room, because it is used by other tenants in the house, too. -

The answer was, that all costs for the washer and dryer would be free for us, this would be paid by the landladies. -

After moving in and receiving incredibly high Gas bills, we found out that the Gas-Pipeline for the washer's hot water leads into the Gas heater which belongs to our apartment. This means we are paying the Gas for our neighbor's hot water when they use the laundry. Of course we are not understandable with that. If we would have known that, we not would have moved in as we do not see why we should be paying somebody's hot water for laundry. -

The contract says nothing about us having to pay the Gas for the washer.


2) In the meantime, 6 weeks ago we found a little abandoned puppy in the icy snow and took him home. Now we asked to add this dog in our pet's agreement, as we are only allowed to have one dog, and we already have one so now we have two.




Today the landladies replied that we can have a compromise: they let us keep the dog if we go on paying the Gas.

I was visited by one of them today. She went off at me when I started questioning such deal. I asked her, how much we would have to pay to keep the little dog. Suddenly she asked me if we want to stay. I replied YES, and then I asked back, if she wants us to move out. She didn't answer.

Our lease is fixed until February 2008.

By the way, we always keep the dogs in dog kennels when we're away, and they haven't messed up a thing. They are well behaved.


Do we have to stay?
Can they kick us out because we have a second dog? How soon can they make us leave?
Any good advice is highly appreciated.


Thank you very much,
Lilly07 :(

Today the landladies replied that we can have a compromise: they let us keep the dog if we go on paying the Gas.....

Do we have to stay? Can they kick us out because we have a second dog? Hello Lilly:

If you keep the dog and don't get their permission, you can be evicted. Depending on how your lease is written, you, on the other hand, probably can't break your lease. Ergo: even if you prove the gas goes where you say it does, you indicated that the agreement regarding the gas and the neighbor’s usage thereof, was VERBAL.

In real estate matters, the written word is king. Therefore, in my view, a judge is going to go by the written lease, plus you're renting from two attorneys... Uhhhhh, they're going to sue you. Count on it.

I would have taken the deal.

excon

You appear to be breaking the lease by adding another pet without permission. From what you said, ot seems that there is a pet clause written into the lease.

However, if the lease specifies that you will not be paying the costs of the laundry machines yet you can prove that you are providing the hot water, you might have an issue. If the statement about the costs was not in writing then you are stuck.

You can check the sticky note at the top of this forum for NM rules on evicitions.

Hi all, thanks for the replies.

I am the spouse from Lilly and wanted to go further into this.

After reading the Lease Agreement once again and again, I am not able to find anything in there about the Laundry use or the costs of the Laundry room and who is responsible for the costs. But, there is also nothing in the lease about the gas for the washer in the Utilities part of the contract either.

When the Landlord informed us that the use of the Washer and Dryer is permitted and paid we decided to move in. What if this information was in the Newspaper Ad? This would be proof that they flat out lied to us.

If anything, I would sue them and they wouldn't have any case to sue us.
Wouldn't that be considered Fraud what has happened and as far as I know Fraud is a Crime. I mean, maybe things changed in the past 19 years as I was abroad, but I don't think so.

If they are not understandable with the 2nd dog, then they have to give us a written notice of eviction as stated in the lease contract.

Is the law only on the Landlords side in NM?
Do we Tenants have to tolerate being lied to and being ripped off?

It is our hard earned money which is going towards others clean clothes and Gas is, as we all know, EXPENSIVE!
If needed, I will write to the Attorney General's Office and do all that is needed to get our rights.

If they do come to the conclusion that they want to evict us, would we have to pay until the end of the lease?

Does anyone know about the "Owners-Resident Relations Act [section 47-8-1 to 47-8-51 NMSA 1978] ? I will try to find this on the web also. A link would be helpful. :-)

Thanks for all replies and we will be grateful for more.

Lilly & Sean.

First, it would depend on the wording of the ad. I would be surprised if the ad was detailed enough to provide the proof you need.

Second, if they do evict you, you wouldn't be responsible for any rent after the eviction. And yes, they would have to go through eviction proceedings.

Frankly, however, I can't imagine that that the laundry appliances are using that much gas.

Yes and in the end, the details of the written lease take over for anything said, if it is not spectficly in the lease it is not period.

An attorney would say that no matter what was "discussed" before, was only negotiation and what happened was the final lease.

Unless the washer and drier are coin operated, the landlords are thinking of their use by the tenants as being free. Not that it is correct, but landlords often split the expenses of common areas between the tenants that live in the structure. Example: the cost of the outside lighting, hallway lighting, basement lighting is on the upstairs tenant's circuit. The cost of the water and heating the water and the electric for the drier is metered with the downstairs tenant. You may find that the other tenant is paying for some of the services that you use. In the landlord's eyes, it is balanced out. The other way landlords sometimes solve this problem is by estimating what the cost of the common areas would be and raising the tenant's monthly rent to compensate.

As far as the dog issue. You are breaking the legal agreement by having a second dog. Do you understand that if the dog grows up and bites someone, it is the landlord who will be listed on the law suit? The injured person will go after the person with the deepest pockets, which is usually the landlord. By keeping a second dog, you have doubled the landlord's liability. Could be there are limits on the number of pets his insurance company is willing to carry. There are four breeds of dogs that insurance companies will not insure and in fact will cancel the landlord's insurance if he rents to people that house those breeds. You didn't mention what type of dog you found.

Thanks once again.
I would like to shed a little more light on this subject. I have been studying the lease and I believe I wrote it down once before, in the Utilities part of the lease it states that we pay gas, elect. sewer, cable TV refuse and water for our unit at the address on the lease with specific nr. But it doesn't state that we pay to the heating of the water for the use of the washer in the laundry room. Here is the relevance between Electricity and gas :

Elect : 0.0788440 p.kWh

Gas: 0.8659000 p.Therms

Even if the other tenant does pay the electric, the relevance is still not available. If this is the case, this should be noted in the contract also and it is not in the contract. That the Landladies claim, that they don't know who pays for the gas is absolutely Ridiculous. We have caught them in their own lies about three times now. They want to try and hold the dog issue over our heads and try to blackmail us in informing us that we can keep the dog if we keep paying the gas bill. There is another thing that lilly informed me of this morning on my way to work. The LL told her "well, than you will just have to find out yourself " (pertaining to the gas and where the hotwater line goes too)

I understand that NM is like in the old west, but back then the people had rights also. Maybe they took things into their own hands back then but now we have a Justice System in place that is suppose to protect both parties. It sounds like we as tenants must suck up everything and just be happy that they took us in.

I will be writing a letter to the Attorney Genneral's Office today and I am off tomorrow and will have a State Inspector come out and give me his Evaluation in writing and then will confront the LL.

I am not worried about having to move, if they are so heartless towards animals. Oh yea, we really don't know what type of dog she is. I'll post a picture.

Thanks again.

There are two different issues here. (1) You are not abiding by the lease since you have more than one dog. If they decide to post an eviction notice and you do not remedy the situation by getting rid of the dog, they may follow through with the court. When you get to court, NO ONE is going to listen to anything that has to do with the washer and drier. They are not going to evict you because of the washer and drier, so they are not going to listen to or consider the relevancy. (2) The question is do you want to be evicted? Can you suffer the financial consequences, the inconvenience AND find another landlord willing to accept two dogs? If the public record of an eviction and moving is less important than being right about the utility usage, that is up to you. Think about it? Isn't there a saying about "Being dead right?"

Hi,
That is the reason we informed one LL about the dog to have the pup added to the pet agreement.
They really don't have to evict us. We would leave on our own if it comes down to giving up the pup or the house. We would lean more towards the moving part.
I get the feelinf that the landlords can really do what they want. To try and blackmail us in asking us if we want to stay, then we can keep the dog but keep paying the high gas bills. For that money, I would rather move.
If we give in and comply to what they want, what comes next. How long do we have to live with the fact that they holdd the dog over our head? The worse thing is and I don't know if I already said this, but I think I did, there Laywers themselves and want to rip off their tenants.
If they don't except the dog, then we will go, we won't let these thiefs have something to hold against us.
Thanks for the answer. I think you can Imagine that we are disappointed and disgusted with this whole thing. Oh yea, we don't pay anything at the present time for the first dog. They even have animals themselves and said that they have nothing against dogs.

Oh well, it sounds to me that we are back in east germany or North Korea. I am extremeley baffeled.

If we were junkies, messies or loud and abnoxious, I could understand it, but I am collector and lilly is in the med. Field and we are very law abidding citizens. I can't understand it all.
I will try and get a jump on them. Then we will see what happens. How many tenants before us did they rip off like this?? That is a question that will never be answered. I guess you are aloud to be as dishonest as one likes to be, the law is on your side.

Thanks again... sorry, I am really ticked off @ these people.

Sean

Sean, please be very careful in how you handle this. You are angry now and ready to fight two lawyers. The results of your actions now could follow you for several years. There are going to be financial responsibilities you need to think about. Maybe it would be wise to let a week or two go by and then think about what you want to do next. Some landlords do think of themselves as "little gods".

Thanks for the tip.

Yea, I am really mad...

Thanks.

Talk about going off the deep end. I really think you have over reacted to the extreme. Again, I can't believe just operating a washer and dryer is going to have that big an impact on your gas bill. So you really don't know how much its costing you. You also don't know how much of your usage is being borne by other tenants.

The only facts I see here is the fact that you violated the lease by adding a pet without permission. I really don't see how you get off comparing what's happening here to East Germany or North Korea. I don't even know if the landlords are really trying to rip you off or not.

you are right in one point, I really don't know how much it is costing us. That is correct. The usage of the washer and our gas that we pay for others to wash their clothes (with a size of 60x34 in jeans and xxxxL shirts) they wash 4 loads a day compared to our 4 loads a week. As a matter a fact, I just got off the phone with our Landlady and she admits that she didn't tell us that we will be paying the gas for others to wash their clothes.
Now she is saying that she would compromise if we keep paying the gas she would accept the 2nd dog.
One is able to blackmail the other and if we do go to court, we have no rights... That is like living in the old Germany or N.Korea where you have no rights. Maybe we did break the lease with the 2nd dog, I am not saying that we are in the right with that but I am not the type of person to determine the death of a puppy in a shelter that is already overflowing. They have five days to live in there and then they receive their shot.

There is one other thing where you are right. I am very irate about being lied to just to get a tenant. If we would have known this from the beginning, we would have never signed the lease.
Is it OK if your neighbor taps into your gas that you pay and dosen't inform you of it? I think you would not be very pleased about it either.

Please try to understand that we were not informed of this and try to put yourself in our position.

Thanks again

Sean & Lilly

I understand your position. I'm not saying you don't have reason to be upsaet. But I still think its an overreaction. This is not blackmail, its called negotiation. You want to keep the dog, they want to keep the status quo on the utilities. Granted there is sometimes a fine line between blackmail and negotiation, but I don't think its been crossed here.

Whenever you rent in a 2 family home, there is often issues about how utilities are divided. Its not unusual.

But, again, I think you go off the deep end with your Germany and Korea references. You DO have rights, but so do the landlords. One of the rights you have is to move. That may not be your preference, but its one of your freedoms.

Maybe we did break the lease with the 2nd dog, I am not saying that we are in the right with that but I am not the type of person to determine the death of a puppy in a shelter that is already overflowing. They have five days to live in there and then they receive their shot.Hello again, sean and lilly:

So, because you're a wonderful and humane person, you can break the lease, but when they do it, they're N. Koreans?? Sean and Lilly - chill!

You both broke the lease. You're both bad and wrong! There's a deal on the table to fix it. It's called compromise. Nobody is ever happy with compromise. But they're happier than they would be on the street.

excon