I am currently living in an apartment pay month to month rent. I am wanting to move into a bigger apartment in the same building. The realty company has told me that they won't allow me to move from one apartment to another in the same building unless I pay a finder's fee (I paid one already when I moved into this apartment) and I paint the apartment I am moving out of. Now I can understand the finder's fee (although I don't like it) but is it legal for them to force me to paint the old apartment?

Thanks for the help!

Have you did damage to the paint.

If you just moved out to a new apartment complex would you have to paint. I know some states require every apartment to be re-painted after one tenant moves out before another moves in.

I guess the issue is have you lived there long ? Most likely they are just trying to get the painting fee out of you. If you had not lived there long and are no wanting to move, they may feel it is justified

I have lived in the apartment for a year and a half. I don't believe that is too short of time to be in the apartment. The super always paints new apartments that are up for rent, and the super knows someone who wants our apartment. I feel like the realty company is trying to take advantage of us.

Hello seraph:

No, he has no legal authority to require you to paint your apartment. However, if you want another apartment in the same building, he can tell you what he requires before he rents it to you.

If it were me, I'd tell this landlord to stick it.

excon

Legally he can't require you to paint. But, he also doesn't have to let you have the larger apartment.

The landlord has choices: He can rent the larger apartment to someone other than you and receive 100% of the rent. He can let you stay in your current apartment and receive 100% of your rent. If you want to move to a larger apartment, you are expecting him to pay to have your old apartment painted and the carpeting cleaned etc. The person he would have given the larger, and easier to rent, apartment too may go somewhere else. If you want to move to a larger apartment and leave an apartment that otherwise would not have to be painted... then you are going to have to make it worth the landlord's time and money.

Thank you for all your replies...

To the last poster:

I understand your logic, however I need to move out of the apartment I am in now because I am getting married and cannot fit two people in my current apartment. So either:

1) I change to a larger apartment in the same building and the landlord gets to keep me who has always paid rent early and paints the old apartment for a new tenant who is waiting to rent my apartment.

Or

2) I leave the current apartment and go somewhere else and the landlord looses a tenant who always pays rent early and now needs to paint the apartment anyway.

As an update to my question the super spoke today with the landlord and she relented in asking me to paint the apartment.

Something that I did not mention in the previous posts is that the landlord yelled for quite some time at my fiancé and I for just wanting to switch apartments... Well she asked the super to apologize to us on her behalf for treating us so badly and asked us to come back and speak with her again so we can make the deal.

At this point we might or might not take the apartment because we are still very upset over the way she treated us.

Again... thanks for all the help!

If you like the place and have had a good relationship with the LL I'd forgive her. Maybe she had something on her mind that day and you just happened to come in the line of fire. She's obviously remorseful about it.

I am movingout of my rented house next week, which I have lived in for two years, and I am completely re painting it. The way I see it is, it was newly painted when I moved in, so I should leave it the same way. That's how I was raised, to leave things as I find them.

You are probably right... That was the Monday after a weekend snowstorm and after she yelled at us we found out from other people that she is not a person to approach on Monday's because she has very bad mood swings sometimes.

To the above poster... I have never heard of a tenant needing to paint an apartment before they move out... In fact in some places like NYC it is the landlord's responsibility to paint the apartment for each new tenant.

My previous post was for the person who said that I should reconsider.