Ask Me Help Desk - Dead beat landlord

My wife and I have lived in the same house for 13 years now and have never missed one monte rent. Our Landlord is a reactive landlord to problems but never proactive and what I mean is this. In the 13 years we have lived here we have had the refrigerator, stove and dishwasher replaced and of course he got the absolute cheapest crap you could find. That is not the problem. The problem is in the 13 years we have been here he has never put so much as a stroke of fresh paint or new carpet. We have complained for years about the roof leaking which he finally fixed. The main problem is we had to have the dinosaur furnace replaced about 10 years ago and because it was cheaper he put another oil one in. We found because he did not want to spend the money like he was told to replace the duct work and about 6 months ago we had to have a furnace replaced again because the duct work was so clogged and the main flu was on the ground for years and exhausting into the house which caused everything to turn black. We kept having them come back and were told stupid things like it was candles when it was getting into cabinets. It got to the point that we got sick of living in a dump so we told the landlord we were painting and going to deduct it from the rent. This fumes for years I truly believe were causing my constant headaches and my wife breathing go so bad that she has special medicine for it now that cost hundreds per month. This is only part of it. Now he says he will pay of the supplies but he is not responsible to pay for the hours of work that my wife and I did to clean the walls of soot and ash as well as paint. Now because I refuse to pay the rent to him for the time which is less than if he hired someone hew is kicking us out after almost 14 years. I have paid him over 120,000.00 in almost 14 years and is kicking us out over 3600 dollars. This is just one of the injustices that I have had to deal with and I fed up with this?? He needs to get a taste of his own medicine. Please give some advice or advise to an attorney in Fayetteville NC that WINS.

Here is a handbook laying out the responsibilities of both the landlord and tenant in NC: http://www.ncdoj.gov/getdoc/65f98289...t-booklet.aspx.

You can't withhold rent unless you follow the proper procedure. I didn't go over this in full, so I'm not sure what you have do exactly, Its spelled out in the handbook. If you didn't follow the rules you have to pay or be evicted. However, it appears you may have a case to bring to court. He can't just kick you out. He has to go to court to obtain an eviction order and that means a hearing. You can bring your proofs and repair history, etc to the court to fight the eviction.

On a separate note, however, is don't play the "I have paid him over 120,000.00 in almost 14 years" card. You got a roof over your head for what you paid. It doesn't matter what you paid in the past. But showing that you always pay rent on time, will show that you did not withhold rent lightly.

You don't get new carpet or paint while you live in the space... thats how it is for most places. If the carpet wore out in 14 years you lived there... you have been abusing it. I've had the same carpet for the last 17 years... and I don't know how many years it was in the house before I bought it... and it was far from new then, My mother has over 20 years in hers and it still looks great. Same with appliances... he paid for them... he owns them.. why should he get the best most expensive ones out there?

Same with the walls... if you wash them from time to time and don't bang things into them all the time... they will last a very long time. Paint and new carpet isn't a shortcut to avoid washing the walls and the occaisional carpet cleaning and regular vacuuming.

He owns the house... its his choice what kind of furnace he puts in... its not yours. As Scott already said... there are only certain specific situations you can withhold rent... so I won't go into that.

And I also agree, how much you paid over the years has no bearing... you were paying for use of the property he owns... you don't own it... he does.

If you aren't happy with how everything is... (outside of the legally required minimums) you can always move to another place... but you will deal with the same things there. The landlord is in the business to make money.

I've been on both sides of this... if you don't like renting... go out and buy your own place... when you pay the property taxes... Insurance... and start paying to fix everything that breaks... you will see you don't have a lot of money to spend up the upscale stuff.

If they spend lots on upscale funishings and furnace etc... the rent would have to rise significantly to recover those costs before they are expected to wear out.

You are spoiling the stew by throwing in too many ingredients. Concentrate on the boiler and how the flue spewed fumes into the house. If you had called the building inspector years ago, the owner might have been slapped with a violation. You are going about all of this all wrong.

It sounds like your rent has been about $800/mo, if the same for 13+ years. That's a pretty good deal for a whole house. You are dreaming if you think you are going to get anything but the cheapest appliances and heating. Many landlords let the ones that aren't necessary, like dishwashers, break and don't replace them unless they are in the lease. If you had saved $200/mo during those 160 months, you'd have had the down payment on your own house.

Anyway - back to the problem. Call the building inspector! Give the $3600 to a lawyer to put in escrow! Do this RIGHT!

According to Part 11 of Scott's link, NC does not allow tenants to withhold rent (even putting it in escrow) unless agreed upon in writing by the landlord or a court order.

Something I noticed that the booklet seems to stress is that issues and repair requests are supposed to be in writing. Did you give written notice of your complaints to your landlord?

I do have a couple of other issues with your post that I forgot to address.

Quote:

because it was cheaper he put another oil one in

There has been a battle between natural gas and oil for years. It goes in cycles. Sometimes Oil is cheaper, other times Natural Gas is. Frankly, I feel safer with oil because its not subject to explosions. With an oil burning furnace, annual (at least) maintenance needs to be done. I don't know who pays for the oil but I have an annual cleaning from my Oil company which includes checking the chimney and flue and cleaning them. So I don't know if this was your responsibility or his. But if he is the contractor with the Oil company, you still should have insisted on annual maintenance.

Quote:

he is not responsible to pay for the hours of work that my wife and I did to clean the walls of soot and ash as well as paint

No he is not responsible to pay for your time. He would however, be responsible to pay for a contractor's time. So you should have worked that out with him. And you should have given him proper notice that you were going to do this and how much you were going to charge him for it. As Cat pointed out you can't just decide to withhold rent. it has to be done the right way.

He is responsible for providing an habitable home. If he was not doing so, you had recourse to force him to do so. Calling in the health dept and building dept among them. The problem here is you did not educate yourself as to your rights as a tenant. Especially in this information age where such rights are easily looked up (I found the handbook I linked to in less than a minute).

Please don't get me wrong, I'm not saying your landlord is a prince and you are the bad guy. Clearly, he's a skinflint who is trying to squeeze the most out of his property. But except for the roof issue, it does appear he responds to problems. Maybe not in the way you want, but he does.

Just to make sure I understand - the $3600 is what you want to charge the landlord for your labor to wash and paint the walls (not supplies) - correct? Good luck with that - without so much as a verbal commitment from him to pay you for your labor I don't see how you would win that.

If you go to court over this, you will need to get estimates from cleaners and painters to show that what you are billing him for is reasonable.

In that time and price, you could have bought a house!