Do I have to pay rent to the owner when the condo I ...

Submitted by k_c_elliott from CA - 08/07/2009 - 4:04pm

Do I have to pay rent to the owner when the condo I am renting is in short sale? I'd rather pay it to the bank or not pay at all as the owner has told me he doesn't even have the money to repay me my deposit. I didn't pay August rent and the owner is mad

You are not watching this post, click to start watching

Comments

Submitted by darlin19 - 10/02/2009 - 7:17am

I would like to know the answer to this one - as I did not get my security deposit back and the landlord even tried to evict our family!

Submitted by Tom Johnston - 05/07/2010 - 11:51am

It's likely that both of you have been made whole on your security deposits because you haven't had to pay rent for at least several months.

Submitted by darlin19 - 05/07/2010 - 5:49pm

I had the same thing happen to me. The owner was pocketing our rent the whole time and never made a payment to the bank in 6 months.

I did find out however that by law you are required to pay it - or they can evict you. The best thing to do is make a deal with them - and tell them you will pay them a lower amount - which is better than nothing at all.......and they will be happy to get something!

Because if you don't pay at all and get evicted - who looses out? You both do, you have moving expenses and he's got a house that's empty and not getting a dime for it.

Submitted by Tom Johnston - 05/07/2010 - 9:41pm

As long as you and the owner are both getting what you contracted for in the lease or rental agreement, and the owner continues to provide you with a safe well maintained residence in return for your rent, then the relationship the owner has with his lender is immaterial, and has no effect on the renter. However, if the owner's property management deteriorates, then you may have a cause of action under existing landlord - tenant law. Your lease/rental agreement makes no specification on how the Owner spends the rent.

Submitted by Tom Johnston - 05/07/2010 - 9:51pm

As a follow-up, and maybe I'm off base here, but it doesn't sound as if either of you likes or respects your landlords very much, even without considering the landlords' current financial challenges. Why not find a place to rent from a landlord you like and respect and with whom you can have a good business relationship?

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

More information about formatting options

Before You Post

All comments should be relevant to the topic of the post and are subject to the terms found in our User Agreement.

Asking a Question

If you'd like to ask a new question, please start a new topic.

Please no SPAM.

We nofollow all links and promptly remove unsolicited advertisements - spamming here is a complete waste of your time, so don't bother. Vendors who actually answer questions and provide value to our forums may include links to their company or service as part of their signature.