[quote=UCGal]Your advice is practical… but it presents a moral hazard.
Tenants sign legal contracts in the form or rental agreements or leases. They agree to pay a specific amount in return for living in the apartment or house. If they stop paying, isn’t it the same as someone who buys a house, and stops paying the mortgage?
The landlord not paying the mortgage is a breach of their contract (mortgage) between the landlord and bank. The tenant is not a party to that contract.
Yes it sucks for the tenant if their landlord stops making payments. But isn’t withholding rent doing the same bad thing as the landlord… not paying ones agreed obligations?
Just my 2 cents.[/quote]
Your comment is accurate.
My advice makes no claims on morality.
My only defense here, is that residential rental real estate is truly the most savage side of real property that I have ever seen. That is saying a lot. There are very explicit laws that are violated as a matter of regular protocol and rights that are ignored publicly. Tenants’ rights are one of few actual causes that I believe in.
Lets take an example:
A large local rental management firm has a policy that they deduct a certain amount from a security deposit for every year of residency. This is done to offset the costs of paint and wear and tear. Even though this is in clear violation of the law (deposits are for damage, rent, or cleaning) this large firm (lets call them BON-AM) does this for hundreds of people every day. When confronted about this practice (by my friend-an agent) their general counsel explained that having to lose the occasional lawsuit was worth it due to all the revenue from the deposits.
Lets take another example:
Another large local firm (Lets call them Bootopia) managed a property my buyer lived in. When the property was seized by the bank (for non-payment) they sent the tenant to collection for non-payment of rent. This was illegal because they had no management agreement with the new owner (the bank) but my client’s credit was still affected.
This kind of crap happens all the time and nobody ever does anything about it.
Putting that differently, this is the wild west of real estate. If gunfights and vendettas are happening all around, I don’t think it is particularly immoral to bring a gun or to be prepared to shoot to defend yourself.
