Can a landlord/property change my unit after approval? My boyfriend and I are currently in the process of moving across the country, about 650 miles. On September 2nd we visited a property in the area we will be moving to and we really liked it. After getting the info for the available units from the woman in the office we then went online to apply. We applied for a specific unit, lets just say unit #1A for example. We completed the entire application and paid the application fees and the 'Holding/Starting Security Deposit'(this is the exact wording from the page where we agreed to pay. We found out 2 days late that we had been approved and I was sent what I would call the welcome packet. These documents specify that we need to have renters insurance and how and when to switch the electric to our names. I also includes a list of the fees paid. On this list is says 'Application Fee Per Applicant: $60x2 PAID' and 'Administration Fee: $150 PAID'. I noticed here that it now says 'Admin Fee' and not Deposit, but didn't much of it. The next day I received an email saying the lease was ready for us to sign. So I logged in to take a look. When I opened it I noticed that the unit number had changed to unit #B2. I was very confused by this so I called the office, and this is what I was told. The unit we had applied for and been approved for was actually a renovated unit and we did not apply for a renovated unit. I told the lady that this did not seem right of them to just change the unit on us like this. She told me that we could have the original unit if we agreed to pay the higher price, which is out of our budget. She said that it was IT's fault that it had been listed wrong and that it was now fied. After I hung up with her I went to their website to check and sure enough the unit #A1 was still listed for the same price we had applied for and been approved for but now with a different availability date. I have done some looking and it seems to me that since we paid what I was told when paying the fee was the the deposit that they can not switch the unit on us. I have been trying to get ahold of the office now for 2 days with no answer. Plus watching their website and the unit #A1 is still listed for the same price now with another different availability date. They know we are moving from out of state and I do not remember the unit #B2 being listed as available when we did our application. So I guess my questions are: 1. What should I do? Can they do this, switch the unit like that? Should I try to push for the original unit #A1? I'm worried if I do this they will treat us horribly during our lease. Should I try to get my money back? If I decided to go with the new unit they assigned should I be worried about them trying to pull off shady stuff? I really don't know what to do but they don't seem to be trustworthy. But I need somewhere to live in two weeks. UPDATE: I spoke to the woman in the office finally yesterday(9/12) she told me that her manager would call me later but I was not contacted. Instead she called me back later and said they will just give me the original unit and renovate the other instead. However when I checked last night and again just now my lease papers still say the second unit and the original unit is still listed as available for the same price I applied for it at. Also I do have proof that according to their payment system I agreed to pay the Holding/Starting Security Deposit not the Admin Fee. This is what it said in their system when I entered my payment information and hit submit for the payment.
If you want to get out, and are willing to lose $270, you can not sign the lease and demand a return of your security deposit. You could ask for a return of the other fees as well, but you are less likely to be successful. They would probably have trouble enforcing a security deposit against you if you didn't have a lease with them, and would probably have trouble demanding you sign a lease when they changed the unit. You should probably get it all back, because you applied for it, but it probably isn't worth litigating over. I would also encourage you to turn to social media sites if they have one, or to sites like Yelp, if they do not. Many businesses are sensitive to this and if you are truthful if could provide you with some leverage.
There is certainly no legal problem in asking if the tenants would be agreeable with the landlord discontinuing the security service. Even if it were in the lease, a lease like pretty much any contract can be changed by mutual agreement of all parties (unless there is a law preventing such a change, which is rare and I do not think will apply in this case). A more difficult question would be if the landlord would be within his or her rights to discontinue the service without asking the tenants first, since it is not in the lease. Since the property was advertised as coming with the service, it might be held that the continued service was reasonably expected by the tenants, and thus an implicit term of the lease. But since the landlord does not plan to take such unilateral action, that remains a purely theoretical issue. The landlord could offer the tenants a small rent reduction, perhaps one quarter of the amout that was being paid to the security firm, but there is no legal requirement to do so. As to whether asking for such a change would be &quot;rude&quot;, I don't think so, but that is a matter of opinion, and not really on-topic here.
If it were me, I would leave. Who wants to rent a room in a home where you are not wanted? However, there should be concessions. I would ask for 1.5 months rent refunded, but would happily settle for one month. I am sure there are many nice rooms, close by, where you are welcomed. Given additional information commented by the OP, the landlord is looking to increase his rents. Evidentially this municipality has strict rent controls. In this case, I would enter negotiations with the landlord. I would offer him a percentage of his anticipated rent increase and probably start at 50%. If the OP has been a good tenant (always paid on time, and low maintenance) the landlord might see this as a bargain. No need to find a new tenant and no need to vet one that might pay poorly. The better the tenant has been, and the more strict the renter protection laws the more appeal this offer will have to the landlord. The benefit for the OP is they don't have to move, or find a new place with its associated costs and inconvenience. If the landlord is just a mindless corporate drone with no decision making power, this will not work.
You need absolute written buy in from the landlord. His agreement is with you, not this new person. If the new person stops paying for whatever reason, then landlord is coming after you.
There's good information at https://www.gov.uk/private-renting-tenancy-agreements/your-landlord-wants-to-end-your-tenancy. There are several types of tenancy with different rules, but in all of them, the landlord has to give you a certain amount of notice to move out, and it has to give a specific date. "Three months from when a buyer is found" doesn't seem to fit that, so I would say you have not yet received formal notice to move out. This statement may have just been a courtesy to give you more advance warning. So for instance, if you are in a tenancy that requires two months notice, the landlord may have intended this to mean "I plan to send you formal notice about one month after a buyer is found." Of course, this is not binding; he could send you formal notice tomorrow if he changes his mind. As far as I know, the sale of the house is really irrelevant in all of this. You don't automatically have to move out just because the house is sold; if you're not explicitly told to leave (with appropriate notice) then you don't have to, and you'll just start paying your rent to the new landlord. If you have a fixed-term tenancy, then the sale of the house doesn't shorten it. I am not sure what the point is of getting angry at the estate agents. Your tenancy is a matter between you and your landlord, and the estate agents have nothing to do with it. They work for your landlord, not for you.
Has this contract been translated (badly) from another language because the construction of the clause is cumbersome and confusing? Does the contract say that I can have guests over 1 night without charge? Without charge, yes. However "Without Landlord's prior written consent, Tenant has no excuse to accommodate ..." so you need the landlord's permission for overnight guests. If so does it only start charging on nights after the first? No, if a person stays more than 1 night (with the landlords permission) then this triggers the landlord's right to charge. See below for how much they can charge. Is it supposed to be 10% of monthly rent $137 per guest per night? "With temporary commendation, day-based, and additional 10% of rent each person is applied." The term is ambiguous, I can see three ways that this would be interpreted: If you have a guest who stays more than 1 night in a month they can charge 10% for that guest for that month (i.e. 2 to 31 days all for the same price). For 2 people for 2 days this would be $1,400 x 10% x 2 = $280. They can charge 10% of the monthly rent per night that the guest stays. $1,400 x 10% x 2 x 2 = $560 As, 1 except the rent would be pro-rata. $1,400 x 10% x 2 x 2/31 = $18.06 Assuming that the landlord put forward this contract the interpretation adopted in the absence of other evidence would be the one least advantageous to the landlord i.e. 3. However, there is other evidence - the landlord accepts that the rate is pro-rata - he has just failed to account for the 10%, so 3. again. How is overnight defined? Well, is it defined in the contract or by the law where you are? If not, it would take its normal English usage - "for the duration of the night". If they arrive before sunset and leave after sunrise the next day then they have stayed overnight. What if they came over at 9am and slept in the day? It says nothing about requiring your guests to sleep. If they party overnight then they are overnight guests. If they sleep all day but don't stay overnight they are not overnight guests. What about 2 am? If sunrise is after 2am then this is not overnight.
If the lease has expired and the tenant does not have an option then the landlord is under no obligation to offer a new lease; they do not have to give any reason. They would still need to comply with the notice periods in the lease or it will revert to a month-by-month contract; in that case, the notice period is 1 month.
You are never obligated to sign a contract. You already have a lease agreement in place, which will be enforceable for the agreed-upon duration. The lease can be changed if both parties agree to it, but one party cannot unilaterally demand that other agree to any changes to the contract - a landlord can't, for example, change your lease agreement to increase your rent payment in the middle of your lease term and demand that you sign it. The landlord is certainly allowed to ask, in the hopes that both parties can come to an agreement, but again, both parties need to agree in order for an existing contract to be changed.