Amenities I do not use but am being required to pay for Can a landlord force tenants to pay for a service they did not request/enroll in? I am specifically asking about the $12/month package service that the landlord now says is not optional. Also, they require all tenants to have a renter's insurance policy (which I have), but now they are charging me $10/month to use their renter insurance. Do I have to use their insurance? Do I have to pay for a package service if I don't want the service?
It depends on whether the lease requires it. If the lease requires you to have renter's insurance, you have to have renter's insurance. If it requires you to have a specific company's renter's insurance, you have to have the specific company's renter's insurance. If you don't do that, you have violated the terms of the lease and can typically be evicted. If you comply with the terms of the lease by having some renter's insurance and they still want you to have a specific brand of insurance, you have not violated the terms of the lease, and you cannot be evicted for such. They cannot &quot;bill you&quot; just because they want to change the terms of the lease -- that requires your agreement, or they can unilaterally change the lease terms at the end of the current period. The same goes for package service (I don't even understand what a monthly package service charge would mean).
Under the Residental Tenancies Act of 2004, the landlord is obligated to carry out necessary repairs to both the structure and interior of the dwelling. The Act provides that this obligation (as with others) cannot be &quot;varied, modified, or restricted&quot; by a rental contract. Meanwhile, the tenant is obligated to not do any act that would cause a deterioration in the condition the dwelling was in at the commencement of the tenancy (with &quot;normal wear and tear&quot; explicitly disclaimed from the tenant's responsibilities). The landlord is not obligated to repair damages caused by the tenant violating that obligation. So the landlord is generally responsible for repairs (and, in fact, if the tenant had needed to arrange for the door to be repaired themself, they would have been able to deduct the cost from rent). If the tenant had broken the door, it would have been a breach of their responsibilities. But if a neighbor, or even the tenant's partner, had broken the door, it would not have violated the tenant's obligation and so the landlord would remain responsible for the repair.
What's the legality of this situation? It's unlawful and you should seek support for it. That document you linked to appears to have resources that could help you, such as support lines and counselling centres, etc. Am I being discriminated against by these landlords(companies)? I would say so. It sounds like you're being discriminated against on grounds of race and ethnic origin. It appears to violate the General Equal Treatment Act. However, I do want to stress that there may be completely reasonable factors as to why landlords are rejecting your appointment requests. For example, it would not be discriminatory to refuse housing on the basis that you don't have the appropriate income, or you have a poor credit rating, or you don't have any previous rental references. It can be very difficult to prove discrimination if any of the above factors apply, since the landlord could simply cite one of those reasons instead.
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 this requirement was not made before rendering the service, you are under no obligation to accept the term. You and the service provider must now find an agreeable method of payment. You still owe the provider but if you are compelled to pay then the provider will be compelled to be more accommodating in their allowed payment methods (cash, at least). As a general rule, if you are providing a service for any significant amount of money, you should require payment up front or at least a deposit and payments at milestones. Especially if you're 7,000 miles away from your client and put any restrictions on method of payment.
Most leases have a provision allowing a landlord to make entry without notice in an emergency, but the better course of action, as noted in a comment by @BlueDogRanch, is to call the police and ask them to make a &quot;welfare check.&quot; You would ordinarily be permitted to cooperate with police by unlocking doors in furtherance of their welfare check. The police are trained to do this properly in a way that properly balances the need to aid someone who is sick or ill, the need to preserve evidence if there was a death or crime that needs to be understood legally, and to protect the legitimate privacy interests of the tenant. You are not. You could incur liability for failing to prevent death or aggravating injury, could be wrongfully implicated if physical evidence from you contaminates the scene or you destroy evidence showing the true cause, and could be sued for invading the tenant's privacy if it was found that you entry was unreasonable and that it wasn't really an emergency, which is always easier to conclude with 20/20 hindsight. As it is, your biggest potential source of liability is delaying in calling the police seeking a welfare check. They often respond quite quickly to these by the way, although it is not the very highest priority for law enforcement.
No If you breach the contract that may allow the rental company to terminate it (among other things), however, termination would need to be communicated to the customer. Only if they kept it after that, with the intention of permanently depriving the company of it, are they stealing it.
Your rights and responsibilities in this realm are a matter of local law, sometimes down to the level of the city, plus whatever is stipulated in the lease. In San Francisco, for example, No Person shall have upon any premises or real property owned, occupied or controlled by him, or her, or it any public nuisance [which includes] Any visible or otherwise demonstrable mold or mildew in the interiors of any buildings or facilities This does not say whether the owner or the occupant is liable for remediating the situation. Shower mold is gross but not a health hazard (the SF ordinance just lumps all mold into one category). Since you have no written lease, there is no automatic clean-up requirement. There might be a law requiring a tenant to clean the premise to its original condition, for instance in Washington, tenant must Upon termination and vacation, restore the premises to their initial condition except for reasonable wear and tear or conditions caused by failure of the landlord to comply with his or her obligations under this chapter. Landlord duties are here: there is no duty to provide ventilation. However, the bathtub appears to be in a common area and not your particular unit. The landlord duties also require the landlord to Keep any shared or common areas reasonably clean, sanitary, and safe from defects increasing the hazards of fire or accident so in Washington, it's his problem and not yours. In general, even if a tenant is responsible for some form of cleanup, that does not constitute legal license for a facility upgrade. It might cost a couple hundred dollars to hire a person to wash ordinary mold accumulation, and does not justify getting a $5,000 new tub. Since this is in a common area, you would not be solely liable for whatever the damage was. The part where you say "crack in a common bath tub" is a large red flag: it suggests to me that somebody negligently broke the bathtub, and then caused behind-the-wall damage by letting water infiltrate without notifying the landlord. If you broke the tub and let it rot, you could be liable. If the tub was broken already and the landlord didn't bother to do anything about it, that is his negligence. The three questions that you should try to answer are: (1) what are the duties of landlord and tenant in my jurisdiction, (2) what was the actual harm done, and who did it, (3) what is the ordinary cost of whatever repair was done.