Landlord bait-and-switch regarding having pet This question is based on a social media post of a presumably real situation someone I don't directly know is facing. Suppose a landlord leases housing to a person, with a requirement in the lease to get a &quot;dog permit&quot; from the landlord to have a dog living in the place, and grants the permit at the time the lease is signed. Then, immediately after the person moves in, the landlord tells them the dog permit has been rescinded, with no prior communication or incident that would have caused a change in circumstances, and threatens the new tenant with eviction if they do not get rid of their pet immediately. What legal recourse does someone have in such a situation? Are there US jurisdictions where this kind of behavior by the landlord is legal? The person who it happened to belongs to one or more classes likely to be discriminated against, so these antics may be &quot;constructive&quot; to deny housing where the real intent is unlawful discrimination; if so, does that change anything about how the law sees it and how to handle the situation?
It's hard to imagine a jurisdiction where this would be legal, assuming that the facts are as you present them. Mainly, it comes down to what the lease actually says. If the lease says something that implies that landlord permission is required, then the tenant has to get permission. You can call it a &quot;dog permit&quot;, it just boils down to &quot;landlord permission&quot;. Unless the lease also states &quot;permission for a pet can be withdrawn at any time, sor any reason&quot; or something to that effect, then the dog is permitted. At the end of the lease term, the landlord can refuse to renew the lease and/or can instead offer a no-dogs lease. The landlord's only recourse would be to petition the court for breaking the lease, in having a dog without permission, at which point the tenant would present whatever evidence they have that there was permission (hopefully something more substantial than a statement &quot;I asked if I could bring my dog and the landlord said 'hmmmm' with an approving tone&quot;). The courts will not give any credence to &quot;Yeah but I rescinded the permission&quot; unless there is a clause that explicitly allows it.
Typically the landlord will have a preexisting clause in the lease that says the landlord may choose to amend the lease at a later date. While that may be in contracts, I don't see that holding up in court. You can't unilaterally amend contracts to add new terms without acceptance on part of the lessee. Any clause in the contract like that will require notification of the lessee of the change and a chance for the lessee to terminate the contract without recourse on part of the lessor. Generally this must be done in the same format as the original lease (written). Most jurisdictions don't allow for a verbal amendment to a written lease. So in a way, yes, it is legal for a landlord to require payment via a certain method (like a direct debit from a bank account). They cannot however change the payment terms unilaterally without notification and acceptance. They can use language such as sending the notification (via registered mail) and then saying that a failure to respond is acceptance (because you are, by actions, accepting the terms by continuing to live there).
If the landlord has a right to charge a late fee (and that late fee is not a penalty) then that right accrues from the instant that the rent is late i.e. any time after 5:00:00 pm precisely if that is the time stated in the lease. If only a day is stated then it would be midnight. For case law on the penalty doctrine see PACIOCCO &amp; ANOR v AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND BANKING GROUP LIMITED [2016] HCA 28 which involved a challenge to a bank charging late payment fees on credit cards.
You want a lawyer who accepts tenant-side landlord tenant cases, usually a solo practitioner or small law firm or legal clinic. Medium to large sized law firms usually don't practice that kind of law at all, or only represent landlords, as a matter of policy. The usual problem, however, is that lawyers are often too expensive relative to the amount in controversy to make sense to hire to fully represent you in a matter like this one. You might want to have a "limited engagement" such as a one time consult with a lawyer, rather than a full retention of a lawyer, over an issue like this one.
The government of California has an extensive manual that says what you can and cannot do. To terminate a lease (a rental agreement for a year is a lease), there would have to be just cause for eviction (p. 65), such as failing to pay rent, violating terms of the agreement, cockfighting, and so on, and that does not include being a pain in the neck. Nor would the need to make repairs justify terminating a lease. On p. 79 they clarify that retaliatory eviction for exercising their legal rights is prohibited per California Civil Code 1942.5, and will result in fines. P. 35 ff. covers landlords entering: you may enter to make repairs, but must give 24 hour written notice (6 days if mailed), entering between 8am and 5pm business days, but you can also arrive at alternative times orally. If the local code-enforcers require you to do some modifications on the property, that is a separate matter and does not create a just cause for terminating the lease. For instance, if the electric service is not properly grounded and they require you to fix that, that does not constitute the structure "being destroyed". If the repairs make the building actually and certifiably uninhabitable, you might be on the hook for finding lodging for the tenant for the period of the repairs, so ask your attorney about that. Assuming that the tenant is not somehow responsible for the problem being repaired, then you will almost certainly have to keep the person for the duration of the lease.
Non-residential tenancies are subject to Fla. Stat Ch. 83 Part I. This is statutorily a tenancy at-will unless a contrary agreement is in writing signed by the lessor: the duration of the lease is yearly, quarterly, monthly, weekly as determined by the periodicity of rent payments. There are various legal conditions related to rent default and causes for removing tenants, also conditions about premises that are wholly untenantable. Unlike residential leases, there are not any special statutory conditions surrounding the landlords presentation of leases. Florida law contemplates and allows the possibility that there are no written documents, and for non-residential tenancies has very little to say about it (only pertaining to the distinction between at-will vs not at-will leases). Therefore, the matter follows the general rules for contractual disputes: whoever makes the best case for their claims wins. If Bob has a scanned copy, that is excellent proof. If Alice alleges and proves that the scanned copy was modified, that disposes of Bob's evidence. If Alice presents a copy of the contract that says otherwise (I do mean copy), then this anomaly has to be explained. Bob can claim that they tore up Alice's original and renegotiated the deal, but he needs to prove that claim. If Alice presents the original contract, Bob's story becomes much less plausible. There are millions of variants of what might happen: the point is, there is no requirement to present the original signed document to support a claim in a contractual dispute.
According to this press release, Toronto is "stepping up enforcement" of its leash by-law. You should call 311 to report violations: http://www.toronto.ca/311/knowledgebase/29/101000050429.html You can find more information here: http://www.toronto.ca/311/knowledgebase/47/101000050447.html http://www1.toronto.ca/wps/portal/contentonly?vgnextoid=b6c9dada600f0410VgnVCM10000071d60f89RCRD You can find a list of areas where dogs are permitted to be unleashed here: http://www1.toronto.ca/wps/portal/contentonly?vgnextoid=5a81dada600f0410VgnVCM10000071d60f89RCRD&amp;vgnextchannel=b6c9dada600f0410VgnVCM10000071d60f89RCRD I note, however, that the press release says that "A dog is considered running at large if it is unleashed, off its owner's property and not under its owner's control." Reading this strictly, where all three conditions must be met, a dog owner is permitted to unleash a dog if it is still possible for the owner to control the dog. I don't know how the courts have interpreted this, but it could certainly be interpreted very widely.
Lying in itself ("of course you will get a wifi signal here") is not a crime. However, if you have proof that the lies were intended to benefit your landlord at your expense ("You won't sign the lease unless there's wifi? No problem") and that they actually did so ("You've signed the lease, it's too late to back out"), he may be guilty of fraud, which is a civil wrong and may be a crime. You would be well advised to consult a lawyer before going amy further, since there are probably ten people believing themselves to be victims of fraud for every one who actually is so in legal terms. The lawyer will also probably tell you that the best you can hope for is restoration to the state before the lies (in my example, the lease is cancelled and you get your deposit back), though the authorities will look at prosecuting the landlord.