What is the exact breach and remedy in the following situation? On the 20th of the &quot;previous&quot; month, a tenant signs a lease with a landlord for an apartment, to be occupied on the 1st of the following month, or immediately thereafter. The lease &quot;warrants and represents&quot; that the apartment will be broom clean, and fit for habitation on the first of the following month. The tenant observes that the apartment is not &quot;broom clean&quot; because there is a lot of waste on the floor, and it is not &quot;fit for habitation&quot; because it is infested with rats, cockroaches, etc. The landlord said, &quot;yes, I know, but we have ten days until the first of the month, and the apartment will be ready by then.&quot; Come of the first of the month, the tenant wants to move in, but the landlord has not fixed the apartment, which is still dirty and &quot;infested.&quot; That is to say, the landlord has not &quot;made good&quot; on the lease terms. Given that the key condition was a &quot;representation and warranty&quot; is the landlord &quot;merely&quot; guilty of breach of contract, or something more serious like fraud? And in any event, what are the tenant's likely rights if s/he goes to court?
There is no fraud for breach of contract That is, except in highly exceptional circumstances where the guilty party acted deceptively and dishonestly to obtain a benefit or cause harm - the landlord must have knowingly never intended to make good on their promise rather than simply failing to do so. There is a difference between a warranty and a representation The key difference between a representation and a warranty is the remedy available to the receiving party. A Representation is a statement of fact which is relied on by the receiving party and induces them to enter into the contract. It is normally before the contract, but may be repeated in the contract as well. A party may claim misrepresentation where a false representation has been made. They may be entitled to rescind the contract, which means that the contract would be set aside and the receiving party may also be entitled to damages to put them back into the position they would have been had the contract never been entered into. A warranty is a statement of fact contained in the contract. If it is not true the receiving party has a claim for breach of contract. If it is a fundamental breach the receiving party may have the right to terminate the contact in addition to a claim for damages. However, unlike a claim for misrepresentation, the contract is not undone. As tis is expressly both, the tenant has the choice of which remedy to peruse - void the contract and seek damages for misrepresentation or affirm (or attempt to terminate - it’s not clear that this breach is egregious enough to justify that) and seek damages.
I don't know Canadian rental law, but as a general rule in civil cases you don't get to play Perry Mason and bring in evidence at the last minute. If you have evidence that the landlord broke the law then disclose it immediately and use it to pressure him into settling. His later lies to you are less important than the fact that he broke the law in the first place. However you can certainly testify about what he said as evidence that he has acted in bad faith.
Can landlord backbill 4.5 years worth of utilities that were never billed to us bimonthly as directed in the lease? Yes, since the bimonthly billing issue appears to be within the LA statute of limitations for claims of breach of contract: 10 years (see here). But you might want to check the actual legislative language of the statute referred therein and the prior or consecutive ones --all pertaining to statutes of limitations-- so as to ascertain the accuracy of information in the first link (navigating through the bunch of LA two- or three-line statutes for this and that gets annoying). They are desperate to get me to move out since it is a rent-controlled unit and I feel like they have done this to cause issues and force me to default on rent. Is this a legal practice? I am not knowledgeable of state legislation particular to rent-controlled units, but I highly doubt it is lawful for them to proceed that way. Other details you describe reflect that the company has been --or is being-- malicious or grossly negligent. If so, strictly speaking, the company's conduct (1) ought to weaken its position or merits in trying to force you out, and (2) tends to contravene the contract law covenant of good faith and fair dealing (see below). If your lease mentions any statutes regarding rent-controlled units, you may want to search for case law at leagle.com to see how the statutes are applied. Without knowing the terms of your lease, I think your priority should at all times be the rent itself so as to avoid eviction. Does the "billing every two months" in the lease have any hold on this issue if they breached their own lease? Maybe not. The repeated, yet sole, failure to send you the bimonthly billings falls short of landlord's breach of contract. For your argument on breach of contract to prevail, you would have to prove that the landlord knowingly/deliberately let the water bills pile up prior to demanding you to pay everything at once. That would prove that the landlord is not meeting the covenant of good faith and fair dealing that is prerequisite in contract law.
We can assume there was a meeting of the minds when the contract was drafted, and both parties expected payments to me made based on product usage. Plaintiff alleges that this did not happen. Thus plaintiff is indeed alleging that the contract was breached. Now plaintiff alleges that defendant broke the contract, while defendant counters that plaintiff broke the contract. "[T]o be determined by tracking software" is woefully ambiguous. The court will want to know which party drafted the contract, as disputes arising from ambiguity are often resolved in favor of the non-drafting party.
It is the tenant's responsibility to understand the written contract. Oral statements about the contract do have to be consistent with the written contract (that is, in the context where you ask the landlord what a particular clause means before signing -- not in the case where you are modifying an existing contract). If I were renting a room and the contract says "Du må betale $1000 hver dag", which I don't understand because my Norwegian is terrible, I would ask about this, and the landlord might say that it means "You must pay $1000 every month", which could be a decent deal. Actually, the clause says "You must pay $1000 every day". When the reality of the situation becomes clear, then it is obvious that we didn't have an agreement in the first place. Perhaps he mis-spoke, or his English is as bad as my Norwegian, but I would not be held to rate in the written contract, assuming that I could back up my claim that he gave me that interpretation: the lease would probably be voided, as not an actual agreement. The underlying principle is that there has to be a "meeting of the minds" where the parties understand what they will get and what they must give, and there was a demonstrable failure of understanding. On the other hand, if I sign a contract without really reading it carefully, and there is a clause in English (which I speak) saying that I have to pay $1000 a day, but I didn't really think about the clause so that in a sense I didn't understand what I had agreed to, well, I may still be on the hook. (On the third hand, a court would probably say that's a ridiculous rent and void the contract on policy grounds). In general, "not my first language" is not a get-out-of-contract card, though attempts to trick people into signing documents in languages that they really have no understanding of won't be successful. Virtually nobody but a lawyer actually understands contractual language, yet contracts are enforced all the time. A contract can be explicitly modified by verbal agreement, or can be entirely verbal, but oral agreements face evidence problems, namely, what exactly did A and B say? It's scientifically well established that parties can be morally certain that the conversation went "A" (for one person) and "Not A" (for the other person). Using "could" rather than "would" in speech makes a huge difference in interpretation. There is a rule, the parol evidence rule, which essentially says that unless there is a good reason to not do so, the contract as written is what is enforced. Even if the conversation had been written into the contract, there's no basis in the contract for objectively determining whether a thing is old and "just broke". So even as an additional clause in the contract, it doesn't afford you a clear escape hatch. You might be able to prove with expert testimony that indeed the pipes had been corroding for a hundred years, and you could not have caused the pipes to burst.
Short Answer Generally, a landlord could validly have a term in a lease requiring the tenants collectively to indemnify the landlord for any fine, penalty, or expense arising from the conduct of the tenants, their licensees or invitees. If there is such a term, your only remedy may be to sue the co-tenant engaged in misconduct for contribution. When Can Landlords Be Indemnified? Usually, a provision indemnifying the landlord against the landlord's own intentional acts, reckless acts, willful and wanton acts, gross negligence, or bad faith is void as against public policy, but a provision indemnifying a landlord for the act of another for which the landlord has only vicarious liability as a landowner, and for strict liability offenses and torts, is usually valid. The municipal fine in question appears to be one for which the landlord has only vicarious liability will not proof that the landlord or even an agent of the landlord who is not an agent of a tenant took that act to impose liability. There is a split of authority over when the tenant may be held responsible for (either by waiving liability or indemnifying the landlord) for merely simple negligence by the landlord or an agent of the landlord who is not an agent of the tenant. Some states allow it. Some do not. Many allow it in some cases (e.g. private party landlords), but not in others (e.g. public entities). A 50 state survey of the law of indemnification in the U.S. with statutory and case law citations can be found here. There is no indication, however, in this OP that the landlord engaged in any conduct that caused the landlord to incur the fine. The conduct was apparently engaged in by one of your fellow tenants. This Is Not A Prohibited Contractual Penalty In general, a private contract may not impose an arbitrary penalty or fine that does not meet the standards necessary to be considered a form of liquidated damages. But, indemnification of a third-party imposed penalty or fine, does not violate the public policy against having such penalties or fines imposed by a private contract. An indemnification provision is a compensatory contractual provision as between the landlord and the tenant, not a fine or penalty created by the contract. Many government imposed penalties or fines, however, do require that the person fined engaged in an intentional act, or reckless act, or willful or wanton act, or grossly negligent act, or engaged in bad faith conduct that cannot be indemnified by a tenant. But that does not appear to be the case in the OP. Collective Responsibility Lease Terms Are Usually Valid More generally, a lease may impose collective responsibility on all co-tenants combined. This is the default rule when all tenants are on a single lease. But it is unlikely that it would violate public policy even if applied to multiple tenants in the same building or complex with separate leases. Partnerships and joint ventures allow joint and several liability, and the circumstances, e.g. units that are part of a single HOA or co-operative apartments, often do so implicitly, so public policy arguments against this kind of much less common arrangement are weak. Anywhere that joint and several liability is permitted, a fortiori, proportionate liability should also be permitted. The Necessity Of A Lease Term For These Remedies Furthermore, none of these obligations can arise unless the lease says that these remedies are available to the landlord. If the lease doesn't create the obligation to indemnify the landlord for trash bagging fines on a joint and several or proportionate basis with tenants on other leases in the same building or complex, then the landlord can't impose this amount upon you. I've interpreted the language below from the OP to mean that; Part of my lease agreement is to cooperate in keeping the communal trash area tidy. But, in the absence of lease language to the contrary specifying a broader remedy, the landlord can only impose liability on you for personally (or through your guests) for failing to do so. Remedies Against Co-Tenants Your remedy, if you are blameless and know who is at fault, would be to seek compensation in the form of contribution from the at fault party in small claims court from an offending co-tenant, or via a cross-claim against a co-defendant if the landlord brought suit to enforce the term against the tenants.
In any legal dealing, there is always some risk. The signature constitutes definitive proof that you have a contract, but you still have a contract, because you have mutual acceptance. A far-fetched scenario is that the lessor could allege that they did not agree to the terms of he contract with you (perhaps claiming that you obtained a blank contract form from them and filled in details, but they didn't agree to those details). However, if they allow you to move in, that is sufficient constructive evidence of a contract, so they could not argue &quot;We didn't agree to this&quot;. The main risk would be your lack of proof that they ever agreed to lease the place to you (no emails, no texts, no witnesses, no legally-recorded conversations). There may be specific state laws about providing a copy of the rental agreement, such as this California law, where they must provide a copy to the tenant within 15 days of execution by the tenant. This provides a collection of relevant state laws, though you may have to dig a bit because this is a hook into all of the laws about leases and not just about providing copies.
Jurisdiction: england-and-wales Preliminary issues Firstly, as some of the comments have highlighted, this could be a scam. I have personally come across such a scam on two occassions. The scammer rents a property short term (e.g. 2-3 weeks) on AirBnB. They then pose as a landlord or letting agent and advertise the same property as a long term let. They collect a deposit and rent from any person who wants to be a tenant. They may even copy the keys and give each &quot;tenant&quot; a set. On move in day, you arrive at the property to find that you are not the only person trying to move boxes in. It has always struck me that landlords are generally very careful to vet their tenants by checking ID, proof of address, obtaining references, and running credit checks. Yet tenants rarely do any vetting at all of their landlords. A very basic and easy check you can do is to purchase the title register (not title plan) for the property from the Land Registry. This costs £3 and will give you the name of the person who owns the property. If the property is an apartment then you will generally want the leasehold title register (not the freehold). Once you have the name, you can then ask your landlord to provide proof that they are that person. Secondly, you've tagged the question united-kingdom, but the UK is actually comprised of multiple legal jurisdictions and housing law varies among them (particularly in Scotland). I'm answering this on the basis of england-and-wales. Third, questions asking for legal advice on real situations are off-topic here. My answer will just address the general issues and shouldn't be taken as advice for your situation. Contract and due dates There is nothing in contract law which prevents obligations from arising before the date that the contract is agreed. It is not unusual for parties to draft contracts which govern past behaviour. In that sense, it is perfectly acceptable to agree a contract on 12 August which requires rent to have been paid on 8 August (albeit it would be inadvisable to agree such a contract as you would immediately be in breach if you had not already paid). On the other hand, a contract which purports to have been agreed on a date which is earlier than when it was actually agreed, can amount to fraud. I would be wary of a subsequent email which purports to allow a later due date which contradicts the contract. Unless there is a clause in the contract allowing for the landlord to postpone due dates, the email is unenforceable and your real due date is still 8 August. The attempt to change the due date is effectively a variation of the contract, and a variation which is not permitted in the contract itself needs to be executed as a second contract. That means you need all the elements of a contract: offer/acceptance, intention to be bound, and consideration. The problem here is the latter. The landlord is providing consideration (a later due date) but you are offering nothing in return. Holding the room &quot;The agent told me they cannot hold my room too long due to the high volume of interest in booking the rooms.&quot; &quot;Once you have signed this agreement you will be liable for the full rent set out in the agreement unless released from your tenancy by the Landlord or Management Company.&quot; These two positions are contradictory. If you agreed a tenancy (as implied by the second quote), then you have a contract which is legally binding on both parties. The first quote is incorrect - there is nothing to &quot;hold&quot; because the room is already yours. On the other hand, it may be that what you agreed was a holding deposit agreement (rather than a tenancy agreement) which is merely a commitment on the part of the tenant to forfeit a sum of money (which by law cannot exceed 1 week's rent) in the event that the tenant (as opposed to the landlord) decides not to proceed with the tenancy. The wording from the second quote (liability for full rent) implies that it is a tenancy agreement rather than a holding deposit agreement. Or, in the alternative, that it is an illegal holding deposit agreement which asks for more money to be forfeited than is lawful. You'll need to read your full contract to understand what it is. If it's a tenancy agreement, it will be obvious from the wording that you have actually rented the property. Obligation to pay rent &quot;My question is do I have any legal responsibility to pay for the entire rent by the new due date (25 August) for APT1?&quot; Unfortunately, if you have signed a tenancy agreement, then you are legally bound to fulfill your obligations under it (provided such obligations do not break the law). If it contains a clause stating that you must pay 51 weeks's rent, then that is what you must do. &quot;If they told me they cannot hold my booking any longer, do I need them to confirm in writing that I'm released from the agreement?&quot; As a general rule of contract law, nothing needs to be in writing unless (a) the law requires it to be in writing or (b) the contract requires it to be in writing. You agree non-written contracts all the time when you go shopping, use the bus, etc. The same applies to taking actions which are governed by a pre-existing contract e.g. giving your taxi driver verbal directions once you are en-route. The phrase &quot;unless released from your tenancy by the Landlord or Management Company&quot; says nothing about the release needing to be in writing; therefore it can be verbal (provided that there isn't another clause somewhere else in the contract which requires it to be in writing). Be aware however that verbal statements can be difficult to prove.