Do you have to evict someone who was staying with you without contract or lease, but left without warning? Hypothetical Scenario: A 19 year old &quot;friend of a friend of a friend&quot; type situation that someone was trying to help out. He was living in a rundown trailer a few towns away so a nice family said he could stay with them for a bit and they'd help him get established in the nice family's town. After a few weeks he got a job at Walmart. Two days before he was supposed to start he just left the nice family. He moved in with someone else about a hundred miles away. He left all his stuff at the nice family's house, which just consists of a few boxes and some motorcycle parts. It would all fit in a truck. The Nice Family offered to bring the stuff to him but he said he wouldn't help unload it. The nice family is being told that they must go through the eviction process. I know questions like this confirm, possibly, but is the nice family's situation different? Can the nice family tell the 19 year-old that all his stuff is in their barn and he has 30 days to come get it? If he doesn't, they will sell it and keep the money? (While the 19 year-old was with the nice family, they paid hundreds of dollars for things like getting his car out of impound, not to mention food and other stuff.) Thoughts? Other info needed? I tagged this landlord even though I feel like they did not have a &quot;tenant-landlord relationship&quot;, legally or otherwise.
Your question seems to be about abandoned property and whether Missouri’s statute on disposing of property after a tenant abandons his/her property applies. See Mo. Rev. State. Ann. § 441.065 (“Abandonment of premises, disposition of remaining property.”) Assuming there was no agreement (in writing or orally) for the 19 year-old to pay rent, he was most likely a guest and not a tenant. As a guest, landlord-tenant laws, would not apply to the property that that was left at the nice family’s house. The definitions section of Missouri’s landlord-tenant statutes (and common sense) support this analysis. See Mo. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 441.005. Therefore, the issue them becomes did the 19 year abandon his property? To that question, I think the answer is yes. Missouri Courts have defined the test for “abandoned property” in Herron v. Whiteside, 782 S.W.2d 414, 416 (Mo. App. W. Dist. 1989), stating: Abandonment is the voluntary relinquishment of ownership so that the property ceases to be the property of any person and becomes the subject of appropriation by the first taker. Wirth v. Heavey, 508 S.W.2d 263, 267 (Mo.App.1974). Abandonment of property requires intent plus an act. Id. A sufficient act is one that manifests a conscious purpose and intention of the owner of personal property neither to use nor to retake the property into his possession. Id. Intention to abandon may be inferred from strong and convincing evidence and may be shown by conduct clearly inconsistent with any intention to retain and continue the use or ownership of the property. Herron, 782 S.W.2d at 416. So to synthesize that passage from Herron, the court is saying that there is a 2 part test for determining if property is abandoned. Did the person intend to abandon the property? Did they commit some act to show this intention? If the answer is yes, to both, they the “first taker” or person that gets possession after the property is abandoned is the new owner. Here, it seems that the 19 year-old intended to abandon the property. He left without explaining why and stated that he would not unload the property if the nice family tried to return it (implying he would not accept the property back). Looking at the second part, him moving without giving notice, and telling the nice family that he won’t accept delivery of the property are both acts showing his intent to abandon the property.
This is a very difficult situation. Discrimination is not the right frame within which to view this as your roommate doesn't have authority over you the way that an employer or landlord would. The basic legal issue would be whether your roommate is constructively evicting you from you residence without valid justification for doing so. And, the answer might very well be yes. But, even if that is the case, since the roommate is not an agent of the landlord, your roommate's actions probably don't relieve you from your duties under the lease. So, your relief might be to vacate the premises and then to sue the roommate for the rent you have to pay without receiving anything in return. This is expensive relative to the likely returns, and there is no certainty that you would win or that you would get your attorneys' fees if you prevailed. This would also be a slow solution taking several months at a minimum. Or, in the alternative, you could leave and cease paying the rent, forcing the roommates who remain to pay it if they don't want to be evicted as they are probably jointly and severally liable for the rent. (If they sued you for your share of the rent, constructive eviction by one of them would probably be a good defense.) The landlord could sue all of the roommates if they don't pay, causing them to be evicted and you to be on the hook for any rent or other amounts that they owe, including the landlord's attorneys' fees (and hurting your credit). You could probably cross-claim for indemnification of any amounts you were required to pay in that lawsuit against your roommate. But, this too would be an expensive, complex and slow solution if the remaining roommates don't decide to simply keep paying the rent. It would be very hard for you to evict your problem roommate for breaching the lease by denying you your equal rights to the premises, since you are not the landlord, although it isn't impossible that a court would allow this relief and it would be relatively quick. It would also leave open the question of who was responsible for the evicted roommate's rent. The remaining roommates would be liable vis-a-vis the landlord, and would face eviction if they don't pay, and probably couldn't get a new roommate without the landlord's permission. And, the evicted tenant would probably remain on the hook vis-a-vis the landlord, but might not have a duty to indemnify the roommates who stayed. Also, in any lawsuit where you sue the roommate, the roommate would likely counterclaim against you for non-disclosure of HSV2, and while that would probably not prevail in the end, it would make the legal process hellish for you. The trouble is that there are really no good solutions that you could easily impose on them. A mutual agreement between the landlord and the other tenants to release you from the lease so you could find somewhere else, or to release the problem tenant from the lease so that you and your other roommate could replace that person, is probably the best solution, but that takes mutual agreement of multiple parties.
Financially, the landlord can take you to court and get a judgment against you where you have to pay that rent, so you won't save any money. If you hire an attorney to defend you in the lawsuit, that will cost you extra money, so you could be worse off than just paying rent and staying there. The lease might have late payment fees, and if you that would be additional money that you would owe. In addition, there could be some reputational damage to you that could affect your ability to secure a lease in the future (a black mark on your credit history). Also note that in Georgia, a landlord has no obligation to seek an alternative tenant, so he can let the unit sit empty for 4 months (though he cannot collect twice on the same unite).
The landlord is obligated to let the existing tenant stay in that they cannot legally physically remove them or change the locks without a court order. The business between the landlord and holdover tenant doesn't involve you. All that matters is that the landlord told you that the unit would not be ready for you. Your lease should have a section describing what happens should the unit not be ready in time.
Legal answer A blanket "no pets" clause is unenforceable, and would remove even the requirement for you to ask before keeping pets (ref:landlordlawblog). This is why the clause contract has the phrase "the Landlord’s consent [...] will not be unreasonably withheld". You shouldn't take this phrasing to mean that the landlord is happy for pets given certain conditions; rather the landlord doesn't want pets, but has used the letting agent's standard contract which has been written with advice from lawyers. Withholding consent with no explanation is unreasonable (see landlordlawblog ref above). The landlord simply wanting no pets, in and of itself, is almost certainly unreasonable. Given that you proposed damage repairs and cleaning, I am personally convinced that the rejection is unreasonable. That said, the landlord might be able to reasonably withhold consent on noise grounds (parrots can annoy neighbours!), but can only do so by stating that to you (which he hasn't done). (Im)practical answer 1 You can try fighting it out in the courts if you like. You could well win, but this will cost you money (and probably a lot of stress) and antagonise your landlord. The landlord will then want to get rid of you (both because you're doing something he doesn't want to the property, and because you took him to court). He'll want to get rid of you with the minimum notice possible; if you're in a fixed term, that's the end of the fixed term; if you're in a periodic tenancy it's probably 2 months. In theory landlords can't carry out retaliatory evictions. But your only chance of fighting a retaliatory eviction is... the courts! Cue more cost and stress. And it's very possible that the landlord might successfully come up with another reason to justify the eviction, e.g. "I want to sell the property", "I want to provide my nephew with a home", or if he tries putting the rent up and you refuse "I can get more rental income by re-letting the property". (Im)practical answer 2 You could just get the parrot anyway. The landlord won't find out until his next inspection, and even then will find it difficult to evict you in the middle of a fixed term for such a minor breach of contract... but that doesn't stop him evicting you at the earliest possible "no reason" eviction date. This would again be either the end of the fixed term or 2 months if you're on a periodic tenancy. And you wouldn't be able to fight this as a "retaliatory eviction", as there will be no registered disagreement between you. Practical answer Your legal rights and your practical options aren't the same thing, unfortunately. Your best option is probably to give up on the idea of getting a parrot.
She has no legal right to your stuff, and every legal right to the apartment. The only way adjudicate such a conflict of rights is with a restraining order. A temporary order would expire in 3 weeks. Item 14 in the petition requests exclusive use, possession, and control of the property. However, that path of restraints is tailored to domestic violence, so item 27 has you describe the alleged abuse: Abuse means to intentionally or recklessly cause or attempt to cause bodily injury to you; or to place you or another person in reasonable fear of imminent serious bodily injury; or to harass, attack, strike, threaten, assault (sexually or otherwise), hit, follow, stalk, molest, keep you under surveillance, impersonate (on the Internet, electronically or otherwise), batter, telephone, or contact you; or to disturb your peace; or to destroy your personal property. Note that the description refers to destroying your personal property, not pawing through it. It's really impossible to know if the judge will exercise his discretion to include "reasonable fear of destruction (or theft) of personal property", since the ex-roommate has no further interest in the apartment. There is an alternative path of a harassment restraining order, which does not require a defined domestic relationship (such as ex-roommate), where "harassment" is violence or threats of violence against you, or a course of conduct that seriously alarmed, annoyed, or harassed you and caused you substantial emotional distress. A course of conduct is more than one act and that seems even less likely.
If your friend thinks he can live there for free due to his unique interpretation of contract law, he is mistaken. He'll get evicted if he doesn't pay rent, and likely end up with a judgement against him for unpaid rent. At its core, a rental agreement ensures that in exchange for paying rent, he may occupy the property. You can argue up and down about payment methods, but the fact remains he must pay rent in order to live there. Your friend MAY have an argument that he could move out and not be subject to penalty for breaking the lease because the payment terms changed. He'd have to give notice and would still owe for the time he occupied the property. There's just no way he can live there for free. He may find this out the hard way.
Landlord-tenant laws are state-specific, and given the number of states it's impractical to scan all of the laws, but based on a reading of a handful of such laws I doubt that there is any law requiring landlords to pay the oil for a rented house. (The matter would be different if there was a multi-unit building with no individual control over temperature, thus pooled fuel usage). It's not clear to me what you assumed the agreement means, where it says "N/A". Perhaps you believed at the time that the place had a different heating system, and you relied on that assumption. In that case, you might be able to go to court and have the contract voided, and you could pick another place to live. If the "options" are specified so that some things are assigned to tenant, some to landlord, and some are N/A, that would especially lead to the reasonable belief that there was no oil heat in the house. But if the only indications were "landlord" versus "n/a", then you could interpret "n/a" as meaning "not the responsibility of the landlord". Analogously, if the agreement only lists "tenant" and "n/a" then a reasonable interpretation would be that this means "the tenant pays" versus "the tenant does not pay". This reasoning would also have to survive the alternative interpretation that the tenant pays for everything, except that n/a means "there isn't one of these". In other words, the meaning of the term might be determinable from the overall context of what's in the agreement. Since the house does not come with a full tank (as with car rentals), the question of what to do with the residual oil at the end of the lease should also be specified. Unlike gas or electric, you're not just paying for actual consumption, you're paying for potential consumption, and you would have an interest in the remaining half-tank at the end of the lease. You could just walk away from that investment (pumping it out and taking it with you could be illegal, since the stuff is kind of a contaminant), or you could have an agreement where the landlord buys the oil back from you, but that should be specified in the agreement (and I assume it isn't). This kind of consideration could support a claim that you reasonably believed that there was no oil system (if there were, there would be some term relating to your interest in the residual oil), or even a belief that the landlord would pay the cost of the oil (since he ultimately gets the remaining oil at the end of the lease). You attorney (hint) should advise you how to approach this.