Thanks so much Alicia!
Okay, so warning, the following is a very long rant/explanation about all the crap I've had to deal with regarding our current basement suite and old landlord. It takes up almost 3 pages in word, so my early apologies, but I have to get it out.
So here are all of my stresses and frustrations over my housing situation, starting back in October of 2007.
So in October 2007, my landlady informed us she was selling the house. Joy, so that meant we had to clean the suite and open our home to a parade of people. That lasted all through midterms, such wonderful timing. Although I will say that our place has never been so clean for so long with it requiring a top to bottom cleaning twice a week for 6 weeks.
The open houses weren't all that bad, but once the house was sold, we got an eviction notice. On Jan 1, 2008 we got the official paper work telling us we had to be out of our suite by February 29th, 2008. Two weeks later, we managed to get a hold of the new owners, and they let us stay till the end of our school semester which was totally awesome of them.
So we get to stay an extra two months, that's great. But unfortunately, the land lady didn't understand the official paper work she signed and gave to us. Didn't even read it. On the form is a section about tenant compensation. In BC, when a tenant is evicted, through no fault of their own due to the owner wishing to us the space for their own purposes, the tenant gets two months notice and the equivalent of one month free rent. Whether you choose to stay for two months and not pay for the last month or move out early and receive cash, is up to the tenant.
The landlady came down on Feb 7, 2008 asking for rent. She managed to catch Ryan on his way out the door for work and he hadn't had his coffee yet, needless to say he was grumpy. Well, of course he said no, the paper work you gave us explains that we do not pay rent for the last month. She got herself wound up in a tiffy, and thought that since we get to stay an extra two months, that we should pay rent. That's not the way it works, I called a tenant advocacy group who told us we where with in our rights to not pay.
Well, when we get home from school/work we find that she has given Kyle, our room mate, a nice little letter saying we should pay rent or at least utilities. And that she wants payment for a phone line we've been using for the last two years...
So, rewind to May 1, 2006. The land lord offers a pre-existing phone line to me. The agreement was that we could use it and she would bring down the bill for us to pay her every month. I saw one bill, which I paid promptly, and never saw another bill ever again. I chased her around for three months that summer trying to get her to give me a bill or transfer the phone line into my name. Nothing became of it, and against a nasty feeling of this scenario popping up in the future, I just went with it. If I was asking how much I owed, and she was not getting back to me, she obviously didn't care about payment.
So back to Feb, 2008, I also talked to the tenant advocacy group about the phone line. They point me to section 7-2 of the tenant land lord act which to quote directly says:
"A landlord or tenant who claims compensation for damage or loss that results from the other's non-compliance with this Act, the regulations or their tenancy agreement must do whatever is reasonable to minimize the damage or loss."
Therefore, since we had been chasing her around looking for payment and she made no action to get payment from us. No letters, no verbal request, and no cutting off of the phone line, nothing in two years. Then she has no right to ask for payment.
I give her a professionally written letter, and explain what everything means. She gets all p*ssy and is saying that the advice I got was crap. Well, I stuck with it and told her sorry, since this is all in a paper trail now, I canât do anything to help you out. If you had come to talk to us and kept it unofficial and pleasant, we would have been more than happy to work something out with you. But now, we canât do anything because giving her anything could be seen as an admission of guilt by the court and we could be ordered to pay everything.
The whole situation stank, because we didnât want to screw her like that. But because she started playing hard ball and writing letters, our hands where tied. We would have liked nothing better than to help her out. If she had come down stairs and talked to us and said that she was having a tough time and she knows we donât have to pay rent, but could we please help out with the utilities, we would have been more than happy to oblige.
She even admitted to me that the only reason the phone bill came up was because she was mad about us not paying rent, and that she didnât really expect us to do anything about that. So her rash actions out of anger totally back fired on her, as it only resulted in us getting our guard up.
Well, that situation led to an awkward couple weeks while she packed up and moved out. We did our best to avoid her and it was a stiff pleasantness when we did have to interact with her.
Now, the kicker. Itâs February 29, 2008 and the landlord is supposed to do a damage inspection and give us back our damage deposit. I catch her in her car driving away from the house, and the only reason I caught her was good timing of me getting off the bus and crossing the street in time. I walked up to her car window and asked her when she was coming down to do the damage deposit. Her response was that she wasnât doing one, and I asked when she was going to give us back our damage deposit then, and she said that she wasnât because we owed her money for the phone.
Now, she had every right to apply to the Residential Tenancy Board (RTB) for an order to keep the damage deposit for unpaid utilities. She had 15 days from the day I provided her with our forwarding address to apply to the RTB. She didnât and she didnât get written consent from us, the tenants. So, after the 15 days is over, I am able to apply to the RTB to get my damage deposit back, and you actually get double your deposit back if you have to go through this process.
From what I could find on the RTB website, if she did not apply for a dispute resolution with in those 15 days, then she loses all rights to that damage deposit. She can still counter sue type thing, but I havenât gotten the paper work for that yet, and I doubt sheâs going to look into the process enough to discover that. I have gotten a court date (May 7, 2008) and I have submitted my evidence.
I believe that unless she counter-sues at this point then the phone bill will be irrelevant to the damage deposit. And she wonât be able to submit it as relevant evidence.
I feel like such an evil person for doing this, but at the same time I have no sympathy for her ignorance. All of the information about the rules and regulations was readily available for her on the internet. And I know sheâs been to the web site because thatâs where she got the eviction form from. She could have sat down for an hour and read everything like I did, and put in her dispute resolution request for permission to keep the damage deposit. So on one hand I feel bad because I am more knowledgeable that she is about the situation, but on the other hand, it was her own fault for not knowing and no information was being with held.
So I am anxiously awaiting my court date, which will be done by conference phone call. Iâm pretty confidant that it will work out in our favour.
Iâll end it here for now. Iâve got more venting about house hunting, but Iâll let you guys digest this first. Need less to say, I am frustrated and stress out right now and my final exams start in a week.
Thanks for listening guys.
--Dawn
House hunting is fun when it's on your own terms, but not when you're being forced out!
