Landlord from hell

[jtr1962]

My brother will be moving back in with us within the next month thanks to circumstances beyond his control. For twelve years he had a great arrangement renting the top floor and finished attic of a private home for $600 per month (very cheap by NYC standards). The owner of the house, a very nice elderly woman named Irene, knew my brother from his job in a local pharmacy and rented to him more to do him a favor than for the money. In fact, she said if not for him, she wouldn't have bothered renting at all because of the headaches tenants cause. Over time she and my brother became close friends, and the arrangement was similar to one of family. As she got on in years, my brother would run errands with her, take care of the property, and check in on her to make sure she was doing OK. She had even talked of eventually selling him the place at a good price, and deducting what he had paid in rent. Unfortunately, that was not to be.

Several years ago Irene started experienced health problems, becoming somewhat forgetful and falling occasionally. She eventually stopped driving and working (she worked P/T two days a week until her early 80's). She was still able to mostly take care of herself with my brother's help. About a year and a half ago she had collapsed and my brother found her and had her brought to the hospital. He likely saved her life. She recovered and was temporarily put in a nursing home for rehab. In fact, she was in the same place at the same time as my mother after she had her hip replacement. She seemed in good spirits, and despite the nursing home's diagnosis of "dementia" (no doubt to keep her there longer) her mind seemed sound. This was when the problems started, and it is important to note at this point that while far from rich, Irene had been frugal, never had children, and assets of close to $1 million plus whatever her house was worth.

Shortly after she was released from the nursing home Irene went to live in California with her niece. It was more at her niece's insistence than because she really wanted to. The stay was supposed to be "temporary". To put things in perspective, Irene's niece rarely came to visit her, did not see her at all in the hospital or nursing home, and really never expressed much interest in her well being. Considering that she had received substantial financial help from Irene in the past I found this incredible. As time went on it became more apparent that the niece's sole interest was gaining control of Irene's affairs. She got power of attorney for starters. Whenever my brother tried to call Irene he got all sorts of lame excuses (she's sleeping, you'll just upset her, her dementia is getting worse). Of all people, my brother would most be able to thwart the niece's nefarious schemes, so it is obvious why she gave my brother the brush off.

Early this year, my brother's rent was raised to $800 by the niece, ostensibly because the money was needed for Irene's care. This was nonsense of course. Irene is 85 and has enough to get the best of care for the rest of her life, but of course that means her bitch of a niece will inherit less. Several months after that, it was raised again to $975. The real problems started about a month ago. My brother found out through a mutual friend that Irene is now in a nursing home, and the niece didn't even have the courtesy to tell him. It was a long-standing wish of Irene that she never be placed in a nursing home. This is one reason she saved-in order to pay for any home-based care she might need. To make matters worse, it wasn't even a regular nursing home but rather a private home in which several elderly people are being taken care of with no oversight by the regulatory agencies that oversee accredited nursing homes. I shudder to think what kind of care she is getting.

Earlier this month my brother was told his rent was being raised yet again to $1300. The niece and her husband had come over in late May to fix up downstairs for rental and take whatever Irene may have had of value back to California (including mistakenly taking a flower pot of my brother's that he left outside :roll: ). Doubtless they found out what apartments go for here (generally $1500 to $3000 per month, depending upon size), and decided to hit my brother with another increase. On top of this, they told him that he would have to give up half the garage and half the driveway for the new tenants moving in downstairs. My brother has quite a bit of car parts and other stuff that simply can't be moved on such short notice. This week they gave him a not so friendly warning to move his stuff, and said he was still paying less than "market" rate so he should consider himself lucky.

My brother found out this week from the new tenants that they really have no interest in using the garage, and that they are paying $1600 per month for downstairs. They're less than thrilled with the rundown condition of the place, and may consider withholding rent until the place is brought up to par. As for my brother, on his salary he cannot afford $1300 per month. When he told the niece's husband this he simply said do what a lot of people here in California do when rents are beyond their means-move to another state. After that he warned him yet again to clear out the garage. When my brother mentioned how unappreciative they were of everything he had done for their aunt, including saving her life, this jerk simply said "you saved her life?" This was the last straw for my brother. He'll be leaving by early July, will take every upgrades he put into the place with him, and won't bother giving them any notice whatsoever.

We all hope the stay here for my brother will be as short as possible because my father can be a real PITA sometimes. He is going to try to buy a house (or a condo in the worst case situation) if he can find one within his means. Renting is probably out of the question as you'll be hard pressed to find anything for less than $1200 per month. A great idea would have been to take out a home equity loan and raise the roof on my parent's house and make an apartment for my brother upstairs but my father won't hear of it. I'm as mad as hell at all the disruption Irene's bitch of a niece has caused us. In retrospect, she was probably annoyed at my brother for saving Irene's life as she would have gotten her inheritance sooner that way. BTW, this jerk also manages her mother's (i.e/ Irene's sister) affairs. Interestingly, the niece told the real estate agency which got her the downstairs tenants that she had recently inherited the house. This leaves more unanswered questions. Did Irene pass away? Or did that bottom-feeding scum somehow manipulate into getting the house taken away from her? It's amazing the levels people will sink to when money is involved. I hope this bitch on wheels gets rectal cancer very soon. :diablo:

 

[Mickey]

Not sure about New York, but in California you cannot change the terms of a rental agreement after the fact without a written 30 days notice (if a month-to-month) or until the end of a lease (if there is a lease agreement in place). That includes amount of rent, duties of the tenant vs. landlord, and space involved.

If there was no formal rental agreement, then because your brother has lived there for a while it (IIRC) becomes a month-to-month agreement with certain generic protections in place.

All of which is neither here nor there. I wouldn't want to live someplace where the "owner" was acting in that manner. Sorry to hear about the situation with your brother and even sadder to hear about his former landlady. People that take advantage of the elderly deserve to have their own circle of Hell.

 

[Buck]

What a sad situation. The house (and any necessary funds to pay for any incurred taxes) should have been given to your brother, and when the elderly lady dies, her remaining money donated to charity. The greedy little niece, here on the left coast, should be happy to spend the remaining time with her aunt - not to mention I feel that it is her obligation to take care of her family in time of need.

I hope things can be arranged quickly so that your brother can enjoy being on his own again. Tell him not to move out here, things are ruinously expensive.

 

[sechs]

My knee-jerk reaction is to jack these people for whatever you can -- not so much for the money, but get these people what is coming to them.

Mickey -- I can't imagine that these people didn't give appropriate notice to quit. Even if there was a long-term lease agreement, it can usually be ended with a 30-day notice.

 

[P5-133XL]

Gimmie a break. You were getting a discounted rent and when new management appears rather than being thankful for the previous years discounted rent you want to burn them for raising it to low-normal. The niece has power of attorney and is obligated to maximize the benefit of her aunts estate. This is true regardless of inheritance status. When she finds out what normal rents are she is legally obligated to get what the property is worth and to protect the aunt and her property.

You don't like the new rent or the new situation then move to something you can afford and that you do like. If you don't feel that the aunt is getting a fair shake or is being mistreated then report it to the proper authorities. That is the limit of what you can do.

 

[jtr1962]

Mark, the problem is that I suspect all this was done against the aunt's wishes, or even without her knowledge. A person with power of attorney is obligated to follow the wishes of the person they are representing, regardless of whether or not it represents maximizing assets or securing their inheritence. I'm to be given power of attorney if/when my mother can no longer manage her affairs, and I intend to follow her written wishes to the letter regardless of any financial consequences to myself, good or bad. Frankly, I hope I never need to exercise that power, and that my mother lives a full long life, and dies with all her faculties.

The whole arrangement there was not the usual tenant/landlord relationship. Irene wanted my brother to stay there at the $600 per month because he took care of the place and ran errands with her. All things considered, the cheap rent was fair compensation for everything else he did. In times gone by, it was fairly common to offer a tenant low rent, or even no rent, in return for doing certain duties. Sadly, this is rarely practiced nowadays as everything is about getting every last dime from a piece of property. Anyway, Irene also wanted to be able to offer him the house on terms of her own choosing, not that of her niece. Unfortunately, she was of the old school (everything was done by verbal agreements), and nothing was ever put into writing. He never even had a lease, which at least would have protected him until it expired, and the niece refuses to give him one (making further rent increases on 30 days notice possible). Whether or not anyone other than my brother and his immediate family knows of Irene's wishes is an open question. If her niece wanted to rent out downstairs at market rate that really didn't present a problem to my brother but more than doubling his rent in the space of less than six months does. Considering that this house is over 70 years old, and many things aren't in the best of shape, $1300 (and this doesn't include utilities) is overcharging. $1000 or so probably would have been fair market rate, and something needs to be done here in NYC to address the high housing costs anyway. A single person with an average salary simply cannot afford a place to live, and things are tight even for a couple making average wages. Houses around here are now $500K and up. Even with a 5% mortgage this represents a monthly expenses of $3500 counting taxes, fuel, utilities. This is more than many people bring home. Speculators who bought houses, rented them out, and then resold them at a huge profit are largely responsible for inflating the real estate market. It isn't a case of normal supply and demand here.

I suspect that the whole dementia/senility/mental incompetence thing was a ruse to get control of Irene's assets. I remember that she didn't seem in the least mentally incompetent prior to leaving for her niece's place. In fact, Irene had enough presence of mind to mail my brother a birthday card this past January, complete with a cat on it resembling my brother's. Perhaps she was/is being drugs, allegedly to treat whatever conditions she has, that as a bonus make her appear more mentally incompetent than she is. No doubt this plays right into whatever schemes the niece has planned. This a a fairly common thing that nursing homes like to do anyway-drug the patients to treat minor age-related ailments, and then claim they are too mentally incompetent to leave. Contacting authorities may or may not accomplish anything. Frequently the legal system goes along with whatever the "experts" who run these facilities say. The only way to really ascertain what kind of care she is receiving would be to go to California and drop into the place unannounced. This isn't an option as we don't know where she is, or even if she is still alive.

It's also important to remember here that Irene has more than sufficient assets, excluding the house, for her to get the best of care for the rest of her life. Maximizing the return on assets such as the house can only serve serve the interests of one person, and that person isn't Irene. Besides possibly lying about inheriting the house to the real estate agency, she also told them that the upstairs tenant (i.e. my brother) is a "banker", no doubt to make the property seem more desireable than it really is. This was yet another lie (my brother works in a hospital and the niece knows it). Simply put, the niece is a person who lies like a rug to further her own interests. Granted, I'm only telling one side of the story here, but the new tenants already are having problems of their own with her. Anyone else see a pattern here?

 

[Santilli]

This reminds me way to much of my mother and step-father. Sometimes life just sucks, and there isn't much you can do about it.

Also, the aunt maybe the one asking for the raised rent. Renter provided a service, that with the aunt no longer there, is no longer needed, and, therefore, the reduction in rent is no longer justified. Old people get greedy in weird ways, when death approaches, probably having lived through the depression causes this. Fear of being homeless, and thrown out are not allayed by money in banks that have gone bankrupt before, in the 20's and 30's.

Never know what the situation is. Since the renter has no standing, it's best to move out, forget it, thank God for knowing her, and the experience, and move on.

It wouldn't hurt to report it to the DA's office in Kalifornia, so they could check, and make sure the aunt is not being abused.

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