Monday, April 6, 2009
Landlord Troubles
We have a bit of a painful landlord. We've been trying to reach him for the past few days to give him our two month notice and he's been stalling. Finally after getting an SMS from Prasad stating the the 2 month clock has started ticking, he and his wife came for a visit. They hand delivered their daughter's wedding invitation. He went on and on about the wedding and how much it will cost, that he has absolutely no time to deal with this and that we should at least stay for the length of the lease. Prasad calmly said no and he started to get angry and said we needed to see his side of things and that he had done us a favor by reducing the rent yada yada yada. Since we couldn't come to a closure we said we'll get back to him the next day. That day itself, he called his agent and they wanted to start showing our house to prospective renters. Next day same issue, couldn't reach him by phone, Prasad sent him an SMS saying our new apartment owners are not accepting a later move-in date so we're giving our notice and moving forward on the plan. The landlord was livid. He returned with a nasty SMS saying he thinks we're being unfair and he's not going to accept this and will give us a hard time! Huh!?! He runs a reputed chartered accountant firm, has multiple properties he rents, he lives on MG Road in a beautiful home and apparently his daughter's engagement last month was held at one of the Taj Hotels hosting 300 people and he is worried about 1-2 months of rent!?! If he bought his daughter one or two less saris for the wedding, that should cover it, well ok almost cover it and the saris better be pretty impressive looking! Completely unprofessional and disappointing to see how he is trying to bull doze us. Just to clarify, our rental agreement clearly states we can break the lease if we give two months of notice. Another interesting note about this person when we first met him, he was initially very cold and distant until he found out that we were also from Andhra. He suddenly warmed up and can you believe wanted to know what our caste was? He outright asked us making Prasad and I feel very uncomfortable. At the time I thought it was all so funny but his eccentricities are not so funny now.
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3 comments:
Ouch....it's always them that have that seem to get all greedy!
Go all professional on him - get the notice delivered as a registered letter with ack due, so that he cannot claim later that you didn't give him sufficient notice. I assume you paid down 10 months rent as deposit - that is where landlords try to stiff folks when they want - delay returning the deposit...and that might be what is bothering him. He may not have the cash handy to return to you, with the wedding etc.
Be sure to put it in writing that you expect the deposit amt. back on a certain date etc. Quote relavant sections of your rental agreement.
Good luck...let me know if you need information on drafting such a letter - will send you my father's contact info.
M
Ouch - this is really bothersome. When do you guys move to your new place? How is that landlord like?
Maith,
Fortunately, we have a company lease agreement so our company will give them notice officially. We at least have some backing from the company. And yes, the company did give them the huge deposit which we need back and you're right that is an issue for the landlord right now given his high expenses.
Teju,
I'm not sure how our new landlord is yet, we're actually still looking at other places in the same complex to see if we can get a better place esp since we have 2 months to kill anyway.
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