(OHIO) Landlord wants to possibly illegally evict us.

(OHIO) Landlord wants to possibly illegally evict us.

Member since 2020 · 2 posts · 0 votes

We have been dealing with a nightmare landlord. She is extremely rude, constantly bothers us about coming in to just fiddle around multiple times a week(with proper notice), and has been trying like crazy to break our lease. We have been very accommodating and have never once refused her entry to her house. Her realtor has made false claims such as we have to stage the house (she is allowed to tell us to take something down, move furniture, etc.. to their standards), we have to leave the property when they are working on it/showing it; If the house were to sell during our lease, we would have to leave the property because of the "right to occupy", or that the new landlord would be able to modify the lease. Claims like these have stressed us out, and are being made by her property manager/realtor (NOT A LAWYER). We have been dealing with this for months now, but we have simply just ignored it. She recently sent us a letter by her lawyer demanding that we leave the property as soon as possible, as we have breached the lease agreements. The lawyer claims that we have breached the contract in "2 or more" ways. Their claims are:

- 2 Dogs in the property (no knowledge of ANY dog living there)

- Hiring a separate company to do lawn work than the one stated in the lease agreement. 

So, for the first claim we found this one to be the most baffling and the most disgusting one as it is a straight up lie. We have only 1 dog and have had her in the property for 3 years! She's even pet her while visiting the house. Her attorney claims that there is no agreement of a dog in the lease even though there is constant documentation of her acknowledging the presence of a dog and it's residency in the house. We have many emails of her telling us to even lock up the dog as they will be bringing over workers.

The second claim is the most truthful thing she has claimed. We did hire another company to do work on the lawn as responsible tenants. The lawn wasn't worked on for a very long time and it was getting into rough shape. The company that she hired would always show up and leave the bill on our door. So, when we stopped receiving the bill, we assumed they just stopped showing up. I guess I made the mistake of hiring another company to do our lawn work and she didn't appreciate or like it (it was more expensive and extensive from the company that she normally hires, i think she has a relationship to the company owner). When she was upset about us hiring another company we immediately stopped and went back to the previous one. Is hiring a different company from the lease agreement because the flowers and lawn were in terrible state, enough to be a breach of contract and enough to evict us? 

Her constant letters, calls, visits, client calls, etc... are really wearing us down. She is actually coming tomorrow to bring a photographer to take pictures of the house even though we would prefer her not to bring strangers amidst the global pandemic going on. We feel as if we are being harassed and being forced to get an attorney to combat her demands of us leaving the property (she didn't give us a notice as she cant! we still have 6 months left on the lease!) We are actually landlords ourselves and own 2 properties in different states. We just went through the terrible luck of having to evict both of our houses tenants because of failure of payment for months which cost us tens of thousands of dollars and a lot of stress. Honestly, we cant catch a break.. 

I should probably mention this as she is going to bring this up as a break of breach. We did install a security system in the house without letting her know. When she asked us about it, we knew we should have let her know and gave her the password(s) and location of every sensor that was installed. She backed off after we gave her everything and she will probably come back saying that, that was a breach of contract. Would it though? She accepted the code and knowledge of the alarm months ago.Any advice would be greatly helpful sorry if a lot of this seems like i'm babbling we are just in a stressful situation.

Even now we caught her lurking around inspecting the property without any notice. It really is making us uncomfortable and stressing us out.

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Rental Property Investor · Concord, GA · Member since 2015 · 3k+ posts · 3k+ votes
6y

It sounds like she wants you out for whatever purpose. Is there some reason you just can't find a "friendlier" place to rent? I think she is going way overboard and violating your rights to "quiet enjoyment". I like to avoid conflict so I would be looking for another place rather than try to assert my rights in this place.

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  • Theresa HarrisPro Member
    Member since 2019 · 15k+ posts · 11k+ votes
    6y

    @Pablo Martinez  Hire you own lawyer and threaten to sue her for harassment.   There are lots of legal services available to help people, reach out to one of them for help.

  • Rental Property Investor · Concord, GA · Member since 2015 · 3k+ posts · 3k+ votes
    6y

    It sounds like she wants you out for whatever purpose. Is there some reason you just can't find a "friendlier" place to rent? I think she is going way overboard and violating your rights to "quiet enjoyment". I like to avoid conflict so I would be looking for another place rather than try to assert my rights in this place.

  • Member since 2018 · 563 posts · 562 votes
    6y

    1. Find a better place to rent, you will probably be able to negotiate a good deal, as quality tenants that still actually have income are becoming harder to find.

    2. Offer to let her buy you out of the lease for the full deposit refund and one months rent, to be paid in full the same day as you surrender possession(cashiers check or money orders only). Have her sign the contract that says as much, in case you have to take her to small claims court.

    My guess is she has the place sold or her realtor is blaming you(instead their own incompetence or the current market) for the place not selling.

    Either of those scenarios would make any investors anxious and unfortunately this one is not good at handling it.

    Best of luck!

  • Member since 2020 · 2 posts · 0 votes
    6y

    Thanks for the advice. The problem is that both of my properties are being put up for sale. So, we really don't want to buy a house and take on yet another house as it is not financially  viable. Furthermore, we'd only want to be here until August/September. We are hoping that one of our houses sells during that time and we are able to purchase our own home. We are a big family of 4+ members and finding a house that would be willing to rent for only half a year is probably very hard to find. We thought that an alternative would be to rent a townhouse/ apartment for the remainder of the lease but I also have 9 cars (I collect) and with the amount of stuff and family members we have, it would be a giant inconvenience. Furthermore, why should we be leaving for her convenience? I was the one who was going to make the lease last through this month (last year) but she refused and wanted us to stay at her property for 18 months until September. We will be speaking to an attorney but it really is a pity that yet again we have to deal with attorneys and potential law suites. 

  • Theresa HarrisPro Member
    Member since 2019 · 15k+ posts · 11k+ votes
    6y

    I'm not sure what you mean by both of your properties are up for sale.  If you plan on moving anyhow, start looking now. The problem isn't your family of 4+, it will be the 9 cars.  It shouldn't be that hard to find a 3 bedroom house.  You can always look at finding a separate place to store your cars.

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