What is the name of your state?
Indiana
OK, here we go...
My wife and I began renting an apartment on 7/8/05. It's actually a house turned into 3 separate apartments (we have the upper part, if it matters). We signed a year lease. Sometime between November and December, the house was sold and a new landlord took over. Everything seemed fine until February 12, when our water heater stopped working. It was finally fixed on February 26.
The last time I saw our landlord face to face was on March 6th, 2006. At that time, I informed him that we were having problems with our toilet and that one of our light sockets was not working. To this day, the socket doesn't work and the toilet just started working about a week ago... He never even bothered to look at any of this.
In May, I mailed a note with my rent that my wife and I would like to sign another year's lease, seems ours would be up on July 8th. In the lease, from the original owners and carried over to the new one stated that "Tenant can request a new lease at any time so rent will not be raised." Of course, I got no reply. Nor, did I get a reply when I left a message on his voicemail stating the same thing.
When I last saw him in March, he gave us a business card with a P.O. Box to mail rent to and it also had his phone number. Fine, no problem.
Today is when it got REALLY good. Turns out that the pump in the basement was pumping raw sewage into the street. Obviously, health officials were called and we were told that it's likely that the house will be condemned on Monday (3 days from now). FINALLY, I got a hold of the landlord today (after the city called him, that is... turns out the number on the card wasn't even in service). He said that someone would "be out tomorrow between 8-10 am to fix the problem." I told the guys from the sewage department this and they laughed and said "It won't matter, the house will still get condemned." They went so far as to suggest we don't even stay in the house over the weekend, since it is a health hazard, but at this point, we have really no choice but to stay. I relayed this to our landlord who said "The house isn't condemned as of yet, and therefore livable." So, if we wanted to stay the weekend elsewhere, it would be on our own dime. Doesn't seem right, but whatever.
My main question is, what if Monday morning rolls around, and the house is indeed condemed? The landlord already said over the phone that we'd have a place to stay and that our belongings would be moved at his expense. I know, verbal agreements mean jack, but it's all I got to go on as of now. I have no way to get our belongings out by Monday if I wanted to... I'm sure that there would be legal recourse against him, but my primary concern is what to do with my family if the house is condemned and the landlord simply doesn't live up to his word of finding us a place and moving us? Is he obligated by law to do this (I'm almost certain he would be) and how soon does he have to do it?
There are three families in this house and all of us are in jeopardy of being with no place to go, if the landlord refuses to do anything. I've read he has to put us up in a hotel or something... Any truth? If it is true, how is the decision of what type of hotel it is? Meaning, can he just dump us in a $25 a night place and get away with that, or does he have to accomodate us equally, if not better, than we are accustomed to in our current house (No, it's not paradise, but, we do have digital cable, high speed internet, etc). Maybe this sounds petty, but we're the ones being inconvenienced here, due to his negligence on maintining the house. Due to it being the weekend, no shelters are even open until Monday morning, and I really don't think it's fair that we would have to stay in a shelter due to his negligence.
The reason I bring up the stuff from the past is to establish a pattern of unreturned calls, ignored complaints, etc. The only thing I have in writing, unfortunately, is the piece of notebook paper that I've personally logged these things on.
Any knowledge here would be of great help.
-Bill
Indiana
OK, here we go...
My wife and I began renting an apartment on 7/8/05. It's actually a house turned into 3 separate apartments (we have the upper part, if it matters). We signed a year lease. Sometime between November and December, the house was sold and a new landlord took over. Everything seemed fine until February 12, when our water heater stopped working. It was finally fixed on February 26.
The last time I saw our landlord face to face was on March 6th, 2006. At that time, I informed him that we were having problems with our toilet and that one of our light sockets was not working. To this day, the socket doesn't work and the toilet just started working about a week ago... He never even bothered to look at any of this.
In May, I mailed a note with my rent that my wife and I would like to sign another year's lease, seems ours would be up on July 8th. In the lease, from the original owners and carried over to the new one stated that "Tenant can request a new lease at any time so rent will not be raised." Of course, I got no reply. Nor, did I get a reply when I left a message on his voicemail stating the same thing.
When I last saw him in March, he gave us a business card with a P.O. Box to mail rent to and it also had his phone number. Fine, no problem.
Today is when it got REALLY good. Turns out that the pump in the basement was pumping raw sewage into the street. Obviously, health officials were called and we were told that it's likely that the house will be condemned on Monday (3 days from now). FINALLY, I got a hold of the landlord today (after the city called him, that is... turns out the number on the card wasn't even in service). He said that someone would "be out tomorrow between 8-10 am to fix the problem." I told the guys from the sewage department this and they laughed and said "It won't matter, the house will still get condemned." They went so far as to suggest we don't even stay in the house over the weekend, since it is a health hazard, but at this point, we have really no choice but to stay. I relayed this to our landlord who said "The house isn't condemned as of yet, and therefore livable." So, if we wanted to stay the weekend elsewhere, it would be on our own dime. Doesn't seem right, but whatever.
My main question is, what if Monday morning rolls around, and the house is indeed condemed? The landlord already said over the phone that we'd have a place to stay and that our belongings would be moved at his expense. I know, verbal agreements mean jack, but it's all I got to go on as of now. I have no way to get our belongings out by Monday if I wanted to... I'm sure that there would be legal recourse against him, but my primary concern is what to do with my family if the house is condemned and the landlord simply doesn't live up to his word of finding us a place and moving us? Is he obligated by law to do this (I'm almost certain he would be) and how soon does he have to do it?
There are three families in this house and all of us are in jeopardy of being with no place to go, if the landlord refuses to do anything. I've read he has to put us up in a hotel or something... Any truth? If it is true, how is the decision of what type of hotel it is? Meaning, can he just dump us in a $25 a night place and get away with that, or does he have to accomodate us equally, if not better, than we are accustomed to in our current house (No, it's not paradise, but, we do have digital cable, high speed internet, etc). Maybe this sounds petty, but we're the ones being inconvenienced here, due to his negligence on maintining the house. Due to it being the weekend, no shelters are even open until Monday morning, and I really don't think it's fair that we would have to stay in a shelter due to his negligence.
The reason I bring up the stuff from the past is to establish a pattern of unreturned calls, ignored complaints, etc. The only thing I have in writing, unfortunately, is the piece of notebook paper that I've personally logged these things on.
Any knowledge here would be of great help.
-Bill