Landlords demand rent on flooded Houston homes

[HipChick]

Rocio Fuentes weighed up the cost of getting some new sofas for her new apartment in Pasadena, Texas, and decided the family budget could just about stretch to it. Just one month after moving in, Hurricane Harvey swept through and the Fuenteses were left not only with the ruined furniture but also an ongoing rental demand for a dwelling they had to flee.

“At first we didn’t think it would be that bad, but then the water came through the wall and up through the carpet,” Fuentes said. “Once we saw the water wasn’t going to stop, we left.”
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Fuentes, her husband Jaime and their five children, ages ranging from seven months to 14 years, were plucked from the floodwaters by her mother, who arrived in a truck. They are now crammed into her sister’s apartment and with no insurance have little idea where they will live next. Jaime is unable to earn money because his construction job has been paused due to the flooding.

But while everything has changed for this family, they are still expected to pay for their abandoned home.

“Our landlords say we have to pay rent and late fees and every day it is going up,” Fuentes said. “We are paying rent for somewhere we can’t live in. They said ‘you aren’t the only ones in this situation’, but what are we supposed to do? We don’t have any money. We don’t have anything.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/04/hurricane-harvey-landlords-demand-rent-for-flooded-homes

[samnsara]

1. i can totally see trump doing this!

[handmade34]

5. Jared does that

sort of thing...

https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/jared-kushner-companies-baltimore-tenant-debts

http://www.newsweek.com/jared-kushner-nyc-landlord-trump-643456

and on and on......

[virtualobserver]

2. sue the landlord for not maintaining a live-able environment

[drray23]

3. I dont think its legal.

If the apartment is destroyed, the landlord can not rent it and hence can not require to be paid for it. They are responsible for maintaining the apartment.

[handmade34]

8. see #5

Jared Kushner is pretty good at this sort of thing...

[Angry Dragon]

13. and you would be wrong

And under Texas law, rent must still be paid on damaged dwellings, unless they are deemed completely uninhabitable.

Under the Texas property code, if a rental premises is “totally unusable” due to an external disaster then either the landlord or tenant can terminate the lease through written notice. But if the property is “partially unusable” because of a disaster, a tenant may only get a reduction in rent determined by a county or district court.


really fucked-up state in some ways

[drray23]

16. I would not be wrong according to what you posted.

If the place has been significantly flooded it is not habitable since it wont pass safety codes. For example, the electrical would have to be redone, there will be mould developing, etc.. There is a reason why people have to completely gut houses after a flood.

[Angry Dragon]

17. I believe the tenant has to prove this

that means court

perhaps read down farther

[drray23]

19. dont assume i have not read the whole thing.

I did. Given the situation and the number of probono lawyers who are dealing with that, I doubt many landlords will be able
to fly under the radar and get away with it. Somebody actually posted a link down thread to such legal help.

If this behavior is making it to the news outlets and is being exposed, those landlords will be finding it hard to fleece people.

[Angry Dragon]

24. don't assume that I assumed something

you and I find it very disgusting just read it differently

[drray23]

25. oops we may get caught in an infinite loop

dont assume i assumed that you assumed etc...

Well yes, obviously we can both agree it is a disgusting behavior. I am just maybe more optimistic and think that with the attention that is on Harvey and the aftermath of it, its less likely that they will be able to pull crap like that.
Now, in usual times, I suspect that this happens all the time and people are too poor or dont know they have a recourse in court and they get taken advantage of.

[Angry Dragon]

26. ------------------

[Xipe Totec]

4. Tenant's Right to Break a Rental Lease in Texas

3. The Rental Unit Is Unsafe or Violates Texas Health or Safety Codes

If your landlord does not provide habitable housing under local and state housing codes, a court would probably conclude that you have been “constructively evicted;” this means that the landlord, by supplying unlivable housing, has for all practical purposes “evicted” you, so you have no further responsibility for the rent. Texas law (Tex. Prop Code Ann. § § 92.056, 92.0561) sets specific requirements for the procedures you must follow before moving out because of a major repair problem. The problem must be truly serious, such as the lack of heat or other essential service.

http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/tenants-right-break-rental-lease-texas.html

[tblue37]

6. If the homes are uninhabitable, they cannot be rented out, so my guess is that the landlords

would get slapped down in court.

[no_hypocrisy]

7. She should use the contract defense of Frustration of Purpose

In the law of contracts, frustration of purpose is a defense to enforcement of the contract. Frustration of purpose occurs when an unforeseen event undermines a party's principal purpose for entering into a contract such that the performance of the contract is radically different from performance of the contract that was originally contemplated by both parties, and both parties knew of the principal purpose at the time the contract was made.[1] Despite frequently arising as a result of government action, any third party or even nature can frustrate a contracting party's primary purpose for entering into the contract. The concept is also called commercial frustration.

For example, if Joe gets a mortgage for a new home, and after three years, the house is destroyed, for whatever reason, at no fault of Joe's. Without a hell or high water clause, Joe might be exempt from the remainder of the mortgage, as the principal purpose of the contract (to have a house to live in) has been compromised. However, he might still have a foreclosure on his credit rating.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frustration_of_purpose

[jpak]

9. Dark and Stormy in the Night...kill my landlord kill my landlord

C I L L my land..lord.

[phylny]

20. Heh. I remember that. n/t

[treestar]

22. lol

[jpak]

29. It's here

Last edited Tue Sep 5, 2017, 09:58 PM - Edit history (1)

www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/prose-and-cons/n8838?snl=1

[treestar]

32. Always liked that one

Eddie Murphy was hilarious.

[Solly Mack]

34. I loved that!

[lpbk2713]

10. How do they expect payment for space that should be condemned?

The tenants should fire back by reporting the slumlords to the Health Dept.

[haveahart]

11. Wonder how many of these landlords are absentee landlords living abroad? You know, all those

real estate money laundering deals for folks living outside the US but using the greed and avarice of some folks like
Don the con to get a foot in the door to buy up a lot of brick in the US.

[hunter]

23. I've got neighbors living in a house owned by a Chinese extended family.

My great grandfather's house in San Francisco, the one my grandma and her sister were born in, is also owned now by foreign investors.

My grandma's childhood bedroom is now a full apartment. I talked to someone living there a few years ago and he couldn't believe the entire house once belonged to a single family, or that the luxury apartment of the house was once the home of a much abused Irish housekeeper/cook/maid, spinster queen of the big kitchen, and child of St. Ignatius Parish.

My great grandma sold the house in the Great Depression. Don't cry, she had others. My great grandfather was a dreamer who knew the future belonged to Hollywood motion pictures and the aircraft industry, but he bet everything he had on the wrong players and then he died.

I've no inherited wealth, and just a little white privilege, and I won't be happy if my parent's don't spend it all on things that make them happy.

If I don't inherit a big flaming pile of shit with debt collectors calling me so I can mock them, I will not be happy.

[crazycatlady]

28. VEry well could be property management companies

[tammywammy]

31. The shit hole apartments in my city all seemed to be owned by people in California.

They get numerous code violations. Don't have any security. Allow the properties to go to shit. All the worst apartment owners are out of California here.

[R B Garr]

12. I was wondering when this business would start.

Maybe they can sue the landlord for their units being uninhabitable. That is just as absurd as landlords suing for non-payment when renters have been flooded out under life threatening circumstances.

Surely there's a middle ground. This is outrageous

[Ilsa]

18. Me too. All of the "love" being shown suddenly disintegrating into greed,

"Pay me so I can pay my real estate loan," etc. 45 would tell them they have to pay, give them no relief.

[JCMach1]

14. Unsafe living condition, lease voided

Simple as that.

[pnwmom]

15. For anyone in this situation, here is the number for pro bono (free) legal services in Houston:

https://www.justia.com/lawyers/landlordtenant/texas/houston/legal-aid-and-pro-bono-services

Houston, Texas Landlord Tenant Legal Aid & Pro Bono Services

Houston Volunteer Lawyers Program, Inc.
[phone]
1111 Bagby
Houston, TX 77002
Landlord Tenant, Collections, Domestic Violence and Probate

[treestar]

21. I wonder what Texas law

on landlord/tenant is. Bet that it protects the landlord's freedumb.

[mnhtnbb]

27. Not surprised. We were expected to continue making monthly mortgage payments

on a burned down house.

Ten years ago our home was destroyed by fired. Not burned to the ground, but still completely destroyed.

It took us almost 6 months and a complaint to the NC Commissioner of Banks to get the mortgage holder
to acknowledge a significant paydown of the balance on the interest only loan. That was all while we were fighting
with the insurance company to actually reimburse us for replacement cost. They tried to get a way with a 2/3
payoff which would have left us owing more than $100,000. to pay off the loan on a burned down house! In other words,
we should just sell the lot--or abandon it--to the mortgage holder.

I really feel for all the people who are now going to have to deal with this kind of crap as a result of Harvey.

[msongs]

30. landlord must provide a HABITABLE space. otherwise, no rent needed nt

[dembotoz]

33. Between tent and mortgages looks like full employment for lawyers

[Solly Mack]

35. I couldn't do that to another person.

I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if I did someone that dirty.