Tenant Realizes Her Landlord Has Been Overcharging Her By 45% For Her Uninhabitable Apartment. – ‘Normalize suing your landlord.’
Landlords are usually pretty low on the totem pole in terms of people you want to interact with throughout your day.
Maybe the stereotypes are too harsh, but all you hear is horror stories of laziness, broken appliances, and pest infestations, all while paying a fortune in rent.
And while I’m always one to give people a chance, the landlord in this story is somehow worse than you would expect, even for a landlord, even in L.A.!
When TikTok user @conornoburst received a letter revealing her apartment was deemed uninhabitable, a quick call to the housing department revealed she had been being overcharged by 45% for months!
Check it out!
She starts her video explaining that she recently received a letter in the mail that no one is ever happy about: a rent increase.
“But also in my mail was a letter from the LA housing department explaining how I could start paying them instead of my landlord for the REAP account.”
For all viewers who don’t know what REAP is she explains it as a program where the city takes over the rent of living spaces considered uninhabitable.
“You get a rent reduction based on how habitable it is… And your landlord can only access that money if it is being used to make repairs on your place.”
But she soon received a contradictory email from her landlord. “Disregard the REAP letters. We had an inspector on the property today. You can pay rent as per usual.
Assuming the landlord wasn’t being an absolute sleazeball, she believed her at her word.
But when she read the fine print of the REAP letter, she realized something was fishy.
“That’s weird. According to the REAP program, you can’t raise the rent for another 13 months after being in the program.”
And her suspicions were confirmed after a lengthy but worthwhile talk with the LA Housing Department.
“Turns out since AUGUST, I’ve been overpaying my rent by 45%. That they owe me that money back, and they can either give it to me in credit, or pay me the money back.”
She had absolutely no interest in any sort of credit with this woman, and was frankly surprised the company who owned the building didn’t say anything.
“If they refuse to pay it, I have to take them to small claims. I’m having my lawyer friends all write up letters and we’re gonna see which one’s best.”
These are the situations where being friends with a bunch of lawyers is super handy! Game night with complicated rules? Not so much!
Check out her video for yourself!
@conornoburst All landlords are bad. #landlordsfromhell #losangeleshousing #lahd #reapprogram
TikTok was unsurprised at this landlord’s scamming, with this user saying to be sure to tell her neighbors.
This user said most of adult life is just trying not to get railroaded.
While this man was shocked that there was a scale of uninhabitibility.
Many doubted the landlord would pay the rent back, and told Kelsey to take her straight to court!
And finally this user agreed, saying that when they had to, they got more money then they were originally owed.
“Normalize suing your landlord.”
If you liked that story, check out this one about a couple who forgot to turn off their ice machine and returned home after 4 months to find their freezer had turn into a frozen cavern.
