Some people think they can outsmart and take advantage of everyone else. The truth is, more often than not, people realize their plan and put a stop to it before it even begins.

This is exactly what these two best friends did when their landlords tried to extort money from them.

Let’s read the story.

‘Give us more money or we’ll evict you’ Go ahead

A few years ago my best friend and I rented a tiny 2-bedroom flat together.

This place was kind of terrible; my friend’s room had a hole cut into the wall so the last foot of the bed would fit (this became a ‘mantlepiece’ in the next room), the kitchen was the size of a child’s playhouse kitchen and the upstairs neighbors were loud.

BUT, we were mostly happy because we were over living with 6+ other people.

We paid £75 a week each + bills for this place, which was pretty standard for a 2-bed flat in our area.

They chose this place based on the affordable price.

Then 6 months into our 1 year contract the landlord sold the terraced house our flat (and 5 others) was a part of to a middle-aged married couple who were first-time landlords.

They were the kind of people who thought they were smarter than everybody else and I got the impression they thought property management was going to be the easiest thing ever.

We had no problem throughout the sale process, we were assured nothing would change, we didn’t interact much with the landlord before anyway.

But things were about to change.

Then 2 weeks after the sale we got an email from the couple saying that we owed them £20 each more a week.

Basically, in our contract it stated our rent was £75 each a week about 10 times, but there was one typo where it said our rent was £95 each, so they said they could legally charge us £95.

We laughed at this, but when it became clear they were serious we reached out to the letting agent and got them to put in writing that it was a typo.

Our rent was always £75, and they even gave us the original advert for the flat with the correct rent on it.

The new landlords had a plan in mind.

We thought this would be the end of it. We were wrong.

The couple insisted on coming to our flat for an in-person meeting.

When they got there they said that they asked the old landlord about it and he was shocked that we’d not been paying enough for 6 months now and the rent was always £95.

I didn’t buy this because they had nothing in writing.

But, I made the argument that OF COURSE, he would say that because he wouldn’t want it to seem like he sold under false pretences, and if we’d been underpaying by a total of like £160 a month why had he never spoken to us about it??

They weren’t expecting the two friends to piece together their scheme.

They said that he was a busy guy with too many properties, and then the husband spent ages condescendingly explaining mortgages to us.

Then they declared that if we did not start paying them the higher rent, they would evict us and we had 24 hours to pay or 30 days to get out and they left.

Honestly, I think they saw two 22-year-old girls and thought they could scare us into paying more money. What they didn’t know is that my friend and I are very pleasant until you cross us.

Then we become vindictive monsters.

Now they had a plan.

We decided that night that if they wanted to evict us from this shit hole we were gonna make them do it properly and if they were so pedantic about contracts and rules we were going to stop letting ANYTHING slide.

The couple woke up the next morning with an email from our lawyer (my flatmate’s brother, a bored lawyer with time on his hands) requesting a formal eviction notice in writing and laying out a record of last night’s conversation.

Things were about to get serious.

Thing was they didn’t actually have legal grounds to evict us.

Even if we went to court and a judge favored their interpretation of the contract (we were advised this was unlikely) we still didn’t owe them more than a month’s rent, which would have been their only legal way of evicting us because we were otherwise great tenants.

*Chefs kiss*

By 9:15 am they were ringing us, but we ignored them and emailed that our lawyer had advised us to only communicate in writing.

We then sent an email informing them that the fancy new front door they just installed could not be unlocked from the inside without a key, which violated fire safety laws and unfortunately, if this wasn’t rectified ASAP we would have to report it.

We then sent texts that showed them repeatedly entering our flat with less than 24 hours ‘ notice, and did they know that this was illegal?

Maybe we should talk to the other tenants because if they’re doing this to everyone then this could be quite a problem…

They dug their own grave.

After about 3 days of this, we received a very nice email saying that they didn’t agree our rent was supposed to be £75 each a week, but they would graciously allow us to finish out our contract at that rate.

By this point we’d found a flat triple the size for £80 each a week and wanted out of that hamster cage, so we offered to move if they signed mutual surrender forms.

They eagerly agreed.

But still learned nothing…

The best part was that they stubbornly tried to rent that flat at the higher rate, despite us telling them it was a terrible idea, and the flat was empty for over a year.

And because they had agreed to end our contract early they got stuck paying the council tax, not me!

This is a masterclass on how to deal with crooks.

Let’s see what Reddit has to say.

A reader shares their knowledge.

This sums it up well.

This commenter shares a similar story with a different ending.

Another reader chimes in.

Yup!

I agree.

I guess that wasn’t the smartest move.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.