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Can a Landlord Deny a Preview of a Lease 'Draft' Demanding First an Ex Ante Deposit

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  • 10-05-2018, 04:26 PM
    Eric777
    Can a Landlord Deny a Preview of a Lease 'Draft' Demanding First an Ex Ante Deposit
    My question involves landlord-tenant law in the State of: New York (Manhattan)

    Narrative, facts, and legal questions in brief:

    • Me and a roommate indicated interest in an apartment unit. Clearly, before putting down any money, I wanted to get the whole picture of the lease terms.
    • The leasing/property management office required a $500 non-refundable 'holding deposit' to take the unit off the market, a $100 application fee and one-month's rent as a security deposit.
    • I requested to review an unofficial/voided or draft of the prospective lease (or any relevant literature with more depth on the terms) prior to paying the above.
    • My requests to preview the lease were strictly denied. To view the lease text, I had to pay the above (partly non-refundable) sum.
    • I diligently inquired on all implicit or explicit costs of occupancy, redundantly. No disclosures were made prior or inscribed in any marketing/application materials regarding a mandate to carpet 80% of floors (a material implicit cost only unveiled after a due nonrefundable payment). Zero. Orally or in any marketing/application text.
    • I took a calculated risk as a reasonable person would do in relying upon the leasing office's prior representations of occupancy costs. I relied that these representations would remain constant after payment of the demanded sum, where only after I had the opportunity to see the text of the lease for the first time and its terms, ex post a demanded payment! It was over 47,000 words long and, having a busy job, I did the best I could to review it thoroughly under the tight time constraint the provided before the holding period expire we signed it.
    • Months later out of nowhere we get a letter that our unit is scheduled for inspection for compliance on an 80% carpeting clause.
    • The implicit cost of carpeting the whole place unruly burdens our budget, which is tight and was calculated on the prior representations of occupancy costs.

    Questions:

    Would this pass your sniff test as a material misrepresentation of occupancy costs? Particularly when my request to preview a voided/draft copy was denied; the property mgmt agency first requiring me to shell out an ex ante $5k deposit hold funds JUST to thereafter see a copy of the lease (clearly in a deadlock trap tactic).

    Would a court find this aesthetic modification carpeting clause enforceable when it was never disclosed prior to payment of a demanded deposit, while my repeated requests to review the lease prior to payment were denied?

    This clause only became legible under a hostage deadlock tactic of "pay to read first" where it was demanded to pay a significant partly nonrefundable deposit before I could view the lease, with any preview before payment strictly denied. Smells quite rotten won't you say?

    What laws, precedents or legal dynamics are relevant here and to what extent are any such clauses enforceable granted an applicant was required to pay a non-refundable deposit to see the terms first, with no ex ante disclosure of ex post implicit material required costs of occupancy?

    Thanks!
  • 10-05-2018, 04:39 PM
    jk
    Re: Can a Landlord Deny a Preview of a Lease 'Draft' Demanding First an Ex Ante Depos
    The fact you continued the rental process after being denied a copy of the proposed lease to review is on you. You could have walked away. You also could have walked away after being provided a copy of the proposed lease if it was not satisfactory; you didn’t.

    You rushing through the lease and not fully reading it or taking it to an attorney is also on you.


    Somewhere in life you need to take responsibility for your actions. I think this is your time.

    As to,the carpet: is it a cost stated you are liable for in the lease?
  • 10-05-2018, 05:35 PM
    adjusterjack
    Re: Can a Landlord Deny a Preview of a Lease 'Draft' Demanding First an Ex Ante Depos
    Can't imagine why a tenant would be responsible for an "80% carpet clause." Seems to me that the owner/landlord would be.
  • 10-05-2018, 05:38 PM
    Eric777
    Re: Can a Landlord Deny a Preview of a Lease 'Draft' Demanding First an Ex Ante Depos
    Quote:

    Quoting jk
    View Post
    The fact you continued the rental process after being denied a copy of the proposed lease to review is on you. You could have walked away. You also could have walked away after being provided a copy of the proposed lease if it was not satisfactory; you didn’t.

    You rushing through the lease and not fully reading it or taking it to an attorney is also on you.


    Somewhere in life you need to take responsibility for your actions. I think this is your time.

    As to,the carpet: is it a cost stated you are liable for in the lease?

    Understood. Yes it is stated that the cost of carpeting is on us in the lease.

    So if this practice is proper and legal, may I ask .... would happen if

    1. I bought a high end condo and became a landlord, advertised a unit for $1,000k/m rent and $50 utilities and required a non-refundable $600 hold deposit to take the unit off the market to compensate for loss of opportunity while is has an application on it. Period. No other disclosures.

    2. A prospective applicant/tenant asks to see an unofficial draft/copy of the lease before putting down a deposit. I decline and keep the 500-page lease text secretly locked in a hardcore safe.

    3. I keep it locked up because I know embedded within the 500 pages in very fine text is a fishy clause; a term strictly mandating the tenant to make improvements on the basis of a low-rent rider with a full high-quality paint job, floor and kitchen renovation with exotic, high-end Italian marble counter-tops and cabinets estimated to cost $75,000.

    4. After applicant notices the deceptive renovation clause, s/he withdraws the application loosing the $600.

    5. With good marketing and low rent price, I can effectively collect a handsome $18,000/ month on that unit vacant just on seized fees from applicants who withdrew the lease after seeing the surprise renovation clause!

    6. But one day one applicant overlooks the fine print on the 486th page of the lease renovation clause (principally relying on prior representations of occupancy costs), and executes it.

    7. The landlord then later sends a letter demanding the renovation be commenced at the tenant's expense as per the lease clause, or a cash payment made to compensate an independent general contractor.


    A jury would consider the above terms enforceable? What about the cunning scheme of bait-and-switch where you must "first pay to read" and 99% of applicants withdrew after noticing the renovation clause.

    Would a reasonable person consider this practice proper or deceptive?

    The above is the legal framework I fell through, except carpeting is less expensive than exotic Italian marble.
  • 10-05-2018, 06:05 PM
    jk
    Re: Can a Landlord Deny a Preview of a Lease 'Draft' Demanding First an Ex Ante Depos
    If one wishes to argue the legality of requiring a non-refundable deposit, one must be injured by the requirement. It doesn’t apply in your case since you did sign the lease rendering the no refund policy moot.
  • 10-05-2018, 06:26 PM
    Eric777
    Re: Can a Landlord Deny a Preview of a Lease 'Draft' Demanding First an Ex Ante Depos
    Quote:

    Quoting jk
    View Post
    If one wishes to argue the legality of requiring a non-refundable deposit, one must be injured by the requirement. It doesn’t apply in your case since you did sign the lease rendering the no refund policy moot.

    So if I didn't have a heart ... I would have minimal (if any) civil liability in engaging in the above practice/business of luring prospective tenants with super low rent rates, refusing ex ante disclosure of surpri$e-laden leases containing implicit material occupancy costs, effectively running a legal scheme by pocketing non refundable hold deposits after applicants withdraw upon noticing unruly substantial implicit costs. There has to be some precedents or case law relating to this in terms of ex ante disclosure.

    My legal sense of smell is not really good. But when I do smell something's really rotten, there's definitely something rotten here.
  • 10-05-2018, 06:50 PM
    jk
    Re: Can a Landlord Deny a Preview of a Lease 'Draft' Demanding First an Ex Ante Depos
    I never said that. I said it doesn’t matter in your situation because you have not been injured by the requirement. I haven’t bothered to research the matter as it now becomes a hypothetical. Since there are no set facts and questions can’t be answered definitively, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to deal with hypotheticals
  • 10-06-2018, 06:19 AM
    flyingron
    Re: Can a Landlord Deny a Preview of a Lease 'Draft' Demanding First an Ex Ante Depos
    Requiring you to put carpets/rugs down over 80% of your floors AT YOUR EXPENSE is far from uncommon. It's not an illegal clause at any rate.
  • 10-06-2018, 12:24 PM
    Eric777
    Re: Can a Landlord Deny a Preview of a Lease 'Draft' Demanding First an Ex Ante Depos
    Quote:

    Quoting flyingron
    View Post
    Requiring you to put carpets/rugs down over 80% of your floors AT YOUR EXPENSE is far from uncommon. It's not an illegal clause at any rate.

    The carpeting/rug requirement isn't the core issue. Of course it's legal. It's a question of whether it's enforceable under the landlord's deceptive practice of demanding a $500 nonrefundable holding deposit while the text of the lease is concealed in utmost secrecy ex ante to the payment of the deposit (where the applicant insists on pre-viewing the lease and is denied, and the carpeting mandate is never disclosed until after).

    There's something dangerously wrong with demanding a nonrefundable payment just to read the lease, and very dangerous if a court were to set a such precedent on a case like this. Some states such as Maryland have laws specifically getting to the heart and soul of my topic: if requested it in writing, a landlord must give you a copy of a lease before you decide whether to rent. MD Real Prop Code § 8-208 (b):

    (b) A landlord who rents using a written lease shall provide, upon written request from any prospective applicant for a lease, a copy of the proposed form of lease in writing, complete in every material detail, except for the date, the name and address of the tenant, the designation of the premises, and the rental rate without requiring execution of the lease or any prior deposit.

    Imagine what one could get away with if it were enforceable!

    I could advertise a property for cheap, charge a $1,000 holding deposit for an application and denying any pre-view of the lease text/terms until I get my $1k. Nobody can see the lease until they pay. So someone takes the risk and pays, they lease text is only then unsealed, and thanks to their careful eye they spot a clause that the tenant 'agrees to remodel kitchen, floors and repaint, etc...' implicitly costing upwards of $50,000. S/he backs away, the devious LL repeats this practice in a cycle, pocketing maybe $2k per week - essentially collecting double the rent it's worth on the unit ... all while vacant!

    No sir. Don't care if it's a $50 paint job or a $5 Million Picasso painting you want me to buy and hang. I should be able to see the text of the lease before I pay a dime. If it's secretly locked up and withheld and the LL requires an ex ante deposit of grand to see the text, and I pay that grand, you better bet your a** all costs were fully disclosed to me, implicit or explicit. In my case - they were not. At least not until I paid to 'unseal the lease text', whereafter I had too much money on the line, forfeited by my withdrawal.
  • 10-06-2018, 03:30 PM
    jk
    Re: Can a Landlord Deny a Preview of a Lease 'Draft' Demanding First an Ex Ante Depos
    As I said, since you signed the lease the non refundability issue doesn’t apply to you.

    You had all rights to refuse to pay the deposit. You paid it

    you had all rights to refuse to sign the lease; you signed it

    if you paid the deposit and didnt want to sign the lease and was not refunded your money, then you could have checked into whether that requirement is enforceable. Since you signed the lease, it doesn’t really matter.

    For all you know the guy would have refunded the deposit if challenged
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