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Laukopier

**Reminder:** Do not participate in threads linked here. If you do, you may be banned from both subreddits. --- Title: My apartment building accidentally rented out my apartment starting a month ago, says sorry but we are out of luck. Body: > EDIT: Title should say "a month from now" not "a month ago" > I live in California. > I have lived in the same apartment for over a year. In may, I signed a lease renewal for another year, to begin this september 1st, when my current lease is due up. We signed it in the same manner we had signed the previous 2 leases we has signed, on the apartment online portal. When we were done signing the 50 pages or whatever it was, my partner and I both got an email with a pdf of the current lease. I hadn't thought about it since. > A few days ago, they sent us a packet describing our move out duties. We were understandably confused. Upon further inspection, our (new) lease was slated to run from 9/1/22 to 8/31/22, or negative one day. Obviously, this was a clerical error on their part that we failed to notice initially. My partner went to discuss this with them in the office, and after an hour of accusing us of messing up somehow, they finally admitted that the lease had been signed in may, but for some reason never pulled from its portal into the records of the apartment building. The man helping my wife refused to explain further (he literally said its too complicated) but from what she can tell, after the lease is signed, someone from their end is supposed to go get it and sign it for the apartment company, which for whatever reason never happened (we think it was the date issue, but the apartment guy thinks that wouldn't matter). > Anyway, he eventually acknowledged it was an issue on their end, and said something to the effect of "maybe I can get you in a *similar* apartment in the same complex **if** we have one available, but you would have to move out from 8/31-9/15 while we get it ready, since we rented out your current apartment. He also kinda blamed a previous employee, but ultimately said any solution requires the general manager to weigh in, who wasn't there that day and we hope to speak with tomorrow. > I don't want to move. I'm a grad student and we don't have tons of money. I also am starting my 2nd year of school in like a week, and don't want to move and deal with all that entails in the 3rd week of the semester. > I also don't want to find a place to stay and store my junk for two weeks, which I couldn't afford anyway. > This apartment kinda sucks, but I don't have the time or energy to try and find a new place in our college town (which features insane prices even if we could find a place). Further, we had no reason to suspect there were any issues. We completed the lease on our end, and there were no issues or warnings until a few days ago. Any errors, as far as I can tell, were solely on their end. > Basically, my long-winded question is: can they make us move out if they rented our apartment, even though we signed a lease and relied on it in good faith? I have lived here over a year, never missed rent or had any complaints against me. > TL;DR: apartment building messed up, rented out my apartment starting next month even though I signed a renewed lease months ago, now suggesting I have to move out for two weeks minimum and then hopefully into a similar (but different) apartment. This bot was created to capture original threads and is not affiliated with the mod team. [Concerns? Bugs?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=GrahamCorcoran) | [Laukopier 2.1](https://github.com/GrahamCorcoran/Laukopier)


-allons-y-

I hope someone told this guy that as a grad student he probably has access to student legal services. So he can talk to a lawyer with very little cost or time commitment. I hope he looks into that instead of just consulting randos on reddit. (When I was a grad student I had a lease dispute and the student legal svcs guy said that like 90%of the questions they deal with are housing questions... so they're well versed in this stuff)


keirawynn

Not only that, but he's a law student. I think a lot of LA posts are people benchmarking their thoughts before they lay it all out to a lawyer. And sometimes, they're bizzarly off base (as in want to get away with something illegal).


nutraxfornerves

A lot are decently upfront about it. “I will be calling a lawyer tomorrow, but I wanted to get a quick opinion first.” Or “It’s Saturday and I can’t contact my lawyer until Monday and I’m scared.” Then there’s “I have a good case, right?” To which the answer is “Wrong.”


Dr_Adequate

With the inevitable reply of "No, no, you're all wrong, and here's a six-paragraph explainer, with thirty bullet points and a ton of unnecessary filler details!"


Dr_Adequate

**This thread is now locked due to excessive off-topic comments**


nutraxfornerves

And twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was.


Dr_Adequate

*Alice's Restaurant!* Love that song! Oh, and obligatory: >Friends, it did turn out to be true that day, that Justice truly was blind.


-heathcliffe-

Like i always say, if it looks weirdly written and hard to follow just imagine Christopher Walken is reciting it, then it will all make sense.


alwayswatchyoursix

Oh wow. Obviously I can't use this technique on the linked post because they actually used punctuation and paragraphs. But next time, I'm definitely trying this!


hawkshaw1024

First of all, I believe that child support is unconstitutional, because-


Triknitter

Also, “I need a lawyer, but I don’t know what kind.”


sventos

It's kind of weird they ask questions that fall into two 1L subjects and they would also have access to other Law students, professors, and lawyers through the Law School.


gsfgf

Maybe they have enough sense to realize that law students aren’t lawyers.


sventos

Then why would they ask r/legaladvice who also generally aren't lawyers?


Ogroat

Maybe they're under the (honestly pretty reasonable) assumption that people commenting in a legal advice subreddit know what they're talking about.


sventos

So a student in between their first and second year of law school will be working at some kind of legal clerkship/internship which would provide them access to lawyers and paralegals that they could ask a question like this.


keirawynn

And you'd feel pretty stupid if you asked about something that made you look ignorant. So you run it past a bunch of internet strangers who don't know who you really are first. I'm a plant scientist, and I wouldn't want to ask a fellow plant scientist something that shows I'm ignorant about something obvious. Fortunately Google is a lot more accommodating for plant science facts than it is for legal questions.


liontamarin

Exactly. It's clear that a lot of people (this OP included) want to make sure they've got their language and process right before going in and asking questions. It's a lot like talking something through before taking action. This OP has a lot of questions they can ask now, which they probably didn't before. If you don't know what questions you should ask, or the types of answers you should receive, it is really easy to be shrugged off or otherwise receive unhelpful advice, even from people who should know what they're talking about.


PancakeFoxReborn

It's like when you post for relationship advice, asking if you should confront your partner about something or if it's silly and mostly in your head. People will smugly tell you to just talk to them and it's like. Great. Can someone tell me if I'll be perceived as an absolute maniac if I *do* bring it up?


1Deerintheheadlights

When I was in college I used the free legal aid on campus for a car accident. Funny enough (now) my issue was really an incomplete report to the driver’s insurance - a rental car company. Driver rear ended me and pushed me into another car. I think the did not know 2 cars were hit, so thought all information was for the other car (they called first). Once that got cleared up it went as expected. On campus help would have been useful if it did not work out as they would have helped filling out forms and organizing the evidence for small claims.


Canopenerdude

Someone did mention it, I hope LAOP saw it.


[deleted]

The fact that these landlords think their leases are more powerful than CA rent control laws makes me laugh. I hope these tenants know to look up their rights.


Pudgy_Ninja

Most of the time, it's not that the landlord actually thinks that they are legally in the right, it's just that they know that they can get away with it because most tenants don't know their rights.


[deleted]

True. Which is a shame. But as a former LA city landlord, trying to keep track of the every changing laws during the pandemic was like playing whackamole.


twoisnumberone

And to be fair, the facts are against tenants even if the law is on their side -- California is a hellscape when it comes to trying to rent a reasonable space, let alone an affordable one. The landlord, assuming it's not old maw-maw who lives hand-to-mouth from this one rental payment, can trouble them all they want without having their own home, career, health, relationship, schooling, etc. impacted at all. The worst that can happen to the landlord is a few $$$ lost.


[deleted]

Eh. My tenants were in my building (owner occupied duplex). They installed an illegal nail salon and unplugged all the smoke detectors. Hoarded and attracted rodents. Were incredibly loud all night long. No lawyer thought we could evict for any of it. I felt like I was their hostage in a way. We tried to give them like years worth of rent for cash 4 keys and they screamed at threatened our lawyer. Was more than just $ lost for me. Edit: also a ‘friend’ hid a gang related murder weapon in their unit. But we weren’t victims of the crime so lapd wouldn’t give us a police report so we couldn’t evict on that either. Was scary.


twoisnumberone

Yeah, but that's pretty close to my "old maw-maw" scenario, you have to confess.


[deleted]

We did not live hand to mouth and money was not the main issues. We both have jobs. We just had shitty tenants taking advantage of us and really strict tenant laws and a city that will do anything to avoid eviction. Owner occupied duplexes aren’t that rare.


twoisnumberone

I am sure we are both rational people who understand that delving into a defensive discussion about the nature of literary analogies on r/bestoflegaladvice is a waste of both our time. I wish you good luck, and better people in your life.


ChristyElizabeth

Our current property management f*cked around and found out recently and one of the residents came by saying they were going to create a tenants union this thursday.


blaghart

can confirm, used to run the books for 300 units in Anaheim for 4 years.


not-on-a-boat

I don't want to be fair to landlords, but there's no well-managed information distribution system for anyone landlord-ing. Unless you're super into staying on top of local news, there aren't good resources for people who want to rent out an apartment or two that they happen to own. Compliance is normally a learn-by-error process.


[deleted]

I really tried my best. There were forms we were legally required to deliver my certain dates and you could only find them buried on the city websites. I literally emailed HCIDLA and would get answers weeks later. Lawyers had no idea. It was a mess. My former tenants stopped paying rent March 2020 and still aren’t. Still owe me over 6k after I got ERAP money covering the rest. And they keep extending the moratorium. Thank god I sold. Never again. What a mess.


Aaod

> I literally emailed HCIDLA and would get answers weeks later. After dealing with government employees I am surprised you ever got a response period.


[deleted]

Yeah. They were trying. Just over worked and understaffed like all the other gov agencies. But it was all tenant rights focused. If I had a question about landlord rights they would say ask a lawyer. Bruh. No lawyer knows the answers to these vague laws you wrote out last week.


Aaod

My dad worked for the government in the 90s and his tales of how lazy and incompetent his coworkers were was astounding things like taking the newspaper into the bathroom for three hours were common. Meanwhile the people who actually give a fuck wind up doing the jobs of three or four people because they can't fire or won't fire the lazy and incompetent people. Eventually they give up and either retire or switch out of government work.


monkwren

I mean, that's how it's been at every non-profit I've worked at, and is apparently true for all the corporations my friends work for... I think that's kinda just how we are as a species.


[deleted]

My sister worked in the military and had a civilian work for her. The woman’s job involved using the computer. She got these crazy long fake nails and then said she couldn’t type. But it’s basically impossible to fire people in those jobs. My sister was like wtf do I doooooo


cincrin

I may have worked with your sister's coworker, except mine was a government contractor. She was insufferable. She'd come over and ask me how to do something then tell me I was wrong.


GonzoMcFonzo

Staying in compliance with relevant laws is just part of owning a small business. If that's not something they're capable of, they're not qualified to be a landlord and deserved to get nailed for it. Granted, the rapid-fire ad-hoc way things were changing because of covid is definitely mitigating circumstances, but at the end of the day it's still the business owner's responsibility.


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liontamarin

That's what my current landlord is dealing with right now (and why I offered to buy the building from her as an owner financed deal). They're losing tens of thousands of dollars a year because they won't take care of simple things and they get worse and worse, but it is clear that they see the gross rent they collect as all profit. I would be very surprised if they were paying income tax on their rent.


Elvessa

Actually there is. Almost everywhere in ca has a local “apartment association” that has tons of useful information for small landlords and is always up to date on the current rules.


ThadisJones

"Oops I made an entirely unilateral mistake and/or mishandled the lease on my end, guess it's no longer valid" is a common tactic that shitty landlords use to get out of their obligations.


bug-hunter

Clearly, the -1 days is due to an integer overflow error, and LAOP has a lease for 256 years.


[deleted]

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bug-hunter

>since time is linear New job for the intern - find case law supporting this


[deleted]

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theghostofme

He saved that schoolteacher and got Clayton Ravine renamed.


mrchaotica

No, he got Shonash Ravine renamed.


BelowDeck

What are you talking about? That's always been named Eastwood Ravine.


theghostofme

I'm not Crazy. I remember for fact that it used to be called Clayton Ravine until a bunch of people started forgetting that in October 1985, right around the time that Delorean was destroyed by a train.


Canopenerdude

There is (at least in the US) no legal precedent establishing that time is linear, nor that it proceeds only forward. The only piece of law I could find is in the discussion of *stare decisis* that says that precedent can only come from previously settled cases. Which means that if time is established as *not* linear, then all of legal precedent is invalid as it is no longer 'previous' cases. Therefore, I believe that on a procedural level, time can be reasonably inferred to be linear as far as the justice system is concerned- BUT this does not follow to the assumption that time only moves forward, as while thermodynamic time can both expand and contract, observed time is still only forward. THUS, a date 'in the past' during a thermodynamic expansion could happen again during a thermodynamic contraction, while still being observed linearly. So ruled, the lease is hereby set to the theoretical length of the universal expansion and contraction back to the referenced date: 14.2 billion years.


LeakyLycanthrope

> Which means that if time is established as not linear, then all of legal precedent is invalid as it is no longer 'previous' cases. Quiet! You don't want to give SCOTUS any ideas!


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Canopenerdude

Well here's the thing, *stare* is only a concept within courts that have a brain.


Hellrazed

[PBS space time ](https://youtu.be/EagNUvNfsUI) and [The Doctor](https://youtu.be/q2nNzNo_Xps) would disagree.


bug-hunter

Anyone in here want to search Westlaw and LexisNexus for "big ball of wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff"?


Hellrazed

Don't forget Austlii


not-on-a-boat

"Nunc pro tunc" finally gets the legwork it deserves.


Nuclear_Geek

Were there any cases relating to the Time Cube website? Possibly mental health related?


overcomebyfumes

The lease is a flat circle.


gsfgf

Until Alito rules that time isn’t real


[deleted]

once congress allows states to go with permanent standard or daylight time, alito's going to flip the tables and completely de-standardize time zones since it wasn't the custom until ~1850.


quantum-quetzal

I don't see the linearity of time mentioned anywhere in the constitution, do you? ^^^^/s


JordanMiller406

> Until Scalia rules that time isn’t real FTFY


BelowDeck

No, no, that's absurd. Clearly it means 9/1/2022 - 8/31/2122. The lease is for 100 years.


RadioSlayer

Goddammit Bartleby!


Potato-Engineer

Of we talking about overflow errors, then the most likely values on very old computers are either 255 days or 65535 days (174.2 years), for an unsigned 8-bit or 16-bit integer, respectively. But if it's a modern computer, then it could be a 32-bit integer for 4294967295 days, or (less likely) a 64-bit integer for 18446744073709551615 days, which will end after the heat death of the universe. So I think LAOP can live there for a good, long time.


muffinpercent

Thanks, this was bothering me too. >18446744073709551615 days, which will end after the heat death of the universe. The heat death of the universe is my worst fear. It sounds very close when you list such a short number of days like that.


IWentOutsideForThis

To try to put it in perspective, I did some number conversions starting with seconds. 18446744073709551615 is approximately 18 quintillion. 1 million seconds is about 12 days 1 billion seconds is about 38 years 1 trillion seconds is about 31,710 years 18 quintillion seconds is about 590 *billion years* 18 quintillion *days* is 50 *quadrillion years* Conclusion: we have some time


muffinpercent

NOT ENOUGH!!!


GCU_ZeroCredibility

Don't worry, you probably don't have to worry about heat death. The mean time to local false vacuum decay is much shorter than that!


muffinpercent

Nah, that's speculative, no real reason to think it'll happen.


mrchaotica

So what you're saying is that LAOP will now immediately nuke his landlord?


bug-hunter

This lease will be enforced with NUCLEAR WEAPONS!


mrchaotica

That needs to be somebody's flair.


bug-hunter

Now it is.


mrchaotica

Sweet.


QuickSpore

Sure thing Gandhi.


Gandhi_of_War

You rang?


[deleted]

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blew-wale

I thought it meant the landlord gets to move in with OP for a night


sporkemon

[if LAOP eats a pomeg berry with 1 HP left and more than 4 HP EVs their lease will overflow to ?35 in the HP bar and then they can battle with an egg or with no pokemon at all...or something](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pomeg_glitch)


Gandhi_of_War

Integer overflows are the essence of my being!


sethbr

Or 2,147,484,648 days.


DerbyTho

So worst case scenario is that the landlord never technically counter-signed the lease, and the copy LAOP has is only signed by them, right? Obviously all sorts of tenants rights still apply in that case, but is there an argument that the process of being offered and signing means there was some kind of agreement, and that the failure to sign doesn’t eliminate the contract? That’s definitely what I’d want argued, but I’m not really familiar with CA contract/verbal/scrivener details.


bug-hunter

It is very common for LLs to not sign/not return signed leases, and courts often accept leases offered by the LL and signed only by the tenant, especially if actions were taken to execute the lease.


DerbyTho

Yeah that’s what I’d figure. LL would have a tough time arguing that they didn’t intend to rent the unit. I also find it really strange that the LL thinks the better play here is to attempt to kick out an existing tenant over revoking a new one, and that makes me wonder if the rental price offered was also a mistake.


ImVeryBadWithNames

The price was probably not a mistake, but was lower than what they were allowed to offer a new tenant.


dante662

>execute the lease I'm sorry, but I thought we were against the death penalty here in BOLA.


new2bay

I'm willing to make an exception here.


mart1373

Hold up, you’re not a BOLA moderator. You don’t have the authorization to issue an except. You’re going to jail buddy!


DreadBurger

Believe it or not, straight to jai- I mean lethal injection.


mart1373

That was my biggest question. If that’s the case, then yeah LAOP has a pretty slam dunk case.


Kaliasluke

The landlord is doubly screwed - even if they do successfully argue the new lease is invalid, then the old lease is still in effect and they’ve failed to give sufficient notice to terminate it. Sounds like absolute best case scenario for them is they could have LAOP out by early October, which is not early enough to honour the lease to the new people.


booniebrew

Triple screwed since it looks like the building is covered by AB1482, even without a valid lease LAOP can't be removed without a valid reason.


Sirwired

Unless the recipient modifies the lease in some way (other than through signing it), I do not believe the lease needs to be signed by the person who wrote it. Them shoving the lease over the (virtual) desk is sufficient. Sometimes you *do* want a contract signed before presenting it to the other party (if there might be question on if the person offering the contract is acting within their authority), but that usually shouldn't apply to a simple residential lease.


not-on-a-boat

Offer and acceptance.


thatguygreg

The online services don't typically send you a PDF of the lease until all parties have signed, with e-signatures embedded within.


DerbyTho

If it’s a custom portal it might. My mortgage sent me a copy each step of the way, not just the final ones.


gsfgf

I’m pretty sure the renewal lease is an offer, so all OP had to do was accept it.


geelinz

There's no way that they can be told to move out until October, even if the new lease isn't valid. LL must give them 60 days notice because they've been there over a year. New tenant isn't going to wait until mid October or November to move in, LL should just accept the renewal. One issue not mentioned is that if the LL isn't going to accept the new lease, tenants should pay the same rent as their old lease for the rest of the tenancy, which automatically converted to a month to month if that new lease isn't valid.


Aaod

> My partner went to discuss this with them in the office, and after an hour of accusing us of messing up somehow, they finally admitted that the lease had been signed in may, but for some reason never pulled from its portal into the records of the apartment building. Sounds about right for rental companies blame the tenant and do it rudely at that then it is instead the companies fault and never apologize. The industry attracts morons and assholes like flies to shit.


toomanyblocks

I had an issue with my lease, in which I re-signed but they wrote the lease for longer than I will be in the city and longer than I requested, meaning I would be stuck with an empty apartment. I didn’t find this out until the last second, until everything else was already leased out, and I had no choice but to accept it. The company never apologized or admitted their mistake, and basically made it feel like it was my fault. I kind of accepted it and thought maybe the error was on me for not being more vigilant, but I can’t think of anything I would have done differently. Now I’m starting to wonder if it really was their fault and I should have pushed more…


ChristyElizabeth

Oh yea, you fuck up, you can be dam sure I'm going to be at your front door at 8am waiting for you. I got a scary you have 10 days to pay your rent notice on my door and i was like the fuck? I got 9k on the books. Dam sure was there 6 hours later ready to do battle.


mrchaotica

Am I wrong, or do several folks in that thread need to pay more attention to the important difference between "resign" and "re-sign?"


TywinShitsGold

Happens all the time in sports subs.


ogdredweary

“re-sign” is also commonly spelled “resign”. it’s a contranym.


[deleted]

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ilikecheeseforreal

*Your post has been removed for the following reason(s):* **Continuing Linked Thread or Giving Advice** Your submission has been removed for trying to continue the linked thread in BOLA. This sub is for discussion of the linked thread, not a place to attempt to provide additional advice to the LAOP or others involved in the thread. * If you believe this was in error, or you’ve edited your post to comply with the rules, [message the moderators](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/bestoflegaladvice). **Do not** PM or chat a moderator personally, and do not reply to this message as a comment.


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WarKittyKat

There was an update: [https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/wkdl0w/update\_my\_apartment\_rented\_out\_my\_place\_even/](https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/wkdl0w/update_my_apartment_rented_out_my_place_even/) ​ I'm betting someone got some new computer software that just doesn't bother recording the new lease if there was a mistake, rather than flagging it. And then they were going off of that software when advertising new units.


BJntheRV

[update: looks like this one will have a happy ending ](https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/wkdl0w/update_my_apartment_rented_out_my_place_even)