Will try to keep it short and consise. I’ve been renting an apt and this month entering the 12th month of my lease. It’s a three family. There’s a 2 car driveway. The landlord has one car and used one spot. Seven months ago I bought a new car (2010 model) and asked about renting the other spot to which he agreed. He even added it to my lease. Dec 26 storm, landlord cleaned his half of the driveway only (my car was not parked in the driveway at the time). I was visiting relatives and kept the car there due to the mess on the street. I told him I planned to bring my car back later that week and needed to driveway cleaned. He did a half-ss job and I ended up clearing it up all the way. During the last week’s storm, same problem. Car was out the driveway and he again only cleaned his side. Not being a difficult person, I parked the car in front of the house, couldnt get into the driveway at all due a huge frozen mound directly in front that was now packed solid. Lots of snow in the driveway too.<\/p>\n
Well, yesterday, my car got sideswiped in front of the house while I was at work. Got home and was livid. I saw the landlord’s son (abt 21) who interprets for his dad who only speaks Mandarin. The son, interpreting for his dad, keeps claiming they are not resp for my hit and run. I agree that they are not, however, I explained to them that I could not parked in the driveway due to the mound and the snow. They said cleaning the driveway was not their responsibility and use some wacky logic about not being resp to clean my apt either just because they rented it to me. This went back and forth for about 20 mins. I asked them to reimburse me, least as a good measure, half of my $500 deductible. They steadfastly said no, absolutely not. So at this point, I told him I’m deducting it from the rent, cancel my use of the driveway. If they don’t like it then take me to court. <\/p>\n
Just a bit of history: We have been near perfect tenants, pay on time- always (auto pay from bank) and made just about every minor repairs ourselves without ever asking for reimbursements. Landlord last month asked us to sign a two year lease because “you are good tenants, good people”. We have cleaned the common areas in the apt bldg many times and even shoveled out snow this season bec they were out of town. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Will try to keep it short and consise. I’ve been renting an apt and this month entering the 12th month of my lease. It’s a three family. There’s a 2 car driveway. The landlord has one car and used one spot. Seven months ago I bought a new car (2010 model) and asked about renting…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119652,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"schneps_byline":"","schneps_post_style":"","schneps_post_source":"","schneps_syndicated_read_more":"","schneps_post_source_sitename":"","schneps_syndicated_thumb_html":"","schneps_syndicated_thumb_src":"","schneps_post_source_shortname":"","schneps_post_source_url":"","schneps_post_source_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[170],"tags":[],"districts":[],"class_list":["post-53270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-landlord"],"acf":[],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/brownstoner.com\/forum-archive\/2011\/02\/is-the-landlord\/","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Responsibility of Landlord?","url":"http:\/\/www.brownstoner.com\/forum-archive\/2011\/02\/is-the-landlord\/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/www.brownstoner.com\/forum-archive\/2011\/02\/is-the-landlord\/"},"thumbnailUrl":"","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":""},"articleSection":"Landlord","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"datduzit"}],"creator":["datduzit"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Forum Archive","logo":""},"keywords":[],"dateCreated":"2011-02-02T10:49:23Z","datePublished":"2011-02-02T10:49:23Z","dateModified":"2011-02-02T11:07:52Z"},"rendered":"