I took the day off from work today to take care of these matters due to the landlord’s 5 day or quit letter. 8 hours of vacation lost.

We mailed a check for 5 months rent to the landlord along with letter overnight in time to meet the 5 day deadline to prevent us from being evicted.

The landlord sent us an email confirming that he does read his emails at the address we have been using. He did not make an alternative offer and also indicated that he is still planning on doing a short sale or foreclosure and expects us to move out. Unbelievable! He also informed us not to worry about the 5 day limit on the letter.

I replied informing him that we have to abide by the letter, lease, and law unless he provides a formal alternative in writing, which he had not done.

Later that night when we came home, we saw a newspaper article that had our house list listed as a foreclosure sale for 28 Jul 2009 (8 days from today). I called the landlord furious since we just sent him a check for 5 months of rent and that he lied. The money was just sent that day, and now it looks like we were going to be evicted anyway!!! He said that foreclosure was not going to happen and that there was still a short sale in the works. We still had not agreed to any specific terms of supporting a short sale. I informed the landlord that if the property is foreclosed upon that I will sue him for breech of contract.

17 Jul 2009
We sent another email to the landlord informing him that we have the money, but that we still did not know where to send it and that if he continued to avoid us and not respond and provide his new address, then it is obvious that he is intentionally making it impossible to pay the rent within his given timeline.
We know that he must still be in the foreclosure process and that his best bet is to find a way for us to violate the lease so that he can get us out of the house. So we know he does not really want the movie and will avoid contacting us.

I talked to a loan officer at Wells Fargo and she agreed with the loan officer at Wachovia that the reason he did not want us to pay rent was because the bank would not allow him to do a short sale if he were still receiving rent from us.

The landlord would not return our phone calls.

19 Jul 2009
Stopped by the landlord’s original address. He answered the door. We talked. He confirmed that stated at our house in February that, “I understand if you do not want to pay rent.” He stated that he needed us to leave as soon as possible because he has a short sale offer and the buyer wants to move in as soon as possible. I reminded him that we never wanted to deviate from the lease. He stated he was surprised that we had the money. He stated that the letter was the lawyers idea. I told him that if he wanted us out, then we could arrange a mutually beneficial agreement. We told him that if he wanted such an agreement, he would have to send us something in writing by Monday, or we will be forced to mail the money and continue to follow the lease. He also explained that this house was his in-laws and that he has always been living there since we initiated the lease. He claimed that the house we were renting is the only house he owns.

We stopped by the Prince William County Police Department office. I spoke with an officer at the front desk. He also called a Magistrate, and they both provided some direct advice. Their initial advice was to pay the landlord (which we agree makes sense since we do not want to be in the wrong), but after explaining the situation, the officer stated he could understand why we would not want to since the landlord was obviously playing some game to get the bank to approve a short sale by showing a lack of income and the house will probably go into foreclosure and we will be kicked out anyway. The officer Kiley stated definitively that the landlord cannot go into our house regardless of whether we pay him or not and remove personal property. Whether he can just go into the house and look around depends on the wording in the lease. If we do not pay, the landlord will need to go through a civil court process to then have us removed. At which time, we will be able to provide our side of the story. However, if the court finds in the landlord’s favor, then a judgment could be issued against us, which could then show up on our credit report. The officer also advised that we talk to the president of a local branch for the primary lender on our house and fill them in on how the landlord has been playing the syste

I also reminded him in that email that the rent was in an escrow account available as necessary.

A realtor called on a few occasions representing a couple that apparently had put on offer on the house. She was wanting to set up a time where her clients could show the house to their relatives. My wife and I called her using a speaker phone and asked her some questions. We asked the realtor if she or her clients knew that we still had a lease on the house. She said we would have to take that up with the owner. We asked her when they planned on moving in, and she said as soon as the offer was approved by the bank. We asked her if the owner (our landlord) agreed to that, and she said, “Yes”. We never agreed to such an arrangement.

He responded that it was not a problem because he had several offers.

I then emailed him and asked him for the lock box combination, but he never responded. Fortunately, one of the realtors gave my wife the lockbox number over the phone recently (the landlord did not give it to us), so we removed the key.

The laws in VA are clear that the landlord, or any representative, cannot enter the house without at least 24 hour notice and agreement with the tenants, except in the case of emergencies.

Montary value ~ $250 (sentimental value much higher)

Of course, the deductible for renters’ insurance is around this value, so it was not worthwhile to pursue that option.

We pursued getting the computer fixed, but it would have cost almost the price of a new low end computer. We went without a computer as long as we could, but we ended up having to buy one, so we bought a cheap laptop.

Original Computer ~ $2000
Software Lost ~ $1000
New Computer ~$800

To help out the landlord in his attempt to short sell the house to avoid foreclosure, we agreed, at his request, to schedule regular times for him to show the house. He immediately came out to the house and put a lock box on the front porch railing. Since he was on an agressive schedule, we gave him many hours across several days a week, during the work week and on weekends. He did ask that we leave the house during those times. This was extremely inconvenient. With 3 small children, it was a considerable amount of work to get all children out of the house on this schedule, especially when I was at work and my wife was home alone.

However, duing this process, many realtors and clients have been calling my wife’s cell phone asking if they could see the house. We advised them to talk to the listing agent. Realtors would explain that they could not get a hold of the listing agent. I called the landlord and informed him of this problem.

In addition, several realtors called asking if they could just give the lock box combination to their clients so they could see the house without the realtor. We advised them that this was not appropriate, but we have no idea if that ever happened because we were not the ones giving out the lock box number. That was always arranged by the listing agent.

We contacted our agent and gave her the contact information for his agent. We also talked with our mortgage broker and discussed this process and our interest in pursuing a VA Loan. She mentioned that we would need to start the pre-approval process as soon as possible. She also mentioned that we might be able to add in the contract for the landlord to pay the closing costs. She also mentioned that there is a fee with the VA loan, but that we can roll that into the loan.

Our agent provided a name and contact information for a lawyer because I mentioned I wanted to find out our rights since we are 1 year into a 3 year lease and have never been late on a payment.

Our agent provided the following information.

The house is listed at $330,000.
Other similar houses in the area sold for on average of $292,180.
The house was purchased at $454,175.
The house was assessed at $397,000.
Closing costs are anticipated to be ~$12,000.

I asked our agent our landlord’s idea that realtors providing money for closing costs, and he stated that doesn’t happen. I did not expect that it did. I also asked our agent about the landlord paying closing costs, and he said it is unlikely since he is not getting any money out of this.