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Ouroboros Rule
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 13 Apr 2024
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this shit (what the landlord did) should be illegal and prosecutable?
imagine renting farmland out to a farmer, waiting for them to plant and grow crops right up till before harvest, then try to pull a switch and up the rent because “🤓☝️the land is worth more now.”
like no shit the plants on the property add value. value that came directly from the tenant in hundreds of hours of labor and materials!!??!!
good on this tenant for getting the W on the situation. im sure for countless poor others the opposite has been true :(
That's not a great argument at all. Assuming a rent agreement with say a 1-year term, there's a huge difference between trying to change rent in the middle of the contract period (obviously violates the contract unless it has specific provisions for this, which is also unlikely in most places) and asking for higher rent to renew for another term (which Occam's razor says presumably is happening here). A farmer renting farmland would never be leasing for less time than it will take their crops to grow, as that would obviously be an insane risk.
The better point here is on improving the property. Some rental contracts I've seen have terms where if the tenant spends money improving the property they get some kickback (part of it can be reduced from rent, e.g.). If you're improving property someone else owns for free and expect not to be taken advantage of, then I don't know what to tell you except that you're a sucker.
If there are takeaways from this post, it's either that 1) more jurisdictions should include stuff about this as part of their legal protections for tenants, or 2) don't be a sucker and give your landlord money for free.
Edit: if I wasn't clear, my point was that imo there should be better policies around tenants improving the homes they live in to begin with (because obviously nothing here was illegal)
People who improve a property for free are not “suckers”, they are tenants improving their own home because it’s their home, and it brings them joy. We need to fundamentally stop treating real estate as though it is an investment, it shouldn’t be. People should not have to live everyday life as if their home isn’t theres, because that is an insane expectation, and really negatively affects mental health. People deserve to have a space that is just theirs, even if they don’t outright own it, it is a form of cruelty to disallow people from improving their own space, either explicitly, or implicitly through the financial system.
Regardless of how the system currently works, we need to stop accepting this bullshit from landlords. They bitch and moan all day about the “risk” they take on, and the work they do, but ultimately, this is that risk and that work. I’m sure this’ll garner lots of “that’s just how things work” comments, and frankly, I do not care. Landlords do not deserve my, or frankly anyone else’s sympathy. They are leveraging their capital to ransom out a vital resource for survival at the cost of everyone else in society.
My point wasn't that the status quo is good or right. There's a fundamental problem if the person most motivated to improve the property - the tenant actually living there - isn't the one who the system rewards for doing so.
Pretending the system we have today is different than it is is just denying reality, and isn't an effective way to realize change. The reality that we live in is that by improving your own home while renting, you're a sucker who is being taken advantage of by the system.