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Landlord made agreement, that didn;t follow through on

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OHrenter

Junior Member
I am in Ohio and we rented a house. On the property of the house, the man who owned the home prior to our current landlord still operates a business out of a garage on the premise. Since the garage uses electricity that the tenant pays, the landlord and the business owner made an agreement for the business owner to pay the tenant $25/mn toward the electric bill. The landlord then promised us, potential tenants at the time, that we would receive $25/mn. Well in the last year the business owner has made no payments and we are now moving out. Because the agreement was between the business owner and the landlord and we have never met the business owner or discussed it with him, is the landlord required to pay us the sum of $300 due to creating a verbal contract with us(despite it not being in the lease). My thought is that he made a binding agreement with us for the money, much like the business owner made an agreement with him. I think legally the landlord should have to pay us, and then himself seek restitution from the business owner. Am I correct?
 


Who's Liable?

Senior Member
I am in Ohio and we rented a house. On the property of the house, the man who owned the home prior to our current landlord still operates a business out of a garage on the premise. Since the garage uses electricity that the tenant pays, the landlord and the business owner made an agreement for the business owner to pay the tenant $25/mn toward the electric bill. The landlord then promised us, potential tenants at the time, that we would receive $25/mn. Well in the last year the business owner has made no payments and we are now moving out. Because the agreement was between the business owner and the landlord and we have never met the business owner or discussed it with him, is the landlord required to pay us the sum of $300 due to creating a verbal contract with us(despite it not being in the lease). My thought is that he made a binding agreement with us for the money, much like the business owner made an agreement with him. I think legally the landlord should have to pay us, and then himself seek restitution from the business owner. Am I correct?
If Ohio accepts oral contracts as binding, than yes, he owes you.

If not, than oral contracts are worth the paper they're written on.
 

FarmerJ

Senior Member
Why on earth you chose to wait this long is beyond me , turning the power to that area off the first month you did not get a payment would have gotten alot more attention and if it wasnt disclosed to you in the lease at the time you moved in that you had to pay the elect for that area which another tenant used you would have won any claim in court against LL for failing to disclose or won asking the court to require the LL to inc the elect since LL failed to disclose to you about it. This late in the game is total crap shoot as to your being able to win since if your planing on moving in a few days i take it ? doesnt give you alot of time to get inspector in there to get proof and if you cant get city inspector in there in time then what ,once you move LL doesnt have to let inspector in since you no longer have control of the Unit LL can say` hog wash there is no problem ` and theres not alot you can do about it.
 

OHrenter

Junior Member
I am not sure why an inspection is needed. the garage is the primary garage for the home, obviously using the same power source. also, they ran extension chords up to the house and plugged them into our outise sockets.
 

FarmerJ

Senior Member
If the garage had say underground wiring that was connected to the house what inspections would have done is verified that there was a circuit to the garage and that there was only one meter and given you a report that in combination with your lease would have assisted you in court. If the garage was being used by its tenant in violation of city ordinances the LL would have earned a letter as well as tenant telling them of the violation and order to correct. (cease) if the garage tenant was using extension cords to plug in you still were free to shut off the breaker or unscrew the fuse to stop the use since it was not a space someone else lived in and not disclosed to you in advance in the lease, the LL might have complained but may have been more willing to give you the 25.00 them self and collect it back from garage tenant.
 

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