Hello. Some people may consider this something minor, but I'd appreciate any input here.
I'm in PA.
Last summer, my friend and roommate (we'll call him "Frank") and I came in to look at this apartment complex. Since I was familiar with these units, I told the landlord (who we'll call "Suzy") that the only deal-breaker was parking - if we didn't have an apartment facing the lot that we would be able to park in front of (these are all single-story units), then we had absolutely no interest in living here. We brought this up several times prior to signing the lease, and each time we were assured that parking "wouldn't be a problem", and that we'd be able to "park two vehicles in front of the apartment".
Even after the first month or so here, it became apparent that this wasn't the case. The first time we brought this up was last fall, when Frank went down to talk to Suzy himself. She denied ever making any of the assurances I mentioned above, and said that parking was simply first-come, first-serve.
After doing some overtime during the winter for tax stuff at work, getting home much later at night when the parking was much tighter, I became frustrated enough to bring this up to her again. With me, she did acknowledge what we had talked about with the parking before signing the lease, but seemed surprised that parking seemed to be as sparse as it was. She did say that she was aware that the complex was relatively full, even going so far as to say that she was thinking about not allowing visitors to park in this particular lot. This conversation took place about a week after I left a voicemail message for the regional manager of this property management company, who never returned my call.
Earlier in the spring of this year, I decided that maybe a good approach would be to offer a compromise. I told her that I'd be willing to pay for one single assigned spot. I thought this would save some trouble on her part of having to "justify" any assigned parking. (There are a few assigned spots in this complex for long-time tenants, and at least one sign that simply assigns a spot for another apartment that doesn't say anything about them being a long-time tenant themselves.) I also took this opportunity to explain to her what I've said here thus far, and that I felt she had violated both my trust and the verbal agreement we had made. She said that she would have to bring this up to the regional manager. After not hearing anything back for about two weeks, I went ahead and emailed the regional manager myself - partly to try and get some kind of update or response, and partly to explain my position a little better than I thought that Suzy would be able to, second-hand. The response that I got said that they didn't currently offer anything like that, but that they were toying with the idea of either offering paid parking or assigning spots for all apartments (which I really can't see them ever implementing, especially not before our lease it up).
Later in the spring, there was some coming and going of some of the other tenants. At this point, there are now more cars here in the lot and several other parking spots have been changed to handicapped parking. I'm certainly not saying that there shouldn't be handicapped spots or anything, but as far as I'm aware, ADA guidelines become more along the lines of polite suggestions on private property, and following them is a courtesy.
I explained all of the above in a Better Business Bureau complaint, which Suzy took about two weeks to reply back to. The vast majority of her response was spent going off on a tangent about the handicapped parking, which I had more or less mentioned in the same sidebar manner that I did above. The only thing she really said in response to my complaint was that parking was only first-come, first-serve. She completely avoided saying anything about my actual issue, which was the fact that she failed to deliver upon what we had agreed to with the parking.
At this point, I'm considering doing something in small claims court. In this state at least, verbal agreements are accepted as contracts - so one possible way to take this would be a violation of that contract. Another would be unethical or deceptive sales practices. However, what I'm really starting to think about is fraudulent misrepresentation - she made a false statement to us prior to signing the lease, a statement she's since acknowledge to be inaccurate, which lead to us entering into an agreement with this apartment complex. Given how many times and how clearly we'd communicated this requirement, I'd go so far as to say that the direct purpose of that statement was to get us to sign the lease.
Just for some perspective, while these are decently equipped and laid-out apartments, they're somewhat cheaply put together but are more expensive than most similarly size and equipped apartments in both this immediate and general area. The only justification I had for that price discrepancy, personally, was the conveniences of living on ground level and being able to park in front of the apartment.
Again, like I said, I'm sure some people might see this as something minor. Myself, I'm really taking this as more of a matter of principle than anything else.
Thanks for going through that, and again I appreciate any input.
I'm in PA.
Last summer, my friend and roommate (we'll call him "Frank") and I came in to look at this apartment complex. Since I was familiar with these units, I told the landlord (who we'll call "Suzy") that the only deal-breaker was parking - if we didn't have an apartment facing the lot that we would be able to park in front of (these are all single-story units), then we had absolutely no interest in living here. We brought this up several times prior to signing the lease, and each time we were assured that parking "wouldn't be a problem", and that we'd be able to "park two vehicles in front of the apartment".
Even after the first month or so here, it became apparent that this wasn't the case. The first time we brought this up was last fall, when Frank went down to talk to Suzy himself. She denied ever making any of the assurances I mentioned above, and said that parking was simply first-come, first-serve.
After doing some overtime during the winter for tax stuff at work, getting home much later at night when the parking was much tighter, I became frustrated enough to bring this up to her again. With me, she did acknowledge what we had talked about with the parking before signing the lease, but seemed surprised that parking seemed to be as sparse as it was. She did say that she was aware that the complex was relatively full, even going so far as to say that she was thinking about not allowing visitors to park in this particular lot. This conversation took place about a week after I left a voicemail message for the regional manager of this property management company, who never returned my call.
Earlier in the spring of this year, I decided that maybe a good approach would be to offer a compromise. I told her that I'd be willing to pay for one single assigned spot. I thought this would save some trouble on her part of having to "justify" any assigned parking. (There are a few assigned spots in this complex for long-time tenants, and at least one sign that simply assigns a spot for another apartment that doesn't say anything about them being a long-time tenant themselves.) I also took this opportunity to explain to her what I've said here thus far, and that I felt she had violated both my trust and the verbal agreement we had made. She said that she would have to bring this up to the regional manager. After not hearing anything back for about two weeks, I went ahead and emailed the regional manager myself - partly to try and get some kind of update or response, and partly to explain my position a little better than I thought that Suzy would be able to, second-hand. The response that I got said that they didn't currently offer anything like that, but that they were toying with the idea of either offering paid parking or assigning spots for all apartments (which I really can't see them ever implementing, especially not before our lease it up).
Later in the spring, there was some coming and going of some of the other tenants. At this point, there are now more cars here in the lot and several other parking spots have been changed to handicapped parking. I'm certainly not saying that there shouldn't be handicapped spots or anything, but as far as I'm aware, ADA guidelines become more along the lines of polite suggestions on private property, and following them is a courtesy.
I explained all of the above in a Better Business Bureau complaint, which Suzy took about two weeks to reply back to. The vast majority of her response was spent going off on a tangent about the handicapped parking, which I had more or less mentioned in the same sidebar manner that I did above. The only thing she really said in response to my complaint was that parking was only first-come, first-serve. She completely avoided saying anything about my actual issue, which was the fact that she failed to deliver upon what we had agreed to with the parking.
At this point, I'm considering doing something in small claims court. In this state at least, verbal agreements are accepted as contracts - so one possible way to take this would be a violation of that contract. Another would be unethical or deceptive sales practices. However, what I'm really starting to think about is fraudulent misrepresentation - she made a false statement to us prior to signing the lease, a statement she's since acknowledge to be inaccurate, which lead to us entering into an agreement with this apartment complex. Given how many times and how clearly we'd communicated this requirement, I'd go so far as to say that the direct purpose of that statement was to get us to sign the lease.
Just for some perspective, while these are decently equipped and laid-out apartments, they're somewhat cheaply put together but are more expensive than most similarly size and equipped apartments in both this immediate and general area. The only justification I had for that price discrepancy, personally, was the conveniences of living on ground level and being able to park in front of the apartment.
Again, like I said, I'm sure some people might see this as something minor. Myself, I'm really taking this as more of a matter of principle than anything else.
Thanks for going through that, and again I appreciate any input.