Informing a rental management company of our bad experience with one of their current tenants?

[jkklllol1233]

State: California

I Lived in a house shared with several other people for the last 2 years, currently already moved out.

All of us (tenants) pay one main guy (who is another tenant with the property for >5 years) for rent and utilities. However, in order to have our prices (that was advertised to us) he does have other people who are not on the lease living in the house. The garage for example, is leased out by him through craigslist (without the management company's knowledge), along with his GF, who lives in and is also not on the lease.

For the last 2 years there were issues such as when the main guy gets into fights with his GF (Both have attacked each other, with the last blow out resulting in her getting arrested while we were all away at work). This kind of created a pretty rocky atmosphere at times, where most of us tried to make sure either were ok but largely minded our own business and since late last year there has been no incidents.

Other people have moved in and out as well without the lessors knowledge and we tried to brave it the best considering we both were on the outs soon.

During our last month there we figured out that the main guy is lying about the total price, and unevenly splitting the bill where all of us were footing a significantly larger portion of the rent than he was (for his master bedroom with closet and bathroom). There is no where on the lease that specifies how rent should be "evenly" split, therefore this is a learning experience as well, but the other tenant was very mad that he ended up paying >400 per mo more than his true rent if it was split evenly.

My qs is - if we contact the rental property management company about our experiences with the previous main tenant on:


Lying about total rent (proof of what he actually paid to the mgmt company)

Having broken parts of lease including (allowing pets, unauthorized tenants and other things), which we have the proof

Creating unstable living situation (fights between himself and his sig other who lives in illegally)




Will we be reprimanded for blowing the whistle? I'm afraid that because we didn't do anything about it when it happened we'll be held accountable for this as well.

 

[adjusterjack]

There is no whistle to blow. You were his subtenant and he was your landlord.

Lying about total rent (proof of what he actually paid to the mgmt company)

Doesn't matter. What he paid has nothing to do with what he charged you to live there.

Having broken parts of lease including (allowing pets, unauthorized tenants and other things), which we have the proof

That's between him and the management company. Rat him out if it makes you feel better. Not likely to change anything.

Creating unstable living situation (fights between himself and his sig other who lives in illegally)

You could have, and should have, taken appropriate action back then. Besides, nothing bad happened to you except maybe annoyance.

Will we be reprimanded for blowing the whistle?

You'll come across as a sorehead and nothing will change.

My advice: You're already out of there. Get over it and stay over it.

Apply these lessons to the next place you rent. Try to avoid sublets and roommate situations. They always seem to go bad.

 

[FarmerJ]

If you do go to the actual management what is more than likely will be that your planned exit ( which is what it sounds like you were planning on moving soon) could get bumped way up due to the real LL putting pressure on the one you sublet from to get rid of all of you and for all you know he could very well even though not legal lock you out or do things that make living there such a nightmare that until you do leave that it just sucks to be there. At this point continue to plan for your move out, give proper notice on real paper, sent say via confirmed mail delivery , staple your copy to your postal receipt and plan on taking a lot of exit pics of the place so you can show you did leave your room nice and clean. and next time around if you are really curious about who owns a place then by all means look up the owner information via the county property tax web page looking it up by its address. If the name of the person who wants to rent it out to you or offered it or showed it to you is not the name listed as owner then ask more questions or just look elsewhere especially if its a roommate situation .

 

[xylene]

It seems you are interested in co-housing - where people live communally and pay even shares - sometimes adjusting for sq footage and things like that with a high degree of transparency, then look for that.

You and your roommates mistake was thinking a subtenancy was co-housing.