Low income housing apartment rent due

[DSRS]

South Dakota

I live in low income housing.I have a problem with the Manager and the regional apt manager from a company that I need to know what I can do if it's possible to do anything.

recently, I and my Spouse had been called to the manager's office about the rent issue.He had told us that we owed a little over 2,000.00 in rent from the date of Dec of 2000.
and he had made us signed the paper saying if we don't pay the last month rent by certian time, or we will be evicted.

I went to the regional Manager about this and She said she would set up the appt with us to go over the rent record to see about that.She insited that the record showed non payment from the dec 2000 and on. She also said she would have appt with the apt manager later in afternoon after our morning appointment.She "forgot" our morning appointment but remembered the manager's afternoon appointment which is direct connection to our morning appointment.Upon our agreed reschedule appointment, she went over the rent record with us and We had brought all our money order reciept that had successfully proved we did pay the rent however not in full amount.But, we were told that our rent was credited back to us 3 or 4 times.We had the interium periodcally to make sure our rent amount is correct as it is based 30 percent of our incomes.last few months apz about 6 mos, we had no idea of what our actual rent should be and we either paid to little of rent or too much of our rent, despite our numerous attempt to contact the Manager about our rent payment amount needed to pay no contact were being made from the manager at all.she told us we still owed them 1,770.00 even though we had proved it's been paid for.she had showed us the record on one colum showed rent been paid for , and on 2nd colum showed rent balance due mostly a 62.00, 30.00. etc for the period of almost a year in which was accumulated fast.We told her that we had no idea that we were short on our rent in each of those month otherwise, we would have that settled long ago.she said it was for the year 1999 that we owed those balances rent to.She said point blank that despite of the apt manager's lack of communications with us on that.... we still have to paid 1,770.00 for that year.she admitted that the manager should have stopped at some point and let us know that we were short of rent.Are they right in this? and who do we need to contact about this disputed back rent due? what legal standing,if any do we have on this?

 

[happylucky]

Let them take you to court........

You have your records they have thiers, and let a judge decide.

Also some states have a stale rent law, where if a landlord doesnt ask for rent for 3 to 6 monts then all rent owed before that is waived.

BUT you SIGNED an agreement......you shouldnt have.....

I think YOU screwed Yourself, but Good!

[Edited by happylucky on 07-07-2001 at 11:57 PM]

 

[DSRS]

happygolucky-

read the post carefully, when I said about signed the paper saying we were to pay for the last month rent I said the manager had made us sign that paper in other word we signed it under duress! however as for the back pay rent for the year 1999 we didn't sign those to be paid back for the rent.

I also said we did make the payments and had all of our reciept to prove that.two diffrent managers one apt manager and one regional both said in first place that we didn't pay for those back rents from Dec 2000 and up to current rent.By the time we showed our regional manager those reciepts for those months that they said it was not paid for and that regional manager had verified that to the record she pulled up on.Then as soon it is verified, those "$2,000.00 " that they said we supposedly had owed to, should be invalided as it is already proven the rent been paid.She then switched the story and said the remaining balance that they spoke of was meant for the year of 1999.they said that we under paid the rent between $30.00-$62.00 for the last 11 months.which according to regional manager is totaling $1,770.00 rent owed.We were never told of underpaid rent,no communications whatsover on that.Since it is the low income housing and the rent is based on our 30 percent income, we had believed that we paid our rents on time in the correct amount.and since we don't hear any changes in our rents, we assumed the rent we paid for is therefore correct and not being short of the rent amount being paid for the apt.

 

[happylucky]

Well thats where "take me to court" comes in.....

If You belive your records, cancelled checks, income, the 30% limit is correct...then stand your ground.

A judge cannot evict you for demanding proof from the landlord you owe the money. It's only when you dont pay!

 

[DSRS]

happylucky-


First of all, I said we had paid the rents and had successfully proved that we paid those rents. it's the other "unknown" part of rent they said we owed to from back the year of 1999. not the rent in itself, but the balances that it was being owed for. I.E. we paid the rent in year 1999 say in amount of 250.00 well the way the manager did this is first column was written rent paid in amount of 250.00. on the next column says balance due say 35.00 so basiclly what it meant to manager is instead of paying 250.00 .... we were supposed to have paid in the amount of 285.00 for that month, the manager simply put 35.00 in next column to let " himself" know that we "short changed" the
rent amount by 35.00! He didn't tell us of this and that part of practice went on like that for a year and neither I and my spouse ever knew that we short changed the rent untill last month when we were told of this so therefore the 1,770.00 in back rent pay due comes into play.

so, how can we "didn't pay the rent" if it is already been paid but only been told to pay the balances due because they felt they were short changed that we didn't even know it existed? that is the part I had to disagree about us having to pay 1,770.00 because 1)it was in year 1999 and they never told us of that or stopped us in few month and demand the payment of short changed balances.2)it was not our fault that the manager had let this slide so long and not being communicative with us about short changed rent and had botched up the records.

all that is remaining in dispute is that 1,770.00 that I would love to see it waived.

 

[happylucky]

This is what court is for, to explain to a judge your figures are correct.

Also how is the rent figured? 30% of your income is that every year its figured? every month? And are you given that amount in a lease....or do they just send a bill every month?

And who verifies the amount?

What proof do you have that your figures are correct?

How do they figure that $35 a month?

If they cannot come up with some reasonable explanation, I would hint around that maybe the manager was trying to pocket the extra money, and that they should check ALL the other tenants records as well.

 

[DSRS]

cecil-

yes we are living in subsidized housing.am looking into it from the hud.I did once about a year and half ago told to hud about the possibilty of this apt manager having miscalculate the amount of our rent. then the manager came to me and asked me why I told the hud that he had made the mistake with my rent, charging the rent too high.He later was forced to take off at least 100.00 from the rent that he had us to pay for in first place.

As I said before.... we had assumed the rent we paid for the whole year of 1999 were the same amount we had been told to pay for based on our income.The manager had never told us that we were short on the rent itself. mostly on the second column showed in range of from 30.00 to 62.00 in varied months in balance due.We also had notified the manager the changes in our income last november due to my spouse quitting the second job so we are down to only two, one is my part time job and my spouse's remaining job.
Not once had the manager notified us of the rent change to lower amount. since then, we had paid a little more than 175.00.this part is where we had shown the recipts for the rent was verified by the regional manager.we then had discovered the balances due back rent that had been going on for a year.