What can we do abouta harassing/threatening landlord?
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What can we do abouta harassing/threatening landlord?
Landlord is tryiing to evict my family because we do not want to pay for a garage we don’t use. Our lease is verbal and we do have a receipt of payment made. We have received a notice to quit because of non payment which is false. He has threatened us and continues to harass us everyday. We have reported the situation to police and are getting the runaround because he knows the officer we reported it too. He called our roommate and confessed this to him to throw it in our face. He has threatened to have people come into our apt and take our stuff out on the notice to quit day.
Asked on September 26, 2010 under Real Estate Law, Connecticut
Answers:
SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 14 years ago | Contributor
1) If you have an oral lease (often called a verbal lease), it can be changed or terminated on 30 days notice. That means that with one month's notice, the landlord can either simply terminate your tenancy or else change the terms, so that unless you rent the garage, too, you'd have to lease.
2) Landlords may not threaten anyone with violence, fraud, theft, false or unjustified legal action, etc. Doing so is criminal, and if the police officer you've spoken to won't take it seriously, take it to someone else--escalate within the department, for example.
However, per the above, a landlord could threaten to not renew your lease unless you agree to new terms; that's not a "threat" legally, since it's a statement of an intention to do something he legally may.
3) Even if your tenancy is terminated and you are evicted, it has to be done in accordance with the law, which means going through the courts, for example. If he does not follow proper eviction procedures, he could incur liability.
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