rSlash - r/Maliciouscompliance My Landlord Tried to Scam Me into Paying Double Rent

Episode Date: July 12, 2021

r/Maliciouscompliance In today's episode, OP has to break his lease and move out of his apartment early. According to the lease terms, he doesn't have to continue paying rent on that apartment if he can find a replacement tenant. He does exactly that, but his landlord says that he has to keep paying rent because the landlord is going to give his apartment to somebody else. OP says, "Nope! I don't think so!" and slaps him with some malicious compliance contract law and doesn't pay an extra penny in rent. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The rental company had a couple of great policies, no cleaning fee no matter how gross the car was and unlimited miles. This was ideal for me because I live in the country so going anywhere as a drive. When my car was finally scheduled to be finished on a Monday evening, I called the rental car company on Sunday. I asked about the return details. They said the return time would be 5.30 pm on Monday, but I could just leave it at the shop and leave the keys in the shop-strop box. So the next night, I got my repaired car, left the rental car, and left the keys in the box.

I got in my repaired car, and the check engine light was on. Oh man. The repair guy stayed to come back tomorrow and they'll fix it. I go home thinking that I'll be sitting at the shop all Tuesday because I don't have another ride. Tuesday morning, I wake up at 7 a.m. to a call from the Renault car company, which is very angry because they're saying they can't get into the drop box and the shop doesn't open until 9.

I told him that I just did what they told me to do. They told me that they would charge me for an extra day. I became furious at that. I left my house to arrive at the shop at 8.50 am. The rental car guys aren't there. I wait around until the shop opens, grab the rental car keys, and give them my damaged car. At exactly 9 a.m., the rental car guys appear. They demand the keys, and I asked if I'm still getting charged for an extra day. One guy is inspecting the car, while the other tells me that, yes, I am getting charged an extra day. The guy inspecting it comes over and says the car looks good, and it should be able to

run out immediately. I had cleaned the rental car out the day before, because I didn't want to be a dick. Well, I refused to give them the keys to the rental car. I said, since I'm getting charged an extra day, that means that it's my car until 530 today, right? When I say that, the car rental guy gets nervous. He says that he'll still need the car back. I said, I'll give you the keys now if you don't charge me for an extra day, but if I'm being charged an extra day, I'm using it. The car rental guy refuses to bin, so I leave in the rental car. At this point, I'm feeling petty and angry, so I go straight home. I own a farm, and it's been raining like mad lately, so I get to work. By the time 10 a.m. rolls around, this car is COVERD in mud.

It's a black car, but it looks like it's been painted brown. I didn't trash the inside because I'm not that petty. Then I hop in the car and drive it back to the rental place. I'm pretty covered in mud at this point. I had put trash bags on the front seat to limit the damage, but I walked into that rental place looking like I fell into a mud pit. The guy who had refused to cancel the charge looks horrified. I said, wow, this car is great for mudding.

I'm going to go mudding for the rest of the day. I just wanted to swing by to ask where I should leave the keys at 5.30. I'm all smiles and sweetness. I watched the life leave this guy's body, his shoulder slump, and he says that if I return the car now, then he'll cancel the charge because they need to run out the car. I give the guy my keys and take an uber to the shop where my car is ready. No cleaning fee and no extra charge for the day. Ha!

Down in the comments, we have a similar story from not really Lucy. I had a similar experience with an apartment. State law says that landlords can't double dip. Landlords can't charge an early termination fee for breaking a lease if the apartment is leased to a new tenant. I go and give my notice and I discuss how I'm going to look for a new tenant. They agree. About a day later, I find the perfect couple with great credit.

I send them to the apartment to do the credit check, and they came back to tell me that the landlord says the unit isn't available. I go to talk to the landlord. I'm told there's another unit on the other side of the complex that's being remodeled. That apartment was already being rented out, but it was behind schedule. My apartment can't take my tenants, because the people for the remodeled apartment are going to stay in my apartment until theirs is ready. Great, I say.

Since you already have a tenant, I don't have to pay an early termination fee. Well, no, the landlord says. I've found this tenant, not you, so you'll still have to pay. I remind him of the state law, which does not specify who has to find a tenant. The law only says that they can charge me and charge a new tenant for the same days. The landlord starts to look shifty, and he says they aren't collecting rent from the new tenant. This makes me believe that the new tenant was either their friend or they had screwed

this new tenant over somehow, and they were trying to make it right by pulling a fast one on me. I told them that I'd found a tenant and they had violated the agreement by refusing to even run the credit and I was not going to pay that late fee. If they wanted to lease out my old apartment for no money then that was their problem. There was a lot more bickering before the end. We moved out without checking out or leaving a forwarding address. We just left the keys in the apartment. They called me a few days later complaining about a bunch of damage that didn't exist and how I owed them money. They said, this isn't the last that you'll ever

hear from us. I've had the same phone number for many years since then, but I've never heard a thing from them. Our next reddit post is from AlmightyGG. I live in an apartment building where everyone gets one assigned parking space per apartment. You can pay to have an extra parking space, but I personally don't need one. Due to a history of bad parking, management introduced a rule where you could be fined if you don't park in your assigned parking spot. So my parking space is at the end of a row. On one side of my parking space is a wall about 1.5 meters away, and on the other side is my downstairs neighbor's parking space. My downstairs neighbors are a family with

three young kids. Knowing how difficult it can be to get kids in car seats, I have two kids in my own. I've generally given them a bit of extra space and parked a little outside of the line on the opposite side. Keep in mind that I'm not encroaching into another parking space, to the right of me is just empty space in a wall. There's literally no reason for anyone to be on that side of my car. This is something I've been doing for months. I understand the need to enforce the rule when cars interfere with other parking spots

are walkways. But for me, parking a little bit outside the spot affected nobody other than my neighbor who was given more space to their kids and get into the car. I walked down to my car recently to see a note for management telling me that I'd been fine. I went to speak to them, and sure enough I was being fine for parking outside of my designated space. I tried to explain to them that this was to help my neighbor and that nobody was inconvenienced.

However, they told me that rules were rules and there was nothing I could do about it. I had a fine of $60 and I had 40 days to pay it. Being quite wild up, I went through the relevant contract and I was dismayed to find that they were indeed correct. There was absolutely nothing I could do about it. I did, however, note that there was a statement in the contract stating that every single payment received by the management company had to receive a written receipt signed for by the management company within two working days. There were also no rules about me having to make my payment in a single deposit. So this is where the malicious compliance comes in.

By this point, there were 37 days remaining to pay the fine. So I divided $60 by $37, and I went to my bank to set up 37 reoccurring daily payments of $1.63. Honestly, this was super easy to set up. After a few days passed, I went to the management office asking for my receipts. Management told me they would provide a receipt upon full payment, to which I responded that the contract was quite clear. They must provide a written receipt for each and every payment, not for each and every

fine. I also mentioned that they were already overdue in my first receipt by one day. They tried arguing with me, but the contract was super clear, so every couple of days they had to fill out receipts and then walk them over to my letterbox. I've continued to give my neighbors some extra space by parking slightly over the opposite line, but so far I have not received another fine. OP, let's be clear, this has nothing to do with following rules. Instead, this has everything to do with them finding a way to exploit 60 bucks out of you. Also, down in the comments We have this story from Doriantilus. I lived in a condo complex in Phoenix that was absolutely draconian with their rules

We all had assigned spaces and if someone else parked in your spot and you called management They would tell you to just call the tow company They would only issue a fine if it was an ongoing issue, so they weren't very helpful to residents. My parking spot was at the end of a road just after where the covered parking ended, so I didn't have anything over top of my car. My neighbor took a job working for a plumbing company driving one of those really tall bands, and he didn't have clearance, so I let him park in my spot and I parked in his. We were right next to each other. One day, my neighbor

and I both received parking tickets for not being in our assigned spaces, 60 bucks each. We didn't have recourse in our contract, and I wish I could have done something similar to what happened with OP. However, my neighbor did have a petty solution. Out in front of our apartment's clubhouse, on the main street, there was only one available parking space for street parking. The lady who find us, who worked in the office, was a bitter old lady who delighted in all of her little power trips. And this woman loved to park in that spot since it was basically only 20 feet from her desk. My neighbor got out 4.8 a.m. every morning and he started parking in that spot every day since the lady came in at 9.

This forced her to park in the unassigned spaces on the far side of the complex about 200 yards away. She asked him to park somewhere else and he refused telling her that he did have the perfect spot, but she'd find him. It was pretty gratifying to know that she screwed herself out of her only good parking spots. Our next reddit post is from T for tears. So whenever I travel by plane, I'm usually quite conscious about the weight of my luggage

because of how much you have to pay if it exceeds the limit. This time while flying, I put in a bit more stuff than usual because of gifts, but I thought that it was fine. I get to the airport check-in and behind the counter is this woman who's like late 30 early 40s. I give my passport and go through all the usual stuff. I put my luggage on the scale, which shows 23.05 kilograms, and the limit is 23 kilograms, so it's just 0.05 kilograms over. I was quite pleased with myself while looking at it, thinking that I got it just right. But no, this woman tells me I have to pay 50 euros for excess baggage. I look at her, confused,

telling her that I'm over by 0.05 kilograms. Surely it doesn't matter. She repeats herself, and we start arguing until she says, either you pay the 50 Euros or you somehow make the luggage 0.05kg lighter. At that moment, I remember that I had 0.2kg of chocolate in the luggage and I start smiling. I open the luggage, take the chocolate out, and start eating it with a grin on my face while looking at the woman who goes from surprise Pikachu face to annoyed. She tells me to hurry up, even though I was the only person in line, so I offered her some of my chocolate and she just stared at me. I ended up eating exactly one fourth of the chocolate, and low-envo hold it scaled down to 23 kilograms exactly. The woman gave me my plane ticket while glaring at me, and I told her to have a nice day.

Opie, when you offered her some brilliant. And the funny thing about this is that your luggage is 0.05 kilograms lighter, but UOP are 0.05 kilograms heavier. So it's not like the plane is going to be any lighter by you removing things from the luggage, so this is just completely stupid. That was our slash malicious compliance, and if you like this content, be sure to follow my podcast because I've put out new Reddit podcast episodes every single day. to follow my podcast because I put out new Reddit podcast episodes every single day.