How to Spot a Bad Landlord Before You Hand Over Your Hard-Earned Money
What do you know about your landlord? Not much, I'll bet, and that could cost you big-time. Take heart from this woman's story and find out how to protect yourself from slumlords.
Today's column could save you not only money, but grief when dealing with a landlord and their property managers who might care little about respecting state laws that require rental units be habitable.
While the events described here concern an alleged California slumlord-on-steroids family, these creeps are found all over the country. Over the years, you can't imagine the calls I get from tenants whose basic rights to a habitable rental unit are ignored.
When I call their landlord or management company, instead of a businesslike response — "Yes, we will look into it" — I often hear the equivalent of, "Go pound sand."
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Sadly, the crooks get away with ripping off tenant after tenant because the tenants are frequently unaware of their rights in every state and are either naïve or feel unable to speak up and just walk away before handing over their first month's rent and security deposit.
That description fits 23-year-old "Sandy," who rented an apartment in Bakersfield, California, just a few blocks from my office. She filled out a detailed rental application, so the local property managers — just like property managers everywhere — knew a great deal about her.
But she knew nothing about her landlord or that she was about to step onto the dance floor with Mike Nijjar and PAMA Management, whom California Attorney General Rob Bonta has accused of breaking housing laws.
Bonta's lawsuit says Nijjar and others "exploited vulnerable families" while owning and managing more than 22,000 low-income apartments throughout California.
Violations include subjecting tenants to vermin, sewage leaks, broken security gates, illegal contracts, rent hikes and much more stomach-turning behavior.
A simple Google search
If Sandy had simply Googled the apartment's address, she would have found this massive lawsuit that alleges "rather than provide their tenants — primarily low-income families — with the basic package of housing goods the law requires, the Nijjar Companies rent out unsafe and uninhabitable units, disregard tenants' requests for repairs and fail to eradicate pests, inflicting harm and anguish on tenants." You can read more about the case here.
Sandy could easily have learned that the vermin- and cockroach-infested apartments described in the lawsuit, BBB reviews and elsewhere online would be exactly what she was getting. She would have found — as I did — that the local property managers were precisely as described in the BBB reviews and complaints — the very same people.
Like residential and many commercial tenants everywhere, it never occurred to her to spend a few minutes researching her landlord to learn if they had been sued and for what.
Not allowed to do a walk-through
Sandy told me she and her mother saw an advertisement for a "nice, clean, ready-to-move-into" apartment in downtown Bakersfield owned by Equity Management. State filings and legal actions by the California Department of Justice report that Equity Management is an alias used under the property portfolio managed by Nijjar (Nijjar Realty/PAMA Management) in El Monte, California, and is part of the lawsuit referred to above.
I should point out that the attorney general's lawsuit lists 93 separate entities — a massive "hide the ball" move commonly used to isolate actual owners behind various shell companies and partnerships.
Sandy went to the apartment's address, met "Jasmine," the resident manager, and:
- Filled out a rental application.
- Signed a rental agreement and handed Jasmine $2,300 in money orders prior to actually doing a walk-through of the apartment. "I was not allowed to go into the apartment until I paid the money," she told me.
- The following day, she said, "I was allowed in, only to find hundreds of cockroaches everywhere."
- Sandy spoke with a resident in an adjacent apartment who related the same, ongoing problems.
- Jasmine placed cockroach bombs in Sandy's apartment, but they had little impact.
Sandy never moved into the apartment. She and her mother were referred to me for help.
It would not take much time before the extent of the accusations against this operation would become clear.
And now the runaround begins
After I talked with Sandy, I phoned Jasmine. She seemed to have great difficulty in recalling the cockroach problem, but she confirmed that Sandy did not actually move into the apartment.
When I told her that, given these habitability conditions that clearly violated California law, Sandy is owed a complete refund of the money Jasmine collected from her, she referred me to "Beth" at the Bakersfield head office.
"You can call them, but next week, because they only answer the phone Wednesday to Friday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.," she said, giving me the phone number in a tone that I interpreted as, This isn't my first rodeo. I know how to deal with people like you.
I did not wait until the next week. I called the number right away, and a receptionist answered, "Equity Management." I asked for Beth and was immediately connected. I explained why I was calling and asked her to refund Sandy's money, and she promised to call me back within 10 minutes.
That call never came, and so I phoned back, and this time, Beth was as nasty as described in the many complaints I read online and hung up on me.
Sandy blows her chance of getting her money back
I told Sandy to immediately go to Beth's office with her mom and insist on a refund. That was the moment to at least try, or she would have to sue them in small claims court. After not hearing back from her, I called her later in the day.
"Oh, I had to take my kids to get their immunizations for school," was her excuse.
Hearing that, I was not kind. "You had weeks to do that. Life is a great teacher. Perhaps one day you will develop the courage to stand up for yourself. Good luck."
The moral of today's story: Before you sign a lease or give a landlord or property manager any money, you need to discover as much as you can about who owns and manages the rental unit.
This includes entering the landlord/property manager's name on Yelp and the Better Business Bureau website — pay particular attention to the one-star reviews. Also, Google the landlord's and/or property manager's name along with "complaints against" and "lawsuits."
Dennis Beaver practices law in Bakersfield, Calif., and welcomes comments and questions from readers, which may be faxed to (661) 323-7993, or e-mailed to Lagombeaver1@gmail.com. And be sure to visit dennisbeaver.com.
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