Is This Legal?breach Of Contract To Help Pay Housing Cost For The Disabled?
In August of 2006 Andrew Doe(and family) a child with cerebral palsy and severe allergies,had poor living condition that involved mold,silverfish all through out the home,Doe family then gave the property owner a 30 days notice after failed inspection with the section 8/ Metropolitian Housing Authority.
The Doe family urgently looked for better housing and once a home was found it wasn’t rent reasonable,so the Doe family found other housing but the owner would have to lower the rent from $650 to $579 to make it affordable for the Doe family.Owner of Apartment agreed to except the rental amount of $579 on August 30th 2006,The Section 8 program were slow to process the request to inspect housing in the time alloted which was 14 days after the Owner of the apartment excepted the amount of $579,instead Section 8 housing caused the Doe family to use all its SSI income of $603 as rent,for the month of September,and that brought horrible hardships on the family,behind on bills and no food.
Tagged with: Contract • Cost • Disabled • Help • Housing • Legalbreach • This
Filed under: home inspection
In section 8 housing, you sign two contracts…one with the Housing Authority, one with your landlord. Let’s look at each contract to see if there was a breach. Then, let’s talk about practical solutions for your current situation. Then, let’s talk about what could have been done differently to prevent this.
Did the new landlord breach a contract? I’m talking about the landlord that agree to accept $579. You say that you had to use all of your $603. If you had a contract with him that said he would accept $579, then he breached that contract with you by refusing to accept only $579. I can’t tell by your question how much you actually paid. If he is requiring you to pay $650 until section 8 kicks in, then I suspect something else is going on. Sometimes landlords and tenants agree to tell the housing authority that the landlord is accepting a lower amount of rent (in this case $579), but then they have a side agreement that the tenant will pay the difference (in this case, an additional $71 or 650-579). That is a form of fraud. If you get caught doing that, you will not just lose your section 8, but you will be required to pay back all of the money that section 8 paid, and you may go to jail. But, like I said, there is not enough information to tell how much you actually paid.
What about the Housing Authority? you say that they were slow to process your request to inspect the housing, but you don’t say how slow. You also don’t show how you have been damaged. You should have paid September’s rent on September 1st. If the housing authority took 14 days to process the request, you still would have already paid that rent. Unfortunately, this is not an unusual situation. If the Housing Authority had a contract with you to provide an inspection within 14 days, and if you could prove that your rent wasn’t due until the 15th day, then perhaps you could argue that they breached it. But I have never heard of a landlord that allows a tenant to move in on the 1st, but pay rent on the 15th.
Or, are you saying that you paid that rent to the old landlord because you couldn’t move in to the new place? If that is the case, why would you pay a full month’s rent if you were only going to stay for a portion of the month. Usually, if you gave your landlord a 30 day notice in the middle of the month, you would prorate your next month’s rent rather than pay the entire month. Again, there is not enough info in the question to know exactly what happened to you.
You lost about $400. Practically speaking, what can you do to get it back? You can’t afford to pay an attorney on an hourly basis, and no attorney will take your case for a third of $400 if you win. Don’t go after the Housing Authority without an attorney. If they suspect that you commited fraud like I discussed above, you will lose your voucher. But you may have a good case against your old owner. He accepted rent for a property that was uninhabitable. The property had mold and was unhealthy. You already have documentation (the failed inspection) that proves the condition of the property. If you can prove that the landlord knew about the condition of the property and failed to fix the problem and that you suffered because of this (it would be great if you can document visits to the doctor in August of 2006), then you might have a good case against the previous landlord. That case might be worth quite a bit more than $400…maybe even enough to convince a lawyer to help you. Ask the housing authority for a copy of the failed inspection report. If you wrote letters to your old landlord to complain about the conditions, you should have kept copies. Then find an attorney in your area that specializes in habitiability issues or tenant’s rights.
What could you have done differently to protect yourself? 30 days is not enough time to find adequate section 8 housing. Having a disabled child probably limits your housing options. You should have waited until after you found housing before giving your 30 day notice. Talk to your section 8 worker to let them know what is going on and why you need to leave your current property. Section 8 is a “use it or lose it” program. Typically, if you don’t use your voucher for 30 days, you lose it. That is because there are a lot of people waiting for these vouchers and they don’t want them to go to waste. But if your child has a disability that limits your housing options, you can request a reasonable accommodation for that disability in the form of an extension (to keep your voucher without using it) of up to 6 months. In the meantime, you could live with family or friends or talk to an attorney about withholding rent from your slumlord to save money.
Good luck.