Landlord/Roommate Eviction?

I have a roommate who is also the landlord that after almost 9 months of living here with her, has asked me to move out on grounds on non-payment. This is of-course what she is stating, not me. When we first moved in here, the “Verbal” agreement between her (Landlord) and me, was that we were to pay $150 weekly ($600 Month) and we moved in on a Monday. I should note that I am married and my wife lives here with me also. At the time of us moving in here, I was working at a thrift store about 30 mins away, and making minimum rage. Since I was living paycheck to paycheck and couldn’t afford the car payments anymore I had 2 options. Keep the car, or give the car back to the finance company and have a roof over our head. I choose roof over my head. The problem was, now I have no way to get to work. So I lost my job. I started looking for jobs within walking distance with no success. I lost my job back in early September of last year, so I have been unemployed since. The way we have been paying our rent mostly was with my wife’s Pell Grant checks that she receives every quarter for attending full-time college. We also always found other ways to get our rent payed, either from borrowing money from family or me doing odd ball one-time jobs. One odd ball way for example, was when I sold my mother-in-laws car for $1700 and used most of it to pay rent in advance. Like an entire months, which was optional, because our lease agreement was to pay on a weekly bases. we really didn’t start to get behind until here of recent. Beginning of February to be exact. So for all those other months, it wasn’t a problem. And even though we have been late, it wasn’t for the full amount. We would give her partial amounts, like $110, of the $150, and then get the rest to her not even a week later. So its not like its ever been over a week late. My landlord also starting a couple of weeks ago, has made mention that she would now like to be payed bi-weekly instead of the agreement we had of weekly. Because of this new rule, she is now stating that we are behind in rent cause she has not received the next 2 weeks rent. I told her that our original agreement was for weekly. And that we both agreed on that. I also told her that I never agreed to the new bi-weekly payments. we never even talked or discussed it with each other at all. Another thing to mention, is that for the past couple of months, she has been wanting to get payed rent for the next week on a Sunday or Saturday, instead of the due date. That is Monday, thats she day we moved in and payed the first payment. I have told her numerous times that she is to get payed on the die date, Monday. Her excuse for wanting the rent 1-2 days early is “I need gas money for the next week”. To keep the peace, I really didn’t ague with it, but I have mentioned numerous times that she is to be payed on the due date and not early. I even gave her a week of rent early back during the week of Thanksgiving, cause she had her boyfriend visiting for a couple of weeks and they went down to Florida to vacation. She asked me if I minded to get the next weeks rent early so they would have money for that. Of course, to keep the peace I rent ahead and gave it to her. So its not like we have been bad, non-paying tenets. So since she is claiming we are past due, not even a couple of days, according to her. She has stated that she is going to start the eviction process. My argument is that I say we are payed till this Thursday. Cause we just gave her $150 last Saturday and another $150 on Wendsday. So $300 total in one week. But like I said, she is going by the new, ‘Non Agreed” lease that she sprung up. So, going by the original agreement we had, we are payed till Thursday, and not late yet. She has started to disconnect the cable and internet, which is included in the weekly rent we pay. I have not yet confronted her about this cause I fear it will just spark a fire, so I have taken pictures and documented it. One of the problems is that neither one of us have all the payment receipts. She was basically using a calender to keep up with the payments and that all. There have been multiple times that I have insisted on getting a signed receipt after I hand the rent over, but she never complied. So I do have receipts, just not all. I do have a record of the last 2 payments we gave to her. So I have no problem proving to her and a court that she has received payment for rent till this Wendsday. Her argument is otherwise. The thing that pisses me off is that she has turned off the cable and internet, which like I said, its apart of the rent we pay here. So since, according to me, has turned off those services, shouldn’t the rent be reduced say $100 for not being provided for services payed? If so, when we go to court I will argue it. There is ALOT of other stuff that needs to be mentioned, but I don’t have enough room here for it.

Posted in Landlord Tenant Law.

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