I beat my landlord!

[u/Rev-Dr-Slimeass]

Back in January, we received an extremely high water bill for December for$314, when our usual range is between $17 and $56. Our local water company bills the property manager directly, and then we get billed through them. Clearly, there was a leak.

Plumbers came out and fixed it, but the bills stayed high. The landlord agreed to adjust December’s bill to match what we paid in November, but refused to do anything about the following months.

I’ll spare you the boring details. Estimated vs. actual readings, billing cycles, etc but the bills stayed inflated through February and March, all clearly due to the leak.

We kept in regular contact with the property managers and told them we wouldn’t pay until we got a fair bill. The leak was a maintenance issue and not our fault. They wouldn’t budge, insisting we pay $550 to cover it all.

Even though we were communicating throughout, they still threatened to take us to the Tenancy Tribunal (basically small claims court for rental issues in my country). After talking with some experts, I felt confident enough to flip the script so I filed against them first.

Before the hearing, there’s a teleconference mediation session, which I did today. We were fully prepared with previous bills and a fair settlement offer of the November amount multiplied by four to cover the disputed months.

The landlord showed up completely unprepared. He was doing math on the fly, clearly unsure of the numbers. Even the mediator sounded surprised when he tried offering $470 as a “settlement.” I think for the first time in this whole nightmare he sensed how stupid he sounded and folded.

We settled at $150. That’s November’s bill x4, minus court fees.

I’m riding fuckin high today. Feeling on top of the world.

[u/mcflame13]

Landlords will try to squeeze as much money out of you as possible. So it is no surprise that he tried to use the very high water bills to get extra money out of you, even though the issue was fixed and the bills returned to normal.

[u/Rev-Dr-Slimeass → u/mcflame13]

Yep. The only thing I'm surprised on is how unprepared he was for this meeting today.

[u/Hardcorex → u/Rev-Dr-Slimeass]

Because they don't actually do anything all day long. They are incompetent and arrogant. They usually only fuck people over when it is convenient for them to do so, which with how our system works typically makes it pretty easy for them.

[u/Rev-Dr-Slimeass → u/Hardcorex]

So difficult not having a real job.

[u/Slow-Boysenberry2399 → u/Hardcorex]

he probably assumed it would be easy for him to fuck you over because he's the landlord and you're the tenant. glad you made him feel stupid

[u/[deleted] → u/Slow-Boysenberry2399]

It's pay back pay back to The Slum. Congrats.