As if the communication between landlords and tenants wasn’t hard enough already, the worldwide pandemic has put an extra strain on it. In a previous in-depth interview with Bored Panda, Joshua Browder, the CEO of DoNotPay, which is the world’s first robot lawyer, explained more about the current situation in the US.
“Landlords are straining their relationship because they are desperate. Across the world, there are laws in place that prevent evictions and allow tenants to get an extension on their rent.” According to Joshua, “landlords are using extraordinary tactics, including even checking a tenant's tax refund with the IRS, to get a payment.”
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In addition to common property problems that don’t always get sorted with one phone call, many tenants are feeling pressured to pay up during quarantine. However, Joshua suggested that tenants ignore the pressure since “There is nothing the landlord can do and they are best by not responding.”
“If the landlord keeps messaging or visiting the tenant, then they should document these actions and may even have the basis for a harassment claim.”
With the pandemic putting our lives as we knew them before to the test, Josh believes that changes will stay in the rented property market too.
“Over the past two years, landlords have had the upper hand. They have treated tenants as disposable customers that they could charge incredibly high prices. In the future, not only will landlords be much more reasonable about prices, but also focus on retaining tenants by treating them with much more respect and leniency,” he said.
Josh expects landlords to be much more compliant in order to “keep the tenant for the longer term.” This may change some of their common tactics like charging a late fee if the tenant was unable to pay their rent on time. However, these are just forecasts and the overall dynamics may well stay just as problematic.
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