THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, November 5, 1994 TAG: 9411030294
SECTION: REAL ESTATE WEEKLY PAGE: 28 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Landlords & Tenants
SOURCE: William Mazel and Albert Teich Jr.
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
I have been renting a townhouse for a little over a year in a new development in the Western Branch area of Chesapeake.
The townhouses are nice but the organization I am renting from has failed to landscape the outside of the townhouse.
The only units that have been landscaped are the two across the street, one of which the property manager lives in.
They were the only two units completed when I put my deposit down to hold a unit.
Shortly after my neighbors and I moved in during August 1993, we were verbally promised by the property manager that the newer units would be landscaped.
This was never done and we ended up planting our own grass to cover up the dirt.
While some tenants have taken it upon themselves to plant bushes and grass, the overall appearance of the street is terrible.
There is trash in the lots between the units, dead grass, weeds and dirt.
Our property manager had to be warned by the city to clean up the construction debris that was left in an empty lot across the street.
The other tenants and I who live on this street are generally middle class and we keep the inside and outside of our townhouses clean.
I think we deserve a neighborhood with decent landscaping.
Finally, our rent was raised from $570 to $580 per month and we still have not seen any changes in the neighborhood appearance.
Is there anything we can do about this? Certainly, the lease does not say anything about the landscaping or about maintaining our yards.
However, I feel the property manager and owner should be responsible for providing a decent-looking neighborhood like they do for apartment complexes.
We are afraid that the only thing you can do about it is to tell the landlord that if he does not do something about the problem, you will move.
As you stated in your letter, there is nothing in the lease about landscaping. Basically, you rented the premises as they were at the time you moved in.
I am sure that you feel you were defrauded in that your unit was not built at the time you put down your deposit, and that you were verbally promised by the property manager that the landscaping would be completed.
The only recourse in this situation is to terminate the lease and declare you were fraudulently induced into entering into the lease.
However, since you have continued to live there for a year, we do not believe your claim of fraud would be of any value in an early termination of the lease.
You did state that the trash between the units and the dead grass, weeds and dirt have been accumulating.
You also noted that the City of Chesapeake warned the manager to clean up the construction debris left in an empty lots. We are sure that the city has rules, regulations and ordinances that require owners of vacant lots to keep them cut and clean of trash.
Maybe if the manager had enough visits from the City Health Department, he would embark upon a program of keeping the premises clean.
One thing you might be able to do is to contact the owner of the property and complain.
I suggest that instead of just you contacting the owner, that you get as many tenants as possible to contact him to complain about the deplorable conditions of the property and the lack of landscaping, and how you believe the property is decreasing in value because of lack of proper care.
If the above course of action does not induce the owner and manager to do something about the condition of the premises, then we suggest that you gives notice (watch your lease requirements) that you are going to terminate your lease and move to a place more interested in having you and your money as tenants. MEMO: Albert Teich Jr. and William Mazel are real estate lawyers based in
Norfolk. Send comments and questions to them at Real Estate Weekly, 150
W. Brambleton Ave., Norfolk, Va. 23510. by CNB