When my mom died the apartment complex did the exact same thing. They tried to get $10K out of us. I told them to get lost (I might have used more colorful language than than the word lost) and never heard anything else. They also threatened to send it to the cred bureau and I said go ahead she won't need loans anymore.
@@user-pq9ji7kt4lwe have a problem with regulation in this country. We need better legislation to protect against behaviors like this but because they make so much money and lobbying is legal, we end up where we are. We need to start off with eliminating involvement in the political process by any entity that is not a human being. No more super pacs. No more lobbying. No more big fancy corporate trips for the politician and their ilk paid for by corporate donors..... Until we the people take back our country, these mega-rich interests will always put their hands on the scale. And they support both sides.
This is the one point where UK got it right. They always make the losing party cover reasonable litigation costs. Nobody can win merely because they have the cash for a barrister.
@@yesitschelle This has its own problems. Both systems have pluses and minuses. The problem with loser covering fees is that it makes very risky to sue big businesses, or anyone much richer that you. For example, you want to sue McDonalds for $1000. The risk you take is that McDonalds can easily rack up $50,000 in legal costs (while you are representing yourself for free) so now you are risking $50,000 for a possible win of $1000. This is a bad bet, which one can take only in fireproof case. That makes legal actions by small people too risky, and effectively denies them legal recourse, whereas courts are designed to settle disagreements precisely when the situation is not fireproof. I like US system better for that
Yes, but only after the judge orders the landlord, to pay all the legal fees of the estate, owe and don't forget to triple those fees too as the landlord should have known he/she/they were breaking the law.
They’re just trying to play the card of like an auto loan where the person defaults on the loan. The bank/dealer takes back the car and they charge you for the remaining amount with interest and the late fees and attorney fees and such.
I was the Executor for my mother’s estate. Her state required I go to Probate Court to settle her estate. The Probate judge required the death notice be published in the County Register newspaper for 30 days from date of death to allow any claimants notification. After that period, the judge signed off and distributed the estate according to mom’s valid will. I asked the judge, what do I do if someone sends a bill for any service provided before her death? The judge told me, once I sign off and execute the will, they no longer have legal claim against any heirs for financial liability. Ignore any bills and debt collectors.
My uncle had bought a washing machine on credit about 6 months before he passed away. My aunt contacted the store to move the account to her name and they apologized for her loss and informed her that since he’s deceased, the account is closed.
@@surge123456789yep! She tried to argue that she wasn’t trying to get out of paying, she just wanted the account changed to her name and they just reiterated that it was his debt and if he’s deceased, the account is closed.
@@surge123456789 Actually some companies consider it a wash (bad pun) if the person dies; that it might be more expensive as a whole to try to collect a small amount (under 1k) from an estate
@@surge123456789 Well, technically it was paid for by the interest payments made by everyone who bought on credit (including the uncle during the first 6 months of payments). So not exactly free. But yes, his wife would've gotten to keep the washing machine without paying the remainder of the loan. It's why for most big ticket items, the bank requires some sort of collateral to guarantee the loan (e.g. your house or your car). But it's kinda hard to get a title on a washing machine, so trying to repossess a lower value item may incur more legal fees than the value of the item. Easier to just calculate x% of your customers will die each year, and factor the cost of those unrecoverable accounts into the interest rate you charge.
I can't believe she would break her lease like that. Dying is no excuse to escape responsibilities; she should just stop all that useless laying around not breathing and take care of her affairs. The nerve of her!
@CharlesRWJones that's the whole problem...people can't take a joke/sarcasm anymore,I reacon the less people interact with each other IE working from home or playing computer games the problem will get worse.
When my mom died, a creditor called and asked who's going to pay her bill. I told him where she was buried and if you want payment go dig her up and get it.
Not sure about the US, but in Canada if I pass away, my daughter is not responsible for any money I owe. It is written off as a bad debt. Charging for the remainder of the lease of a deceased person is beyond ridiculous.
@@diannespalding6542 As far as I know in the US relatives are not responsible for the debts of deceased family members. BUT if the deceased has an estate, the estate would normally be on the hook for payment if there are assets available.
This is why people over 55 shouldn’t be allowed to obtain loans without collateral that can be recovered, such as a car. The title remains with the creditor until the car is payed off.
@@johnelamin65 guess we know why you don’t run a bank. Giving all those 90 year olds $50,000 personal loans without hard collateral. You’d be bankrupt in a year. The biggest issue is loans to out of country students. At my college the Chinese clique all maxed out as many credit cards and loans as they could right before graduation and then ducked out back to China leaving US to pay for that. Higher fees lower rewards so wrongful foreigners (not all) and old people (some have auto pay setup) cost us more. Age discrimination was made by old people for old people and is unfair. Show me the protections for a young person. You can even be kicked out of your own house if under 55 and your HOA decides to become an elderly only residence.
As she arrives in the afterlife: "OK you lived a good life and were a great person... Now all we need to do is a credit report. Wait it says hear you died without paying rent for a year after your death?" "Yeah well I am dead" "Sorry mam, we are going to need you to go to limbo while the courts decide"
Had something similar happen with my grandmother. We kept getting demand letters and calls, so we finally gave them the forwarding address (with plot number) and phone number of the cemetery. I took the phone call from the amused cemetey receptionist. "We got a call for your grandmother the other day.... After I explained we were a cemetery, not a nursing home, and that 'plot number' was not an apartment number, they seemed to have figured it out." After I apologized for us doing that to them, she replied "you're not the first." And that company never called us again.
Thanks for getting the last laugh, on your grandmother's behalf, LOL. I'm picturing them absent-mindedly jotting down the PLOT NUMBER, to finally get their hands on some money, LOLOLOL. They must've done a few facepalms, when they figured out what a plot is.
I had a radiologist bill my mom for a missed appointment to get fitted for a radiologist cap for cancer treatment. Mom didn’t want radiation treatment and told the doctor that during the consultation. She passed a week after the consultation. I got the bill more than a month after her passing. A lawyer friend tore that doctor a new A hole.
@BrianB14471 Apparently she did want the treatment, otherwise her oncologist would not have made the appointment. Irrespective, the appointment was made and has to be paid for. The radiologist is not at fault.
When my ex wife died she had two time shares. They wanted my daughter ( who was a minor ) to pay for them with her inheritance which I was in charge of. I simply told them that wasn't happening and to sue us. Never heard back from them.
@@bukharagunboat8466 I'm pretty sure you don't have to accept property that you don't want, from some estate. The idea of being saddled with property you didn't agree to seems anti-American.
My mom died at 58 with a lot of debt and no real assets. She had a small house with two mortgages and a car payment on a used Nissan. My brother and I had to keep telling creditors that there was no estate to collect from and to leave us alone.
Would have just put in a change of address, to the street address of the cemetery, and the lot number, just not the cemetery name. Let them serve her, and try to collect.
Ive had people calling me for my parents (not for debts lol), i play dumb. "Who? Who is (name)? " they never call me back. Also claiming that its a work number you just got issued a month ago ( i had the work number for like 9 months at that point) got creditors to stop ringing me while driving
My sister had a lot of debt and no assets at all. She rented and had no car even. An online company sent a threatening letter to the executor about her large debt with them. He was a friend of hers and not a lawyer or financial expert. He called me and asked what I would recommend. I think she had no savings and maybe $200 in checking. I told him she was always a hugely bad risk for credit and it was their fault they granted her credit at all so just piss off. He said later he told them exactly that and he never heard from them again.
@@SeanBZA I used to work in a cancer doctor's office. One family of a deceased patient answered our bill with a photo of the gravestone. What were we supposed to do with that? Dig her up and see if they had buried her with any jewelry or something? All they actually had to do was notify us that she had passed away and left no estate.
many home security systems do this same thing. after my father passed away and i was selling his house i called to have it shut down and they fought me saying the money still had to be paid. when i mentioned it wasnt a tangible object it was for a service not yet provided (future home monitoring). They said it would affect his credit score if they had to sue, you know like he cares about this anymore.
If it is under contract, they can still claim against the estate for the balance of the contract. Usually such contracts have early termination clauses, but there is something you have to pay before you can do that. 50% of the remaining contract term is a typical early termination penalty.
Is it becoming glaringly obvious that credit scores are a way for banks to control us. For some jobs, like a call fkn center, you wont get it with a bad credit score. Nor an apartment or a car to get from the apartment you cant get to go to the job you cant get. May as well be a felon.
If the family paid a year's rent in advance, they, not the landlord, would have control of the apartment, and they, not the landlord, would say who lived there.
No, seriously. I would highly recommend that someone within that community(or perhaps a DA with some free time) start investigating that place. If they are that callous about their contracts, and that brazen about the risk of legal hot water involved with death-related situations, then they are almost certainly discriminating against many of their tenants on other matters.
They did a lot more frankly. A lot of it was standard practices. For example, as soon as the ship sunk the crew’s pay stopped as well. This was just how it is (and may still be). ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@@scottmcshannon6821It did not, however, with the outbreak of WW1 and the British government seizing ships from many companies resulted in the White Star Line (and relevant in this the Cunard Line) going bankrupt. The government would sponsor an agreement to bail out the Cunard and White Star Line if they agree to merge together. These two companies did so and still exist today. Queen Mary 2 being their most popular ship.
@@jer1776 Disney will start counter-suing people who die of allergies in their restaurants, for un-authorized dying, and failure to pay their Disney+ subscription fees.
Yup. I was a realtor hired by the executor of an estate of a deceased friend of hers. I was stunned by the number of debt collectors who tried to get the executor (not related in any way) to sign documents. Before she was tricked into signing anything I told her to never sign anything related to her executorship before talking to an attorney. Turns out I saved her from taking on a bunch of the deceased debt. The attorney said the docs I stopped her from signing were set up to transfer the debt to the executor. Pissed me off something bad.
my brother broke a lease and was being billed for the rest ...but he went by and knocked on the door and someone was living there... he asked for how long... 3 months? So he called the owner let them know...demanded to remove it from his credit reports and pay him $500... and they did! Years later my neighbor broke their lease and within 3 weeks it was re-rented.... *she had to move out of state to care for her dying father* I was able to track her down... saved her too!
Judge should tell the landlord that before his lawsuit can go forward, he first has to prove the woman was served papers notifying her she is being sued for breaking the lease.
If they listed the cause for breaking the lease as deceased it was deliberate on the landlord's part. The landlord likely gets their way so much in the lower courts for being a big money local big fish that is getting judgements against tenants who can't meaningfully fight back. In 2023 we were evicted after I complained about being charged extra 'related fees' for the upstairs neighbor flooding our apartment for the umpteenth time (a lot more to this) over a weekend. We fought and appealed the eviction, rent was never an issue, rent was paid, rent was escrowed during the appeal and then about two month's after we left the complex filed to reassess damages and charged us for a year of unpaid rent that was paid and the judge instantly rubber stamped it. That's on appeal right now...
You sound like a good person. I'm not a good person. I was not raised by a good person. My father once conspired to take 1.5 million in fleet contracts from a dealership who over charged him $1,500 in labor. Autistic malice/justice: you hurt me, so now I'm going to hurt you back a thousand times worse. He went through all of this pre-internet research and intrusive thoughts and legwork and investigation and social networking to even planting literal spies at the dealership ... Just to fucking hurt them. He never used this knowledge for his own benefit or to start his own business or get an industry job or get referral bonuses all of which he could have done. He did it just to spite them. All this energy and effort for the cartharthis of fucking them back harder than they did him.
When my father died, he was basically broke and had nothing. I did have fun telling a bunch of bill collectors to go pound sand for the next 6 months. I even offered to give them his old rusted out truck. I got no takers. Which upset me since I ended up having to scrap it myself :p
I believe you can sue the estate, but you can't sue other people just because they're related. Now, I'm a landlord, and I would never do such a thing. If someone wants to leave, I let them leave, no strings attached. Suing a grieving family is beyond evil!
I had an issue with Dorset County Council. Two years after my father died I was sent a bill for £38K for health care of my father. I was the executor of his estate. After his death, I advertised that he had died in the local papers for people claiming his estate to come forward. No one came forward in the statutory waiting period of six months. As executor, I distributed his estate according to his will. After 6 months. Considered that was the end of it. Then my sister and I 2 years later had threatening letters from the Dorset County Council demanding money and compound interest. My sister was prepared to pay. My reply to Dorset County Council was a letter of fact concerning the English law on settling a deceased person's estate waiting periods etc. Dorset Council went away and I never heard another thing from them.
Actually, you are responsible for the money until the probate court finalizes the estate. If you distribute the money before that happens, and a claim is made in the interim, you are personally responsible for the payment. It is one of the reasons why you need to be careful when acting as an executor, there are responsibilities that go with the role and you will be on the hook if you mess up.
In Sweden relatives cannot inherit debts or such. My father passed away in May and the only thing we had to pay for was the funeral, we do not have to pay rent for his apartment or pay off his big loan or other bills. When his money he had left had payed for (part of) the funeral and there was nothing left we could get an official document to send to the peoole who has a demand for his money. If he had had like real estate or something we'd sold it off to pay bills but now it was just the stuff in his rental and whatever he had left of his most recent pension. This story is insane. You cannot break a contract by dying...
When my sister died, her apartment complex gives 30 days for it to be cleared out. This lessened the burden on us and allowed us to leave the apartment clean and rentable.
I once was offerred a job selling RV's. It was shocking that seniors who were 80, 90 years old qualified for 30 year financing. What was going on was that when the buyer died, the estate would be charged the ballance on the loan, and not just the principal, they wanted the whole 30 years of payments! The deal worked great for people who didn't want to leave anything for their children, and they could buy a $200,000 RV for $1,000 a month..for 360 months! If your wondering how they could get those terms, if it has a kitchen, bathroom, and a bedroom, 30, even 40 year financing was available.
I know someone who refinanced their home at 79 years of age. That surprised me. I'm not sure if he got a reverse mortgage or not, but I was surprised that the lender approved it.
Thank you for introducing the term Failure to Mitigate Damages. I never knew this was the phrase I would be using when dealing with people in the future
My son died last year and within 14 days I had sent a copy of the death certificate to the car finance company. I lost track of how many letters and phone calls we received from them looking for him to pay off the car. (It was a couple of months old at the time of his death. We returned it to them immediately). A couple of months ago we got a letter from a collection company for him. The lady I talked to when I called was pretty apologetic when I said the person they were trying to get money from had been dead for over a year. Hopefully that's the last I hear from such people.
The law is the law, any terms that violate it are null and void. You can not more legally declare in must be paid in full than for a contract to commit murder. Have you really learned nothing from his videos? It seems so.
@@torilessOne of the things I've learned is that sleazy landlords will add whatever terms they want to their contracts even if the terms are unenforceable.
Apt complexes don't always follow the law. My daughter fled her ex because he threatened her life. Nevada has a law that says she can't be held liable for breaking her side of the lease. He destroyed the apt in a rage after she left and followed her bacj to Indiana. They are still going after her. Yes the divorce decree said he will pay, but that will never happen. She can pay a lawyer to go after apt complex in Nevada, but doing so, from Indiana and since she also has had to pay the IRS what he owed, what's the point? I hope the apt complex loses.
One of the very first things I did on my mom's passing 3 years ago was notify the big 3 credit agencies of her death. They put a notice on her credit of such, so anyone attempting to submit anything new (such as this case) would be informed that the account was frozen, so they were out of luck.
When my mom died about 5 years ago, she had a bad spinal injury due to her drinking and I had to live with her to help her. She died about a month after we renewed the lease, and she wasn't even buried yet when the landlord we were going through asked about redoing the lease or for us to leave. Renting is putting yourself at the mercy and benevolence of whoever runs the property, and that's more dangerous to me than walking down Downtown Chicago at midnight with no protection and flashing 100k in cash.
I rented from one of the giant national complex owners (100,000+ units) and calculated that 40% of my rent was profit. And that’s after they pay to build new buildings like weeds. They’d still make great money for 2/3 of my rent.
Which is why I've never done corporate rentals; too many people wanting a profit for essentially doing nothing. Rent only from a private individual- they're out there.
You are forgetting the cost of maintenance and upkeep, property taxes, wages/salaries of the employees, costs of contractors as necessary, advertising the complex, maintaining the website for the tenants to CONVENIENTLY pay their rent through, what ever portion of utilities that they pay, trash dumpsters (if applicable), and any other expenses I may have forgotten. If your AC/furnace went out, I bet you would expect it to be fixed right away. That costs money.
The Lodge at Shavano Park Apartment complex where Sandra Bonilla, 91, died decided not to collect rent from woman who died. That was sure swell of them to do that.🙄
When my mom died, it was with debt and no assets. My lawyer told myself and my siblings to sign a document to waive the estate to avoid inheriting the debt. She also told me that I should get my grandmother to also sign the same thing because the law allowed the debt to go up to the parent. It was rare, but it was legally possible, and the waiver had a short time limit to sign it.
The only way is if you inheriting real property with a debt on it. Like a house with mortgage, car with loan, etc. Nearly all other debts fall to the estate and with out one there is nothing to collect against.
@@BrianButterworth-s4zthere are other countries than the us. and yes, in most of europe you can inherit debts. if you say "yes, i want to inherit the estate, the furniture etc", you ALSO have to inherit the debts, mortgage etc. but nobody can force you to do that. if you didnt do that, the local government have to sell all the assets and pay the creditors if there is some margin of "profit" the local government can claim that, otherwise some of the creditors have to write off the debts.
I had to break a lease in Michigan because of a work transfer and the apartment complex wanted the full lease value. My company lawyers went after them to make sure they were putting in a good faith effort to lease the unit. The issue pretty much went away when they kept my deposit.
I used to work in the same call center as billing operators for a telco. There were two different problems customers would sometimes call with, where procedures existed and the people were not always compliant with following... - the case where the account holder was deceased, and service needed cancelled. "I'm sorry, but we can only cancel the service at the request of the account holder, and the account is not in your name." - the case where the account was cancelled for a deceased individual, and the deceased called to correct whatever mistake. "I'm sorry Mr Babbage, but my records clearly show that you are dead..."
What a misandrist statement. Why do you assume it is a he, huh??? What, women are so virtuous that they never lie or are never greedy??? (Im just kidding around.....it's a corporation)
Definitely not true: Some of the worst landlord behavior is small-time individuals. Some stuff in my metro area: - A pair of brothers who were notorious area slumlords were busted for breaking into the apartments they had rented out and either beating tenants or robbing them of what they claimed was equal value the moment there were delays in paying the rent. They had gotten away with this for many years because tenants were afraid of being homeless. - At least one mid-sized landlord was so neglectful in maintaining his properties that the judge sentenced him to live in his own building for a few years. With periodic checks to make sure that's where he was actually living. - A very large percentage of landlords of all sizes at least attempt to steal security deposits. Conveniently for the landlord, getting busted for doing this is a civil rather than criminal matter, and they know most tenants won't have the means to get legal relief, so they'll try it and relent only when it's clear that the tenant knows their rights and has the means to enforce them.
The landlord would keep it, and the heirs would probably have no idea. The landlord would have to be careful about leasing it to someone else until that lease expired.
@@doom4067 I know someone who had to deal with that kind of thing with their sisters death, the landlord decided that the apartment had to be completely vacated by the end of the month when the lease was a yearly one (The sister maintained it as his home while he, largely, worked elsewhere with long term contract things doing damage inspections for a company that would send people to repair things, largely with oil fields and rigs where if there was a problem, she'd be flown around and inspect the damage for a basic analysis of what would be needed to get it functional again for them to get the repair crews and supplies there...and spent most of the winter in northern alaska hopping between fields for a lot of companies, and spent the summers back at her apartment near where her family lived), the landlord tried to keep the deposit and something like ten months of rent while telling her family they had like 2 days to remove everything from the apartment or he'd either charge a massive amount to them to "extend the lease" or view everything left as abandoned. The guy I know was pissed when he found out since he had to waste a lot of emergency leave and the family had to spend a lot to get a quick rental of a storage place for his sisters stuff at the same time his family was dealing with her death and getting her body shipped home along with everything there (she was in a car wreck across the continent). The family did win a legal case against the landlord a few months later when going over the sisters papers
I just read an article in the Washington Post saying the complex has dropped the suit. That was quick, very disgusting thing for them to do in the first place.
If so, the lease would have included a clause that they are entitled to the entirety of her heir's inheritance for violation of the lease via wrongful death.
When my grandmother was dying of cancer, she wanted to get the will updated and put some deeds in our names. They stood her up more months, like Cancer was magically going to wait on them.
As a large property owner here in San Francisco, I am in total shocked, and speechless. I have tenants passed away from health and by age, I never gone out and do what this pathetic company is doing. I speak to the family and say I will deduct any charges for cleaning expenses and mail back a check. The family is going through a loss of a family member, and add this hell to them. Be compassionate. SMH
It’s ridiculous a law had to be made to prevent something by like this from happening and it still happen. Because people don’t have a heart and can’t actually think for themselves.
It's in the same vein as the saying that 'All safety instructions are written in blood'. Sometime, somewhere, someone did it, and it turned out poorly.
When my mom died, we let the apartment managers know she passed, we made sure the rent was paid for the rest of the month. This gave us two weeks to empty out the place after the funeral. The folks at the apartment were absolutely fine with this, even though my mom had signed a 5 year lease and still had 3 years to go. After all legally speaking contracts for people expire when the people in the contract expires. The apartment complex had the place rented out less that 5 days after we had the placed emptied out. The only thing I have heard that was a problem is if the place was left in a wreck. Then the estate may be liable for damages to the property.
That's what I was thinking. If the de@th was intentional, so to speak, and destructive to the property, I could see the management wanting to recoup the cost of restoration. But this is vile.
If they were not able to rent it out again, they would have made a claim against the estate by invoking the early termination clause. They were accomodating because they probably had people on a waiting list, so knew they could rent it out quickly and therefore it represented no loss to them.
Fair credit reporting act if they do report the debt and try to ding the children's credit its illegal and fraudulent and they can counter sue the apartment complex for damages. The dispute with any credit agency would be fairly easy just send them the death certificate.
I had a similar issue when my mom died 2 years ago. My sister and I combed through the lease 5 times to see if there was a death clause. There wasn't. Despite that, they pressed the issue (this was all over less than $1K smh). We told them to F themselves as we knew our rights and there wasn't any money in the estate to recover it, so they were SOL. The apartment was clean and move in ready for the next tenant (which they were able to achieve only a couple of weeks after my mom's death). Never heard back from them. Good riddance leeches.
Logically speaking the only way they can charge rent to the estate is of no one else is living in the unit. They can do that under the original payment schedule of the lease.
