SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. — Potentially dozens of people are facing eviction from their emergency housing after their landlord terminated their leases as they waited for their apartments to be repaired.
The problems for the Altamonte Terrace apartments began at the beginning of September, when engineers hired by the property manager declared two buildings unsafe.
The engineers traced the problems to the buildings’ 50-year-old roofs, which had let in water, damaging the units and collapsing some ceilings.
The engineers generated five pages worth of findings that needed to be repaired, which the property manager sent to Altamonte Springs administrators.
The property ordered the tenants out but placed them at an adjacent hotel “for the next couple of weeks,” according to a letter given to tenants.
However, different letters provided by tenants dated October 3 and 4 informed them their leases were being terminated due to the conditions of the buildings, and they needed to either find a new place to live or begin paying the hotel rate as of October 17.
“Somehow figure out how we can find affordable housing within nine days now, because basically we’re going to be still stuck trying to come up with money,” Stan Lerner said.
However, Altamonte Springs never condemned the building – and the property manager’s letters raised red flags with attorney Jesse Clark, who represents tenants in disputes with landlords.
Clark reviewed Lerner’s lease agreement, which says the property manager can terminate the lease for damage or destruction that makes the building uninhabitable.
In this case, Clark said, the damage came from long-term maintenance issues the property owner knew about and neglected.
“The law does not like excusing people for responsibility for a self-created harm and they don’t like rewarding negligence,” Clark said, calling the roof a “smoking gun”.
“If that problem existed before the tenants even signed a lease, then there’s potentially fraud in the inducement of signing that contract,” he added.
During Lerner’s interview, the property manager walked up and accused the reporting crew of trespassing, despite them being on a public street.
He then refused to answer any questions about the evictions.
“You could keep the building,” Tatyana Leggette said. “You could keep the apartment. Just give me my deposit back that I moved in with, pay me for my furniture that y’all told us to leave in the unit because we didn’t have to take it.”
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