Rental problem- any advice???

[bigdreams]

Hey, all!

I rented a 1bedroom apartment in Palermo about a month ago. Originally was going to stay there for 4 months but in the end had to leave earlier and come back to Europe for work. I called the land lady as soon as I found out I could not stay for 4 months as I had agreed with her by e-mail. I had paid one month´s rent in advance. She told me she could not give me the money back and I replied there was no problem and of course I could not ask for it anyway ( I would have never expected for her to do that). I told her I was leaving on Tuesday so I would stay only 4 days and leave her the 750 dollars, of course. So that´s how we agreed. Late at night, the night before I was gonna move in for those 4 days she sent me an sms saying she had rented the apartment for someone else and I could not stay for those 4 days (Not even a phone call, an sms!). So I ended up paying 750 dollars for her and a hotel room for 4 nights (My contract in the previous apartment had ended the last day of April, 4 nights before my flight back). I probably should not have told her honestly I was gonna leave, stupid me. Does anyone have any advice, is there any chance I could get her pay me back? She has been saying she keeps the money because I broke our agreement. Well, she broke it, too, didn´t she?

 

[nikad]

I would say the 4 days deal was not a contract, but a verbal agreement, so technically there is nothing you can do in my opinion.

 

[Roxana]

Ask a lawyer or, at Municipalidad de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Defensoria del Turista ( I think their office is open 24/7)

Another approach would be to tell her that you will inform AFIP (the national tax office) about her. For this you will need to provide some basic info of her. ( I also think this office has a phone number available 24/7 for complaints)

 

[gsi16386]

Unfortunately, the odds of you getting your money back are slim to none.

Just write it off as a bad experience, lesson learned, and be comforted in knowing that you don't have to cheat people in your life in order to be successful. You have a new job in Europe? Be comforted in knowing you'll make all that money back and then some the first week of work and be back to where you were before all this went down.

In the end, we're really only arguing about 4 days of rent, because I think we agree that she was in the right to have kept the $750. My advice is to write it off and focus your energy elsewhere...

 

[LAtoBA]

Hey, all!

I rented a 1bedroom apartment in Palermo about a month ago. Originally was going to stay there for 4 months but in the end had to leave earlier and come back to Europe for work. I called the land lady as soon as I found out I could not stay for 4 months as I had agreed with her by e-mail. I had paid one month´s rent in advance. She told me she could not give me the money back and I replied there was no problem and of course I could not ask for it anyway ( I would have never expected for her to do that). I told her I was leaving on Tuesday so I would stay only 4 days and leave her the 750 dollars, of course. So that´s how we agreed. Late at night, the night before I was gonna move in for those 4 days she sent me an sms saying she had rented the apartment for someone else and I could not stay for those 4 days (Not even a phone call, an sms!). So I ended up paying 750 dollars for her and a hotel room for 4 nights (My contract in the previous apartment had ended the last day of April, 4 nights before my flight back). I probably should not have told her honestly I was gonna leave, stupid me. Does anyone have any advice, is there any chance I could get her pay me back? She has been saying she keeps the money because I broke our agreement. Well, she broke it, too, didn´t she?

Unfortunately, if I´m understanding this correctly it seems to me she was legally in her right to do what she did. I´m assuming the $750 or the first month´s rent was used as a security deposit? In other words it was used to show ¨good faith¨on your part that you would take the apartment for the full 4 months. Once this is done an owner blocks off those dates from the calendar--in other words they reject any new reservation requests for their property.

In your case something unexpected came up which is unfortunate but you also have to understand the owner´s point of view. It´s very plausible that while the room was reserved for that month the owner rejected other offers say for 2 months, 3 months, maybe more. The $750 doesn´t really make up for what she assumed was a 4 month contract if she can now no longer get the apartment rented out for that time frame.

While she should have honored the verbal agreement, she was not legally obligated to let you stay there for 4 days. You unfortunately broke what I´m assuming was a written contract (for the 4 month lease). Had you got the informal verbal one for the four days in writing it might be a different story. Unfortunately, you are not entitled to any recourse. And threatening to report her really isn´t the way to go. She didn´t scam you out of anything. Yes, she failed to keep her word which sucks.....but you can´t be prosecuted for being kind of shady.