Without Gas And Forced To Pay Rent.

[nlaruccia]

I'm wondering of anyone has experience with gas cuts. My friend's building has been without gas for four months and the administracion is supposed to fix it. The owner of the apartment my friend rents is a lawyer and says that she won't lower the rent to compensate for the lack of gas and that my friend still has to pay rent every month. I know with natural disasters that the owner has to make necessary repairs and compensate, but for a building gas leak? I don't think that she should have to pay the full rent price every month even though it's a two year contract.

 

[sesamosinsal]

If the owner doesn't want to lower the rent, I'd first look for a clause in the contract that allows me to leave the contract under "extraordinary" circumstances. No one is going to move into that place without gas, and threatening to leave might be a good incentive for the owner to lower the price.

If there is no clause and she's not willing to budge, as a last resort I'd stop paying the expensas.

It's a tough situation because it's not the owner's fault directly, but it's the risk that any property owner assumes.

 

[nikad]

Tell you friend to go here http://www.inquilinos.org.ar/

 

[ElQueso]

I have known personally two different folks that got their gas cut off. Both here in Recoleta not far from where I live. One a single-structure house and the other a whole apartment building. Both were as a result of the new regulations related to gas fixtures, venting and such. The gas company came and shut down the gas without warning and then told the house and building owners what all they had to fix. Relatively expensive stuff. Then once they had everything fixed they had to pay the inspector a "fee" and also a fee of about the same size to the gas company.

It took my friend in his apartment (which he was renting) about 7 months before the gas came back on. He ended up moving temporarily into another place during the cold months. The owner of the apartment from whom he was renting accepted no rent and asked that my buddy pay the expenses to maintain the contract, which was probably more than fair.

My other friend, with the house, took more than a year to get the gas turned on. He was trying to avoid paying the extra "fee". He went out and bought an electric water heater and such to delay the inevitable, but it finally got too cold this winter to hold off more.

Nlarrucia, I think your friend's owner is being an ass. I don't recall right offhand what the "extraordinary" conditions clause that is in the contract, as Bradley mentions, is worded, but I believe your friend has rights, even if maybe that means he or she can leave the apartment without paying any penalties. If it's not in the contract your friend signed, look up the official long term contract defined by law (assuming your friend is in a long term contract) - your friend has those rights, by law, even if it wasn't in the contract he/she signed.

Being a lawyer doesn't really mean much, unless she's practicing and has enough contacts. I've watched my sister-in-law, who was the head cook at a restaurant owned by a lawyer (not practicing), get fired the day after she told him she was pregnant, and offered a measly 1000 pesos as severance. Once she initiated a lawsuit, he falsified a number of documents to make it look like she had stolen something (he was so stupid that he didn't even notice he'd left the dates of the transactions she'd supposedly been involved with as almost a month after he'd fired her!). Her lawyer laughs with her quite a bit about the stupidity this guy presents every time they go before the mediators and then the judge.

 

[nlaruccia]

I have known personally two different folks that got their gas cut off. Both here in Recoleta not far from where I live. One a single-structure house and the other a whole apartment building. Both were as a result of the new regulations related to gas fixtures, venting and such. The gas company came and shut down the gas without warning and then told the house and building owners what all they had to fix. Relatively expensive stuff. Then once they had everything fixed they had to pay the inspector a "fee" and also a fee of about the same size to the gas company.

It took my friend in his apartment (which he was renting) about 7 months before the gas came back on. He ended up moving temporarily into another place during the cold months. The owner of the apartment from whom he was renting accepted no rent and asked that my buddy pay the expenses to maintain the contract, which was probably more than fair.

My other friend, with the house, took more than a year to get the gas turned on. He was trying to avoid paying the extra "fee". He went out and bought an electric water heater and such to delay the inevitable, but it finally got too cold this winter to hold off more.

Nlarrucia, I think your friend's owner is being an ass. I don't recall right offhand what the "extraordinary" conditions clause that is in the contract, as Bradley mentions, is worded, but I believe your friend has rights, even if maybe that means he or she can leave the apartment without paying any penalties. If it's not in the contract your friend signed, look up the official long term contract defined by law (assuming your friend is in a long term contract) - your friend has those rights, by law, even if it wasn't in the contract he/she signed.

Being a lawyer doesn't really mean much, unless she's practicing and has enough contacts. I've watched my sister-in-law, who was the head cook at a restaurant owned by a lawyer (not practicing), get fired the day after she told him she was pregnant, and offered a measly 1000 pesos as severance. Once she initiated a lawsuit, he falsified a number of documents to make it look like she had stolen something (he was so stupid that he didn't even notice he'd left the dates of the transactions she'd supposedly been involved with as almost a month after he'd fired her!). Her lawyer laughs with her quite a bit about the stupidity this guy presents every time they go before the mediators and then the judge.

Thank you for your advice. It is indeed a long term contract as she's Argentine. She did have to buy an electric water heater and another friend and I told her to send a carta documento to the Asociacion telling them not to charge her interest for not paying expenses due to the gas being cut and to detail the extra money she pays out of pocket due to this inconvenience like having to pay for an electric water heater, and food delivery and restaurants since she can't cook at home. I hope she can move and recover her deposit, but it's a pain in the rear since she'll have to pay another real estate agency a broker's fee, deposit and first and last month's rent up front.

 

[nlaruccia]

Tell you friend to go here http://www.inquilinos.org.ar/

Thank you for the link! I already emailed it to her.