A good house is cut off, a deposit is paid and cannot live in the house, black intermediaries set up traps... As the renting season is approaching, how to protect one's rights and interests has attracted wide attention——
House lease, will you sign this contract?
Our reporter Cao Yue
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With the normalization of epidemic prevention and control, the school season and graduation season are approaching, and the rental market that has been sluggish for half a year has begun to become active again.
The nasty things caused by renting a house appeared one by one: a good house was cut off, the rented house could not go to school, and the trap contract of the black intermediary must be careful.
The judge reminded: Be cautious when signing the rental contract.
With the improvement of the epidemic situation and the advent of the school season and graduation season, the housing rental market has begun to become active again. At the same time, bad things such as contract traps and disputes between tenants and landlords have appeared one by one.
When signing a lease, what should the tenant pay attention to in order to avoid risks?
How should the landlord protect their rights?
The house was cut off-the landlord took a bite
In January 2019, Miss Gao from Qingdao had an unused house lease expired. When she went to collect the house, the scene inside the house surprised her: the original two-bedroom and one-living room was cut off and turned into a three-bedroom. The tenant became the second landlord and sublet the room to three families.
In addition, various pits have appeared on the wooden floor of the original hard-covered room. The traces of tape on the wall are difficult to remove. The cabinets are filled with discarded mineral water bottles and plastic bags.
When she found the previous tenant and offered to clean the house, the tenant told her that it was not her duty to clean the house.
In desperation, Miss Gao could only clean up the house a little bit by herself and replace the broken furniture.
"When I signed the contract with the tenant before, I thought that there was only one household to rent, but I did not expect that the second landlord would sublet the house to others. In addition, I did not explicitly require the tenant to protect the furniture and move the house. Clean the house when you leave. This can be regarded as a lesson for yourself. From now on, you must write the agreed content in the contract and come to check the house regularly."
Just like Miss Gao, although most landlords are in a dominant position in housing leasing, they will inevitably encounter bad things.
In order to avoid difficulties in defending rights later, the rental contract must be signed.
Recently, the People's Court of Haidian District, Beijing made a judgment on a dispute over a rental contract.
The plaintiff, Mr. Li, stated that due to business needs, he entrusted an intermediary company to find housing. After being introduced, he and Mr. Wang signed the "Deposit Payment Letter" on September 3, 2017, and agreed to sign the "House Lease Contract" on December 15, 2017. However, due to reasons such as Mr. Wang’s concealing the actual area of the house, the lease contract was not reached as agreed, and the house was rented out by others. Therefore, Mr. Li sued the court to cancel the agreement signed by Mr. Li and Mr. Wang on September 3, 2017. "Receipt and Payment of Deposit"; Mr. Wang doubled back the deposit of 100,000 yuan.
After the trial, the court held that Mr. Li had conducted an on-site inspection of the house on the day he signed the deposit contract. Mr. Wang also showed the original house ownership certificate for Mr. Li to verify. Mr. Li believed that the interior and exterior areas of the house were not in line with the actual situation because it was not completed. Due to the duty of careful verification, there is no evidence to prove that Mr. Wang deliberately informed false information or deliberately concealed the truth.
In the end, Mr. Li's lawsuit requesting Mr. Wang to return the deposit twice was not supported by the court.
In the process of house leasing, people often adopt the method of making an agreement to guarantee a satisfactory house.
However, the judge reminded that before signing the contract, the tenant should carefully investigate the true condition of the house to determine whether it meets the description of the other party.
If due to negligence and omission, after paying the deposit, it is discovered that there is a problem with the house that is intended to be leased, the rights protection will be relatively passive at this time.
Renting a house but failing to go to school-the tenants have trouble saying
Recently, when the school season is approaching, Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court notified a typical case of housing lease disputes around the school.
The case shows that in order to solve the problem of children’s schooling, tenant Wang signed a house lease contract with the head of the household, Qu, and agreed that Qu would assist Wang’s child in school next year.
But later, Qu informed Wang that the house was to be sold, and the lease would not be renewed after the lease contract expired, nor could it cooperate with Wang's child's school inspection.
Wang believes that Qu's behavior has caused him to fail to realize the purpose of the contract for signing the house lease contract, which constitutes a breach of contract, and he is sued to the court.
Liang Lijun, deputy chief of the Second Civil Division of the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court, analyzed: “Wang knew that the lease term stipulated in the contract was fully understood, and he should pay sufficient attention to the time required for the child’s enrollment verification. The specific time limit for assisting the child to go through the enrollment verification is clearly agreed. In the case that Wang fails to provide evidence to prove that the two parties agree on the enrollment verification for the child, the owner is required to continue to bear the obligation after the lease contract expires, which obviously aggravates the house. The main contractual liability is obviously unfair to Qu." In the end, the court ruled that Wang’s request for compensation was not supported.
Liang Lijun introduced: "The items agreed in the house lease contract should be specific and clear, otherwise there is a risk that it cannot be actually performed."
Judge Zhao Yinchen reminded that even the agreement reached verbally should be implemented in writing.
"Both parties to the lease must properly keep the lease contract and deposit certificates, and pay attention to the contract matters and clarify the rights and obligations of both parties to avoid unnecessary disputes."
Long-term rental companies run off-beware of black intermediaries
Recently, many tenants and landlords in Chengdu posted on the Internet saying they had encountered the situation of running away from long-term rental companies.
A tenant said that he signed a one-year contract with the company’s staff at the rental location on April 1, and paid a one-year rent plus a January deposit according to the content of the contract, with a total amount of 20,800 yuan.
But on August 7, the landlord told him that the intermediary company did not pay the landlord’s rent for July and August, so the house would be repossessed by August 20 at the latest.
After that, the leasing parties could not contact the people of the long-term leasing company, and the office space was empty.
With the development of the leasing market, long-term rental apartments are becoming more and more popular among tenants. However, at the same time, several housing leasing companies have been running out of stock due to the "high-in-low-out" and "long-income short-payment" business models. It is not uncommon, and ultimately the interests of both the landlord and the tenant suffer.
Insiders reminded that when signing a house lease contract, tenants should pay special attention to the terms and terms of rent payment. As far as possible, it should be agreed in the contract that the rent will be paid on a monthly basis or not more than quarterly. Be wary of paying 3 in advance. The temptation to give rent discounts for rents over a month, do not pay a large amount of rent in advance, to prevent housing leasing companies from running out of money or going bankrupt before the lease period, and the original landlord is not allowed to live because of not receiving the rent.
In addition, when signing a contract, you should also be careful about hacking the intermediary's various "trap" contracts.
During the interview, the reporter found that some rental contracts are only one page, and some are as long as 10 pages.
Some contracts specify basic expenses such as water and electricity, property fees, and some also indicate various items such as sanitation fees and sewage charges, and some of the fees are unclear.
In 2018, those who had just graduated from university were not only harmed by the "health fees" set by the black intermediary.
"The sanitation fee column in the contract was blank. I thought it had nothing to do with me, so I didn't care. Later, three intermediaries called me and asked me to pay sanitation expenses. The cost rose from 356 yuan at the beginning to more than 1,000 yuan." When he wants to refuse to pay the sanitation fee, the intermediary threatens to get back the intermediary fee without paying the fee.
Nowadays, many regions have issued regulations for the online signing and filing of rental housing contracts, which to a certain extent protects consumers from fraudulent intermediaries.
Liu Junhai, a professor at the School of Law of Renmin University of China, reminded renters to choose a qualified and formal intermediary or a house leasing company. The contract should use the model text of the house leasing contract issued by the real estate authority as much as possible. Read the contract terms carefully before signing the contract.
In addition, he said that only online signing and filing is not enough. “A joint punishment system should also be established to punish untrustworthiness to increase the cost of illegal intermediaries.”
"Worker Daily" (September 03, 2020 Edition 07)