Tenants Slept at Stairway After Been Locked Out by Landlord Due to Dispute

This week on the new episode of Ludicrous Landlords, two tenants were chased out of their rented flat barely one month after they moved in, and the landlord even sent them a lawyer’s letter stipulating the termination of the lease contract and six clauses that the tenants had allegedly broken during their short stay.

Oh, and the landlord also locked out the tenants before they could even gather their belongings or make sense of what was happening.

Yes, the story is as ridiculous as the summary sounds.

The Original Terms of the Contract

Ms Yu, a 51-year-old mother who was accompanying her son to Singapore as he was studying abroad, recently saw an advertisement online that a 4-room unit at Block 733 Yishun Avenue 5 was being rented out.

The contract was for one year and it was stipulated that it would be rented out starting on 1 April, and the rental fee would be $2,600 per month.

After Ms Yu discussed it with the landlords, she and her son moved in earlier on 20 March.

Ms Yu told Shin Min Daily News that the landlords were a married couple, and they initially told her that they would be going overseas at the end of March, but a male landlord would still be around.

Where the Absurdity Starts

Much to Ms Yu’s puzzlement, just a week after she and her son settled in, the landlord arranged for other people to view the apartment, like they were planning to rent it to someone else.

Unfortunately, her hunch was right.

When Ms Yu woke up on Wednesday morning (6 April), the landlord had left the house after cutting off the water and electricity, and even pasted a notice on the room door: “Please move out of this residence. If you do not comply, you will bear the consequence.”

“I couldn’t understand it at the start. [I] went downstairs to take away some food in the afternoon, and when I returned home 15 minutes later, I realised that there was a new lock on the door. I was locked outside by the landlord,” Ms Yu recounted.

Thus, Ms Yu called the police. The police arrived to investigate but the landlord still refused to let her inside the house.

“I went to the police station last next to file another report, but didn’t have a home to return to, so I could only sit at the stairway with my son through the night.”

When the police were interviewed, they confirmed that they received a call for help at around 1:13pm that afternoon. The police came by to mediate, but they were unable to provide any help.

The Possible Reason for the Conflict

Ms Yu revealed that since she was intending to rent the entire flat, the landlord was supposed to lock up one bedroom. After she moved in, she politely asked the landlord to clean up the living room, kitchen, and the other miscellaneous items, so that she could make proper use of the space.

However, the landlord refused to do so.

Additionally, she said that the landlord accused her and her son for bringing too much luggage.

Towards this, Ms Yu responded, “We only had 6 pieces of luggage and a few cardboard boxes filled with daily necessities, and we stored them in the bedroom.”

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Landlord Issues a Lawyer’s Letter, Requesting Them to Move Away in 7 Days

Afterwards, the landlord sent a lawyer’s letter, alleging that the tenant had “seriously violated the tenants’ code of conduct and obligations” and was told to vacate the flat within 7 days.

According to the lawyer’s letter sent to Ms Yu on 31 March, when the landlord allowed her to move in, she already informed her on 23 March that “they hoped they wanted to stop renting the unit, which also signified that they wanted to terminate the contract.”

Additionally, the letter mentioned that Ms Yu failed to go through with the procedure of becoming the registrant on the utility bill account before 25 March.

Hold on, let’s get this straight.

First the landlord apparently said he wanted to stop renting the flat out on 23 March, so why would he even bother to ask Ms Yu, or have the gall to accuse that she wasn’t a registrant on the utility bill when she, hypothetically, wasn’t going to even be living there anymore?

How does that even make any sense??

Besides that, the letter also claims that the tenants have threatened to evict the landlord, disposed of all the furniture in the unit, and that Ms Yu had not paid the rent at all.

The letter continues, “Due to the aforementioned reasons, the lease contract has been terminated by mutual consent shortly after 25 Mach 2022.”

The landlord’s lawyer’s letter even stated that it was Ms Yu who proposed to terminate the contract, and violated another tenants’ code of conduct and regulations by being a nuisance to the owners.

Thus, she was notified to move out within seven days, starting from 31 March. 

On this front, Ms Yu denies having proposed any sort of termination of the lease agreement, and stated that the owners had unilaterally and forcibly thrust her into this predicament.

As for the rent payment, Ms Yu claimed that she had previously transferred over $2,600 to cover the rent for April. 

Ms Yu laments about the fact that it isn’t easy to rent a flat right now, and she hopes that she can find a better place to live in soon.

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Featured Image: Facebook (Shin Min Daily News 新明日报)