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Update: 'It's a happy ending': L.A. landlord sneakily overcharges rent by 45%-50%, gets caught by a renter and has to dish out $4,300 to all of her tenants

When it comes to the housing market and the renting world, life seems unjust. It seems like the landlords are always coming up, while the people just trying to live their lives with a roof over their heads are always on the down. It's simply unfair. However, sometimes things work out for the underdogs, like for these renters recently in L.A. 

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Posted by Elna McHilderson
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  • An L.A. renter, TikToker Kelsey aka @conornoburst, recently came across some shading dealings with her landlord. They were sent letters from the city stating they didn't have to pay their landlord since their apartment building was deemed “uninhabitable” by an inspector. However, soon after receiving those letters, she gets an email from her landlord saying that they can ignore those letters from the city because they recently were “signed off” by another inspector and everything was fine and should proceed as normal. 

    So she trusted her landlord and kept paying her rent per usual. However, a few months later the landlord sends out another email saying she is going to raise the rent. This seemed perplexing to Kelsey since they just went through a city program saying they were barely habitable. So, she started to look into it. Turns out the landlord is not only NOT allowed to raise the rent, she had actually been charging all of the tenants 45%-50% MORE than what they were supposed to be paying. 

    Flabbergasted, Kelsey started to take charge and, boy, did it pay off! See for yourself below. Want more housing market drama? Here are some words of advice from first-time homebuyers. 

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  • 1
    "I'm not really surprised that [the landlord] has been playing dumb. She was about to get away with this, but she didn't."
    Via Castorly Stock via Pexels
  • 2
    conornoburst Kelsey 1-22 So I was opening my mail recently, and I got notice of a rent increase. But also in my mail was a letter from the L.A. housing department explaining to me how I can start paying them instead of my landlord for the REAP account (Rent Escrow Account Program). That's essentially a program where the city takes over because your place is considered "uninhabitable" by an inspector, and then you get a rent reduction based on how uninhabitable it is, and you pay the city instead
    Via conornoburst
  • 3
    But I figured I need to get some clarification. It turns out that since August, I've been overpaying my rent by 45%. That they owe me that money back, and they can either give it to me in credit, which I wouldn't want, or they can pay me the money back. It's like $3,700. And I am, like, disheartened because I've been paying rent as per usual, because I was told to. And I'm upset, however, not surprised, that I wasn't alerted by the company that owns the building that I was overpaying. So I am in
    Via conornoburst
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  • 4
    conornoburst Kelsey 5d ago So I didn't want to give an update until there was actually information to update you on, but here it is. My landlord ended up playing dumb when I sent a demand letter where it clearly stated that she cannot raise my rent for the next 13 months. I also demanded the money back that she owed me, which would be 45% of my rent. Essentially, she played dumb. She didn't raise my rent, but she also said, "I'm sorry, it doesn't say anywhere in those documents that it's a 45% r
    Via conornoburst
  • 5
    So I got 147 page document and on page 146 it states how much the deduction is. And it turns out it wasn't 45%, it's 50%. There was one unit that was 45%, but all of the other units are 50% off, meaning that she actually owes me closer to like $4,500 instead of $3,700. I bcc all of my neighbor's emails that I got and sent her a demand letter for the amount. Also attached a screenshot of that last page and circled all of our apartments and also sent her the 147 page document. Um, so we'll see. We
    Via conornoburst
  • 6
    conornoburst Kelsey · 3d ago . Let's talk about the update that everybody wanted to see. So I got an email from her this morning where she said, "thank you for sending all this information. Reap finally sent it to me as well. I will update your rent ledger." Then she credited my rent account to like $4,300 or something like that. She also did that for my neighbors. I haven't heard back from [some] neighbors. I don't think [they've all] emailed her yet. [I know] one neighbor also did it. There ar
    Via conornoburst

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landlord company viral videos landlord raising the rent los angeles REAP program what goes around comes around rent LA renter pay back justice served landlord drama renting renters market landlord exposed california rent karma Renters housing market

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