Landlord threatens tenants with illegal new contract, tenant reads the fine print: 'You should've read the fine print before you signed it'

The unscrupulous love to use urgency and fear to manipulate their target to agree to worse terms than they'd otherwise be able to negotiate or be entitled to—pressuring people into quick and detrimental decisions. Scammers, landlords, real estate agents, salesmen—even your employer—being some of the few who are more than willing to engage in such behavior…

And you know you're in trouble when your landlord is a real estate agency… When the real estate company that owned and managed the apartment that this tenant and their roommates lived in tried to strong-arm the renters into a new contract with higher rents, they were not prepared for the detailed orientation of the people they were dealing with.

A year into their time in the tenancy agreement, the landlord-ing company sent a notice ordering the tenants to either "sign a new contract (with higher rent) or move out within 30 days."

Worried about finding a new apartment, they sought advice from a local advocacy group, which was able to get them a meeting with a lawyer they worked with, who revealed the iron-clad terminology in the contract that declared that "No changes may be made to this contract unless both parties consent to the proposed changes."

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