Q: Landlord will not provide rent receipts for my cash payments, can he say I’d didn’t pay rent and take me to court ?
I have paid all rent ,he is now saying I owe rent because I told him it was probably illegal for him to charge me rent increase through an electric bill ,he lives in the basement and are supposed to help pay for electric ,he had a female friend move in and my electric bill has doubled plus some .when I ask him to help because it’s clearly on his part this is happening he first said he would help on next bill , then when it was time to help he said to consider the extra on the bill as a rent increase. We went to social services to get help to pay the bill and they told us it’s illigal for him to say it’s a rent increase (they ask if you need help with any other bill too so we told them the situation) so after we told him what social services said he told us to get out and that we now owe him rent and late fees , late fees are not even in our lease .
A: From what you've said, it does seem that the landlord is violating the lease, and potentially state laws (namely, by taking cash payments without a receipt given and increasing rent without notice). You should probably speak with an attorney- a lot will depend on what your lease says exactly, and other circumstances.
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