🚀 go-pugleaf

> Alex_Currier@attpls.net (Alex Currier) writes:
>>, mbrown@austin.ibm.com (Mark Brown) wrote:
>Nobody wants to strip your rights. We just want a fair bargain. The

Everybody wins. This isn't a zero-sum game.

>original poster stated that the TAA lease is unfair. Now if I go to a TAA
>affiliated landlord and start striking paragraphs from the lease you know
>what happens? They refuse to lease to me. 

I have actually *DONE* this as a renter, and the changes were approved
by the apartment management...I didn't strike clauses wholesale, but
modified them and talked with the people about *why*. Most people are
reasonable when approached in a reasonable manner.

>That's not striking a deal...

But a business *does* have a right not to do business in such a way that
it will go broke, and that means refusing business that it feels is not
good for it. An owner who has a history of tenants destroying property
will not be likely to relinquish inspection rights....

...and right now, it is an owner's market (after *years* of losing
money). They can pick and choose, and sell to the highest bidder.

>and if the vast majority of leasing agents are TAA affiliated and there

The TAA does not demand people use the TAA lease - it is a "recommended"
lease, and can be modified if the owners' willing to. The TAA lease is
certainly mot mandatory for TAA members, but lazy owners are not willing
to accept the time/effort of making their own.

>are very few apartments available I am effectively forced to accept a bad
>lease or go homeless. This is not fair. 

Hmmm. There are many cases where life "is not fair". People get cancer
and die. Couples find out they are infertile. Stocks lose money.
People cannot afford to buy, and must rent.

There is indeed a shortage of rentable housing in Austin. This makes
prices high and owners less flexible. One option is to own your own.
Another is to live in a place where the cost is less.

There was a time in Austin when there was a surplus. Rents were low,
owners lost money, and were *very* flexible to get tenants. Was life
"fair" then? Not to the owners....

>This is when renters decide to
>take legal action against the TAA to attempt to force changes to the lease
>arrangements which respect fundamental rights of the renters. Do you have
>a problem with this idea? 

Nope. But the TAA lease is not mandatory, merely a recommended lease form
that the owner may modify as she pleases. You wouldn't gain anything.

>No renter so far has asked for more than basic rights to privacy, the
>prevention of casual entry of the premises by the landlord... a clause

"casual entry" is not what the original complaint was about. The terms
of the lease *SPECIFIED* the terms of entry.

I cheered the passing of the keyless deadbolt law; I dislike the notion
of "casual entry" as much as you do - it should be NEGOTIATED point. But
no owner with a lick of sense will give up her right of entry.

>that declares the payment of rent as a guarantee of the same rights to the
>renter that a home owner would have to their own home. What's so bad about
>that?

If you can get those terms, more power to you! I, however, will never
give you this, since at that point I am no longer in control of my
property. The fundamental point is: 'payment for use' is not, and will
never be, the same as 'ownership'.

> If you think your renters are conducting illegal activities or
>destroying your property then you can call the police and have them come
>down with a search warrant. Those are fair rights for a property owner.

Says you. I don't need the permission of the State to inspect my own
property. My tenant and I have already agreed on the terms.

cheers,
mark
-- 
Mark Brown     | AIX Architecture             |   Civil Liberty
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