🚀 go-pugleaf

Mark Brown (mbrown@austin.ibm.com) wrote:

> I suggest that you speak to a competent attorney, who has a knowledge of
> land-use issues, before you start blathering about "Constitutional
> rights". The Constitution restricts the State, and only in well-defined
> cases restricts agreements between individuals.

You are right about the Constitution --- this isn't really a constitutional
issue, but most people'sobjections have been on more fundamental
moral/ethical grounds than on constitutionality.

> You don't have the right to remodel the property to fit your needs (at
> least not on my lease!) -- and it's my right to inspect the property
> (spelled out in the lease, it specifies advance notice if possible to
> notify at all - see, I'm not a TOTAL ogre) that discovered the (former)
> tenants had torn out the walls in part of the house to expand the
> garage! My right to protect my property overrides their right to
> privacy.

This is where I totally disagree.  You have a right to do (almost)
anything you want to do with your property, as long as other people
are not using your property.  As soon as you rent it out to someone
to use as their home, then I think you should lose quite a few of those
rights.  As I said in an earlier posting, your rights are far, far
secondary to those of the person who is living there.  If you don't
want to lose those rights, don't rent it out.  As far as tearing out
the walls goes, I don't think you have the right to "check up" on
your tenants to see if they are doing that, unless you have other
substantial reasons to feel they are doing so.  You do have a right
to sue them for damages, but I don't think you should have the right
to look over their shoulder to make sure they're "being good".

> It does indeed - never said it didn't. That's all a part of the lease
> (contract). You pay for something, and you get what you negotiated for.

And I will make a strong argument that there are rights that a person
has in their home, and it should not be possible for ANYONE (government,
private citizens, or yes, even the property owner) to violate.  The
property owner, of course, wants to retain as many rights as possible
to their property.  It's perfectly valid for laws to restrict what can 
and can not be in a lease --- guaranteeing basic rights to all citizens
can and should be a major role of government.

> Listen: I *like* leaving whoever rents the house the h*ll alone - makes
> my life easier. But it IS MY PROPERTY, not the renter's. Period.

Listen:  It is THE TENANT'S HOME, not the property owner's.  Period.

--
Steve Tate  ---  srt@cs.unt.edu | "As often as a study is cultivated by narrow
Dept. of Computer Sciences      |  minds, they will draw from it narrow
University of North Texas       |  conclusions."  -- John Stuart Mill, 1865.
Denton, TX  76201               |