Thursday, February 05, 2009

Why Renting Sucks, Reason #4,788

From Fox News:

A landlord is demanding the ex-husband of one of the Covina Christmas Eve Massacre victims pay up on her rent.

In what can be described and decried as a ridiculous and outrageous action, Broadcrest Fotohill Apartment Homes is putting the screws to Carlos Ortiz to pay $2821 in rent and penalties on his late ex-wife's apartment because she broke her lease by being murdered.

File this one under, "WTF???"

First of all, he didn't live there, he wasn't on the lease, and therefore wasn't a party to the lease. Broadcrest has no grounds to go after him for anything.

Second, Broadcrest claims that Alicia Ortiz gave "insufficient notice to vacate" the apartment by being murdered. What the hell was she supposed to do, beg her sister's ex-husband to wait a moment before killing her? "Wait, wait, I need to write a note to my landlord to tell them I'm vacating my apartment, then you can kill me!" "Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead." Please. Fact is, the lease ended with her life, and the family had every legal right to retrieve their property form the apartment. A notice to vacate clause in a lease does not apply a dead person since when that lessor dies the lease is no longer valid. So Broadcrest's claim is simply junk.

It's bad enough that this family has been shattered beyond belief over this massacre. But for Broadcrest to come along and demand money from them on top of it is just insane. Someone there needs to be fired for being insensitive and clueless, not to mention incompetent.

And Broadcrest needs to publicly apologize to the Ortiz family and eat their loss with a healthy side of crow.

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