The landlord had told them he wanted to raise the rent to $3,500 and when they complained he decided to raise it to $9,500.
“We know that our building is not rent controlled and this was something we were always worried about happening and there is no way we can afford $9,500 per month," Yumna Farooq said.
If accepting a lease on a post-2018 construction, knowing that no rent control was in force, was reasonable then, it is still reasonable now. Live with your choices.
This isn’t living with ones own choices. This is having others choices thrust into you and having to deal with their greed.
There is no obligation to enter into a tenancy knowing that the landlord can jack the prices up on a whim. There is plenty of choice – one can opt to move into a unit constructed before 2018 instead, or, in newer construction, one can make it a contractual condition of the tenancy to have an independently negotiated “rent control” in force.
To ignore all of that at the time and then cry about it later because the risk taken didn’t work out is just plain antisocial behaviour. We invented contract law exactly to prevent these kinds of surprises. If you want to play some other stupid game instead, expect to win stupid prizes.
I’m certain there are a lot of good options otherwise
having no rent control is never reasonable. People only accepted places without rent control because all other options are shit too
Exactly. To accept a lease on a property that you know doesn’t have automatic rent control, and to not contractually obligate the landlord to long-term price controls in that rental agreement, is reckless. They took the high risk gamble and lost. Such is life. But to then complain that their high risk scheme, which was done to screw over other renters who are more careful, didn’t work out is plain antisocial behaviour.