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You are here: Experts > Real Estate > Apartment Living/Rental > Real Estate Law (esp. Landlord-Tenant) > rental house questions
Expert: Jonathan Dever, Esq - 8/12/2008
Question
Dear Jonathan,
Four of my friends and I are planning to move to New York City in the near future. Two weeks ago, we visited a number of houses for rent in Whitestone, Queens, found a place that we liked, and set up a lease with the landlord, beginning August 15th. Tonight (August 11th), the landlord called me and said he could not rent the house due to a mortgage issue -- the mortgage was only for a residential property, not a rental property.
Two questions that I hoped you could help me with:
1.) Is changing a mortgage from a residential property to a rental property possible? It seems like this could be done by altering the terms of the mortgage somehow. (I explained that we would even be willing to cover some additional costs if such a thing was possible).
2.) If it isn't possible, do we have any legal recourse against the landlord's misrepresentation? Although our lease specifies that the landlord will not be held responsible for failing to deliver the property by the date specified, we still racked up major costs -- gas, hotel, calling off work, etc -- to come up and tour his property. It seems like we should get more than just our security deposit back, considering his misrepresentation.
Thanks for your time and consideration,
~ Garrett Williams
Indiana, PA
Answer
1. No the mortgage cannot be changed without a refinance or negotiating with the lender. But, I have not heard of a mortgage dictating that you cannot rent. Residential use only means that people will live there. Now if he told the loan officer and the bank that it was to be owner occupied rather than renter occupied is a different matter.
2. You would have reliance damages, those being expenses you actually incurred to further the move (ie moving vans). You would have traveled and called off work anyway to locate a place to live. Those expenses are likely not recoverable.
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