• TheLowestStone@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I agree with everything you said except for this:

    And there should be a law forcing landlords to offer a rent-to-own option.

    I generally don’t think there should be laws forcing individual citizens to sell anything they own. I could however be on board with government regulated and incentivized rent-to-own programs.

    • SkyeStarfall
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      3 months ago

      Honestly, I don’t feel like landlords should even exist

      Sure, maybe renting can still exist, as long as it’s cheaper and government run or something. I would much much rather give my rent to the government than some rich fuck who literally gets my money for free

      • TheLowestStone@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Whether or not they should exist is basically irrelevant. They do and that’s not something we’re likely to see change. Also, sometimes renting is a better fit for people at certain phases of their life.

        In exchange for a reasonable rent, a landlord is responsible for ensuring that the building is kept safe and well maintained and that any necessary repairs happen as quickly as is reasonably possible. What I’d really like to see is landlords being held accountable for failing to do so.

        • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          In exchange for a reasonable rent, a landlord is responsible for ensuring that the building is kept safe and well maintained and that any necessary repairs happen as quickly as is reasonably possible. What I’d really like to see is landlords being held accountable for failing to do so.

          Most of the lack of enforcement is for obvious reasons (landlords lobby and in some cases run the government), but there’s also a practical constraint: individual renters in a building tend to litigate this individually.

          It should be easier to either start up a class action lawsuit, or there should be a mechanism to “unionize” renters in large buildings automatically or something. Slumlords are a very real thing, and there ought to be a better way to litigate them out of existence.

      • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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        3 months ago

        You may have to redefine the legal term for landlord then, cause there are a lot of things that would count towards it on a legal level. For example renting out a portion of ones land for secondary use, an easy example is someone sticking a trailer on ones land and living there. Another two examples are closer to industrial but still count, renting land for livestock grazing and renting land for storage. Pretty sure they all count towards landlordship on a legal level.

    • Waveform@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I understand what you’re saying and I did feel weird typing that since I know there must be a better alternative.

      Something has to give, though. In late June I had to leave a place I rented for 19 years and I’m still stunned. Idk how much of the house’s value we paid in rent, but it was a lot. And it wasn’t even a large home, just a small cabin few people would wish to live in. But there was nothing stopping the landlord from kicking us to the curb.

      • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Idk how much of the house’s value we paid in rent, but it was a lot.

        Definitely 80-100% of it.

        Almost 20 years of renting, if all of that including the (almost certain) increases had been applied to the original mortgage you’d likely own it by now.

        They charge you everything they’re charged plus add on a profit margin. That profit margin if applied to principle on a standard 30 year mortgage would’ve paid it off earlier.