Rent Increases

Keep Paying the rent you agreed upon!

Tell them you will give them a 15% increase after 1 year! They are intimidating you to extort more rent.Typical Dominican way! It will be hard for them to "legally" get you out as long as you continue to pay rent,and get a receipt!They can make it difficult for you to stay.Do you want to fight them,then get a lawyer.If not,keep paying the agreed upon rent,and look for another place.Did you give a "Security Deposit"? Have your receipt for that? You will NEVER get it back,so "burn it in rent before you leave.It takes months to "Legally" evict you!
Threaten the Landlord with legal action,tell him you will report him to the Sec.of Tourism!Know any POLICIA NATIONAL,bring them around to talk to him!CCCCCC

Linda Stapleton said:

I have tried to do a search on this with no success, so please forgive me if this is a repeat query.

I moved into my new apartment at the end of October, with the rent being agreed, although I have no contract. Two months later I have been told that the rent has almost doubled and that I am being allowed to stay as a special favour, along with another couple of English friends, and all the other accommodation will be charged daily or weekly, catering to tourists. The rent increases are said to be to cover renovations being made at the complex and increased running costs.

As there is virtually no other economical, decent accommodation available at this time of year, we are pretty much forced to stay for the time being. We have also been told that the rents will be reviewed on a monthly basis and may well increase again.

Is this legal and if we refuse to pay the increases, what are our rights in terms of notice required to quit etc?

Also, if anyone knows of any reasonably priced accommodation around Cabarete, please let me know!!

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Linda, do as Criss said. Threaten them with the police and tell them that you will get a lawyer, even if you don't do it. They are trying to intimidate you to get more money out of you. Whatever you do, keep on paying your rent and if they refuse, put it in the bank just in case they take you to court. It took me about 3 years to get a moron out of my home. The court said that I had refused to take the rent and that he had the money in the bank. He would tell the judge that he had nowhere to go and that he was looking but could not find anything. It will be very difficult for him to get you out, so go ahead and get a lawyer and, by all mean, threaten him/them right back. Remember that they see you and all they see is dollar signs. Defend yourself.

I want to reemphasize what the others have said about paying the rent. Do not miss a payment and don't be late.

And keep records. Save all receipts and make notes of everything said or that happens that relates to your situation.

If they refuse to accept payment of rent, immediately open an account in the local Banco de Reserva and deposit the money in the account. Use this account only for rent payments that the owners refused. And each time they refuse to take your money, make a note of this fact. If they take the money and refuse to give you a receipt, note that, too.

If they retaliate by cutting off your water and electricity, get an attorney. As long as you are paying your rent, to them or by depositing it in the rent account you establish, they can't do that (IMHO).

Looking forward to seeing what Fabio has to say about your situation.

Dominican law is very protective of tenant rights. The owner cannot just raise the rent at will. He would have to go through a lengthy administrative procedure. If the owner refuses to accept the rent, the tenant can deposit it at the nearest Banco Agricola.

You do have a contract, a verbal contract, the existence of which you can prove with your rent receipts.

So what about my water problem? To get a lawyer costs money that I don;t have.
Its been over 6 months now without water. Having to carry water has made my back go bad and now I can hardly walk.
I didn't go to the lawyer for the landlord this month to opay cause I wanted the landlord to come here to see that I can't walk. He said he would give us upstairs a connection so we dont have to carry water up the stairs but that was 2 1/2 weeks ago and still no water.
My lease is up on about 3 months and don't want to make the landlord mad and up my rent. U don;t have the money to move so I'm sort of stuck.
What are the options there? And if he ups my rent after the 2 year lease is up what do I do then?

If they let you move in without a written contract, you can do whatever you want. It will be very hard for them to get you out.

I suspect its not worth fighting them though. They will have more incentive to make your life difficult than its worth for you.

Personally I'd move and get into a more positive situation.

Adrian

Linda,

You're right about life being to short for fighting all the time, but in this country you need word to get around that you are not a "pendeja" or you will spend your entire visit here getting screwed by one opportunist after another.

Even seemingly honest local business people will be tempted to screw you if you get a reputation for not doing anything about it.

In tourist areas selective breeding has created an entire species of Dominican that feeds on foreigners who feel life is too short to squabble over a little money. People that are trying to screw you out of money will keep coming back until you stand up to them, chances are if you pay your landlord off and move somewhere else, he'll be after you in a few months claiming damages to the apartment, you left a high light bill, etc.

If you show him you'd rather fork over money than fight he may feel he has no choice. but to take you for all you're worth.

Then people asked me why I dumped all my Rental property I owned in the DR.
For every story of Tennant hell there are dozens of stories of Renters who try to take advantage of the laws in the DR and screw the landlords.
Even though I new the tricks of getting around those ridiculous laws it still was not worth the hassle.

Linda, you poor thing. I see that your tortured tenure continues in the Dominican Republic. I thought for sure you would be back in England by now.

No offense is meant personally by this post. I don't know all the facts regarding this particular situation so I can't possibly pass any sort of judgement about it. I have been a landlord for close to 30 years so I am mostly posting from experience.

This is one reason I plan on doing just vacation rentals. That way I don't have to deal with anyone on a long term basis and be put in a situation of getting my investment tied up for undetermined period of time due to these so called "Tenants Rights".

No lease other than a month to month tenancy and you feel that the landlord cant raise the rent? If you didn't desire a lease and chose to be flexible and to be able to give 30 days notice if you found another place, why would you expect to have the same rent forever? Where I come from that is the purpose of a lease besides spelling out constraints of tenancy.

Is your rent is in Pesos? If it is don't you think that you are screwing the landlord since it is probably worth about half of what it was worth when you first moved in...

Landlords have a bad rap and I have seen some shit assed landlords in my time (landlords that count deposits as income amoung other wrongs) but TENANTS really suck!!

Scott