All Forum Posts by: Laura Yoerger

@Laura Yoerger To my knowledge, you cannot increase rent with an existing lease until that lease expires. You should send the 30 day notice prior to the lease expiration date and it will take effect upon the renewal date.

This may be State Specific but usually a lease cannot be changed unless both parties agree.

Thank-you, Steve! We are in Oregon which is a very tenant-friendly state.

If clause 11 doesn’t give an Oregonian landlord the right to raise the rent during the lease do you have any idea what clause 11 is for?

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So a mistake was made in our rental agreement concerning our solar lease fees. It was explicitely stated that the tenants would be responsible for taking over the solar lease payments. The property management company simply put that the tenants were responsible for the utilities.

When an attempt was made to get them to pay the solar lease fee they balked and spoke to a bunch of people couple of renter advocacy agencies in Washington County, Oregon (where our home is). They were told that since it was not put in the lease they were not legally responsible for paying the solar lease fee.

Clause 11 of their lease states: The Landlord may increase the Rent for the Property upon providing to the Tenant the greater of 30 days’ notice and any notice required by the Act.

My question is in the state of Oregon can clause 11 be used now (3 months into the lease) to raise their rent to include/the solar lease fee so as to force the tenants to pay this bill?

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Originally posted by @Mathew Wray:

@Laura Yoerger

Morning Laura!

The picture you tried to attach (I'm assuming of the lease) didn't come through so I can't see what clause 11 is. Likely, even if I could see it, I would recommend checking with an attorney. I'll certainly have opinions about it but my opinions aren't those of an attorney. If you need a good one, PM me and I'll connect you with a couple who can give specific advise about your specific case vs. general guidance.

I think any tenant can fight just about anything in court here! There are attorneys that target landlords for lease violations, so it's totally possible that they could go to court and make a case for retaliation or retribution. Again, I'm just talking in general here and at this point would really advise you getting an attorney's advice.

@Matthew

Good morning Matthew,

First, how do you get your @Laura Yoerger to be hyperlinked and able to send me a notification that you mentioned me?🤔

Clause 11 reads: The Landlord may increase the Rent for the Property upon providing to the Tenant the greater of 30 days’ notice and any notice required by the Act.

I would appreciate your lawyer friends contact info but being new here I don’t know how to PM.🥴

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Originally posted by @Mathew Wray:

$130/month times two units times 12 months is $3,120 a year. That’s not chump change and I understand why you’d like to defray the costs associated with it. But, it sounds like it wasn’t clear in the lease up front.

Could you go to a lawyer, have them research, and potentially go to court to solve the problem...I’d say yes, but at what cost and headache to you? With our tenant friendly state, do you want to risk losing in court and being out fees on top of the income? Is that Wirth your time?

What about your tenants? If a landlord would’ve taken me to court I would’ve left post-haste so now you factor in an early or contested (you know any charge you make them while moving out is going to be challenged as retribution) vacancy and how much does that cost you?

Although it stings, I’d shelve the request and wait until the leases are up, then clearly define who’s responsible for the payments. In the meantime, just chalk it up to a learning experience.

Mathew

@Mathew Wray

Does clause 11 give us the right to raise the tenant’s rent before the current lease is up, to cover the solar lease fees?

Could tenants fight a rent increase in Oregan courts as retribution or retaliation against them for not paying the solar lease fees?

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Good to know!

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Originally posted by @Mathew Wray:

Steve brought up some great points, and helps to know that it was for sale. Was the house tenant occupied when for sale? An occupied SFR is a tough scenario for selling!

Without knowing goals and strategies it’s hard to say, but sounds like sticking out the lease and then selling is a good course of action. Of course, as a rental now you’ll have capital gains to deal with.

Either way, a lot of this likely could’ve been prevented with good Property Manager up front. Shoot me a PM if you want a couple referrals to PMs for you to talk with if you’re considering a change.

Best of luck!

Mathew

@Matthew Wray

No the home was not tenant occupied. It was owner occupied. The plan was to sell it, after living in it for over a decade, and move to the coast. But the home was not selling so renting it instead made sense so that the plans to move to the coast could go forward.

Having a continual flow of income from the home for years to come also made sense and was appealing. The income will come in handy now that the children are grown, gone, and retirement is finally here.

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Originally posted by @Steve Milford:

@Laura Yoerger

Ultimately the owner of the property is responsible for the solar panel lease. If it is not spelled out in the lease, it is not their responsibility. The lease is not a utility, it is for the cost of equipment, as an appliance. Would you consider a leased washer and dryer a utility?

@Steve Milford

Good point, Steve!

I guess it was just being looked at as part of the electric bill since the panels are supposed to lower their PGE bill.

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Originally posted by @Steve Milford:

@Laura Yoerger

If the solar panels are leased, it creates a lien on title as a financed item.

Talk to a lawyer, but I don't think you can pass it on. If it was me, I would just accept it as lessoned learned and look at firing this PM. I looked to hire a PM so I could be hands off last year. All quotes I received was for rent lower than I wanted and in fine print, they were just messenger anyways. I chose to go with cozy.co, charge the rent I wanted and use a maintenance co for repairs as they come up. For any lessons learned like you have, then I will just increase rent next time around.

@Steve Milford:

Thank-you for your input Steve!

I will be contacting a lawyer and CPA about this next week.

The house is renting for $2500 a month. Most people are saying that is already on the high end for the Cornelius area and it certainly more than adequately covers the mortgage, taxes, & insurance.

The tenants have already made it known that they won’t stay if the rent is raised. Except for this issue they are being good tenants. They pay the rent on time, take good care of the home, let it be made known immediately if there is something major wrong, and make little repairs themselves without complaining.

We just need to resolve this issue of who is legally responsible for the solar city bill.

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Originally posted by @Mathew Wray:

Although it stings, I’d shelve the request and wait until the leases are up, then clearly define who’s responsible for the payments. In the meantime, just chalk it up to a learning experience.

Mathew

Thank-you for your input Matthew. You make very good points.

To clarify, there is just this one single family home in question.

The home was for sale but not selling. A property management company suggested that the home be rented out instead of sold.

So this is definitely a learning experience.

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Originally posted by @Bill B.:

Their electric bill is over $130/mo and you want them to pay another $130/mo?

My electric bill with 3 pool pumps and an electric car was $58 last month. The highest it ever got in the middle of summer was $250. And this is Vegas. (2800sf SFR)

Sounds like solar city is screwing somebody or the house is full of holes.

Thank-you for your input Bill.

The house is about the same size as yours at 2900 sq.ft. The tenants are a family of 6 and the mom homeschools the 4 children. It sounds like they are home most of the time.

It is winter here in Oregon and the tenants have complained that the house is hard to keep warm.

They say they run the thermostat at 72°-74° degrees during the day and try to remember to turn it down to 68° at night or when gone.

They have also complained that they are not able to actually program the thermostat for energy effeciency because it has to have an app connected to wifi and an account with Solar City, which they don’t have.

Their January bill was actually $128.67. It was their water bill that they said was over $130 (They were warned that the city of Cornelius, where the house is, charged a base fee of $100 before they even compute water usuage).

Their kWH consumption seemed high but after googling average winter consumption in Oregon, theirs is only a little over the average and of course their family is also larger and at home more than the average family.

So not sure if something is amiss or not.

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All Forum Posts by: Laura Yoerger

Laura Yoerger has started 3 posts and replied 31 times.

Post: Raising Rent to Compensate for Solar Panel Fees

Post: Raising Rent to Compensate for Solar Panel Fees

Post: Deferring costs of Solar Panels

Post: Deferring costs of Solar Panels

Post: Deferring costs of Solar Panels

Post: Deferring costs of Solar Panels

Post: Deferring costs of Solar Panels

Post: Deferring costs of Solar Panels

Post: Deferring costs of Solar Panels

Post: Deferring costs of Solar Panels