From Struggling Senior to Unexpected Entrepreneur: The Remarkable Journey of Saving My Beloved Home

2023-09-04 15:50:03

I'm a disabled senior and I've been forced to sell dishes to stay in my home of 30 years after my landlord's legal move

A disabled senior was so worried she’d end up “living under a bridge” that she sold her own dishes to pay her trebled rent. But experts told Teresa Shepherd her landlord was legally entitled to demand more money, despite her living on a fixed income.

Her dire situation was aired by WXIA-TV, which revealed that it had been hearing from a "lot of renters who say they're having to pay more to stay in their same apartment or house as some people's rent is going up by 30 or 40 per cent."

The broadcaster explained that Shepherd and her husband are both disabled senior citizens having to cope on a limited fixed income, who "started selling their dishes to afford a new place to live."

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They suddenly faced financial difficulties after spending 30 years in their beloved rental home in Cartersville, north Georgia, where they had been paying an affordable £575 per month in rent.

But Shepherd said they had to start selling off household items after her landlord just gave them a few days' notice that their home was being sold to a new landlord - who wanted to charge £1,600 a month.

When asked about the sudden tripling of her rent, she replied: "My husband and I make £2,057 a month - and it's not a lot of money anyway.

"I'm like, if I do that (pay more rent), then am I either not going to live with power, or not have water and gas? Or if I have both of those then I can't eat. You know, what do we do?"

Shepherd said that she had even started flogging off their dishes to help raise cash towards a new place to live.

She also asked whether it was legal to suddenly hike the rent to such an extent.

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EXPERTS COMMENT

The broadcaster approached both attorney J Thomas Salata, the former president of the North Fulton Bar Association, and community association attorney George Nowack for advice.

Both men specialize in real estate matters, and confirmed that landlords can legally triple rents or even sell the home you're living in.

The attorneys said that at the end of a lease, a landlord can demand any rate for a new one, and owners have the right to sell a home, even if it's occupied.

Salata added: "It's what the market is demanding and getting."

Nowack said: "Rent for single family houses have gone through the roof, they're off the charts.

"It's the free market system that's always been there when it comes to landlords and tenants, and the sale of the rental property - that ability has always been there.

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"And it's not something that a legislature would ever begin to attempt to tackle, because you're affecting the free market system."

Both attorneys strongly recommended requesting a written copy of your lease, and negotiating a new lease before your old one ends, so you don't have to scramble when that term is up.

The U.S. Sun was unable to contact the previous or current landlord for comment.

"LIFE IS CRUEL"

When the news clip was shared on YouTube last year, viewers mostly sympathized with the stricken couple.

One person wrote: "I will pray for these people. Life seems cruel sometimes…"

Another said: "That’s dirty. Since the tenant has been renting that house for so long, you would think the landlord would at least give them three months' notice that the rent was going to go up or that they were even selling the property to give them a chance to find somewhere else to move."

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Negative comments about the couple's difficult situation prompted one person to defend the Shepherds by writing: "For all the people in the comments saying they should have bought instead of rented, can we just stop judging these people for a minute?

"We don't know what their circumstances were, and you need a lot of capital to buy a home.

"Maybe they were ill, disabled, had sick children, had an accident or sudden job loss… all of this could have prevented them from being able to scrape together a down payment, closing costs, inspection fees, moving fees, lawyer fees.

"Lots of people never have £2,000 in the bank at a time let alone £20,000 or £50,000 to buy a home. Maybe stop judging them and start judging a system that created an unaffordable housing market to begin with."

Another viewer joked: "Everybody pays off a house in their life time, it’s just a matter if it’s yours or somebody else’s."

"DREAM HOME UNAFFORDABLE"

The Guardian newspaper recently warned that, "with US housing costs soaring due to increased demand and limited stock, the dream of home ownership or an affordable rental is becoming unreachable for many.

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"Rising housing costs have been devastating for many renters.

"A record number of people are now 'cost-burdened' by rent prices, meaning the cost of housing sucks up more than 30 percent of their income."

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