Yes, I have a lawyer but I wanna hear from others with first hand experience.
There are always threats of being sued. Sued if you have an affair with a married person leading to a divorce, sued if your write a negative review of a business defaming it etc etc but are these really true?
I was once fired by my employer prior to Corona on a clear cut case but even then lawyer did not sue my former employer to protect my job. He just reached a severence deal and pressured me to accept it. I later realized it was not in my best interests as although I did get the severence, had I not been lucky enough to find a new job in a short amount of time, the money would have ran out after 3 months. Then there is case of someone who posted here whose wife cheated on him. Again instead of suing the adulterous wife and her partner, this poor guy had a settlement crafted by his lawyer that ended up him giving away the house he made to the wife and her partner and having to pay child allowance for the next 18 years or so. This was all done without going to court.
Now my case. Some of you may be biased but please judge me fairly. As a landlord I am trapped in a sublease agreement where a real estate agent is the lessee and an individual is the sub-leasee.
First, costs have gone through the roof, for example appliances, repair charges, taxes, insurance etc but the tenant is refusing a rent increase. This is when I lowered the rent during Corona when she requested it.
On top of that, I made a previous post 2 years ago when the agent was pressuring me to accept a million yen quote of changing a boiler when the boiler was still working but the timer function was not working automatically and had to be stopped manually. I finally changed it for half the price but then tenant said she wanted compensation for mental distress and water damages. She gave 2 bills , one year apart to show the difference in consumption during the same month. Difference was only like 1500 yen but one bill had a billing period of 31 days and the other 28 days which always will create a difference in amount. The agent pressured me to pay saying there was no way to avoid paying but after I consulted a lawyer and refused, she backed off.
Then now, the tenant is asking me for repairs of such minor stuff I know that it’s not my responsibility to repair. I have pictures of rubber/cushion lining that is coming out of the kitchen shelves she sent and said that it needs to be repaired. Then she says the LED light cover is cracked and needs to changed. The door to the sink area is not closing properly which I have agreed to repair. The frame of another internal door is coming out a little in just one spot but I think again that does not affect the livability of the mansion and should be repaired as restoration costs.
Finally the tenant requested me to replace the door handle of main door as it was getting hard to turn which I refused as it was still usable and I even have an email from my contractor who said it was still usable and replacement was not mandatory. The tenant went psycho over this and because of this single item, refused a rent increase (after I lowered it for her in 2021)
Now to the legal part. For rent increase, my lawyer is sending petitions to the agent instead of the tenant. The agent turns up and does not sit at negotiation table saying the tenant is not agreeing to rent increase. I’m asking my lawyer to petition the tenant directly but he says my contractual relationship is with the agent and not with tenant. I asked him to sue the tenant but he says he cannot. This is what I don’t understand. How can I not sue someone who is causing me a loss irrespective of the fact that there is no contract between us? If so, someone who sleeps with a married person can never be sued too, right?
Will also appreciate any ideas of how to get out of the sublease. Lawyer says it’s difficult to break the contract. But with people suing for being made to wear healed shoes, can I not sue my agent for acting in bad faith? How about the three guys who sued the Japanese government for racial profiling? Did they face any real damages other than being stopped for a few minutes at a time? By the way, this agent’s company has very bad reviews from many Japanese people as well.
by marco1333