If you've read the previous two posts about being a property owner and renting to tenants in Argentina, then you already know this journey has been a bumpy one. Unfortunately, it hasn’t gotten any easier.
About three weeks after the first-floor tenant moved in (yes, the same one I mentioned in earlier posts), the realty company sent me a WhatsApp message with a laundry list of complaints she had about the apartment.
Here’s what she reported:
-
A broken kitchen cabinet
-
A broken toilet seat
-
Peeling paint due to humidity
-
Mold stains in the bathroom (again, thanks humidity)
-
A back door that was hard to open
-
Low water pressure
Now, some of these things were simple and relatively affordable fixes. Others? Not so much. I had particular concerns about the toilet seat. We had literally bought a brand-new one. It was still wrapped when she moved in. All she had to do was install it herself — and trust me, it’s super easy.
Then there’s the issue of the water pressure. I told the realty company multiple times to let any potential tenants know the apartment has water pressure problems. Even with a pump in the tank, the pressure will never be great. This isn’t our first rodeo — we've dealt with similar complaints from previous tenants.
I assumed the realty company was passing this info along to the tenant. Spoiler alert: they weren’t. But more on that in a sec.
Enter the “Architect”
The realty company was super eager to address the tenant’s complaints and offered to send an “architect” to inspect the property.
This architect worked exclusively for the realty company and would only come if we paid him 50,000 Argentine pesos. That’s an absurd price for someone who was just going to look and not fix a damn thing. So, we said no. We told them we’d find our own plumber/handyman.
Still, supposedly at the tenant’s insistence, the realty company scheduled someone else to come out and inspect the unit — and invited us to be there for it.
And since the realty company has the shittiest work hours (Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.—if you're lucky), there was no one around to explain what the hell happened.
Ghosting, Excuses, and Rent Drama
On Monday, I messaged the realty company asking for answers. They gave me some generic bullshit about how they didn’t know what had happened and that they’d "look into it."
Spoiler alert: they never got back to me.
Meanwhile, it was time for the tenant to pay her second month of rent. According to the contract, rent is due by the 10th of each month. If she misses that deadline, she’s charged a 1% late fee per day, starting from the 1st, not the 11th.
I reached out to the realty company asking why the rent hadn’t hit our account. They told me she had paid, but their system was “processing it.”
Cutting Ties with the Realty Company
We were furious. My parents and I cut ties with the realty company. Of course, they claimed they were the ones who cut us off — apparently we had disrespected them and they just couldn’t tolerate such behavior.
Let me tell you: we were calm and professional the entire time. Were we annoyed? Absolutely. But disrespectful? Hell no. If we had been, trust me — we would have torn them a new one.
Dealing with the Tenant Directly
Now left on our own, we scheduled a meeting with the first-floor tenant to hear her out and brought a plumber/handyman to check out her so-called issues.
Meanwhile, she brought her lawyer.
She said she wanted to move out — which was perfectly fine by us — but she wouldn’t leave unless she got her money back.
At first, I thought she meant the 250,000 pesos for the first month’s rent. Turns out she also wanted back the nearly 1 million pesos in administrative fees she paid the realty company for the two-year contract.
We were open to refunding the 250,000, but there was no way we were paying back the 1 million — that wasn’t our fee.
So now the tenant and her lawyer are planning to sue the realty company, accusing them of fraud to try and recover that money. Until then, she gets to stay in our apartment rent free and without having to pay any of the utilities until this is resolved. How fucked up is that?!?!
What’s Next?
What will happen next? Honestly, no clue. But this whole experience has turned into a real fucking nightmare.
We’re hoping for a peaceful resolution — ideally, the tenant leaves without causing more problems for us. But in Argentina, the law almost always favors tenants, not landlords. So who knows how this will play out?
And trust me, this shitstorm isn’t over yet.
If you read the previous post, then you know we’ve also had issues with the second-floor tenant — especially getting her to sign the new two-year lease (which she eventually did). But two more problems have cropped up. One is an old one. The other? It’s connected to the first-floor tenant.
But I’ll save that mess for the next post.
No comments:
Post a Comment