Telling landlord we're expecting twins

[Anonymous]

I have a couple with a five year old living in my one bedroom condo. As long as the condo doesn’t object and they pay rent I don’t care. I gave them a baby gift when the baby was born and give all of my tenants small Christmas gifts.

Every month they don’t move is wonderful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a landlord and my lease (the gcaar one) says that 2 people may occupy the unit, plus any children they have on their own or adopted.

13:54 again -- This is also what our lease states. The number of tenants refers to adults.

[Anonymous]

sarah1513 wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a landlord and I rent/deal with my own landlord and I have twins.

NO! Don't tell and don't try to illicit pity. It is a huge financial cost but every landlord I have dealt with (mostly in Boston) have been horrible horrible money grubbing people. Having kids is a private matter.

Now, I do suggest you check for lead paint because lead poisoning sucks and it is harder to corral 2.

Thank you for the specific advice based on your experience. If we have the no lead paint confirmation in our lease do you feel like that covers that issue?

I had the town house we own professionally tested when the twins were babies. If you have an older apartment I would get some test strips for piece of mind. We are renting new construction in our new city.

I want to second an au pair btw but am also hesitant. It takes a very special person to care for twins because you are pulled in two different directions. I stayed home for almost two years working on my dissertation and publishing so I don't have a real gap in my resume. That said we probably saved 50k a year on childcare. I am sort of not exaggerating. We found an affordable Montessori placement for 3800K a month for both. It was 4k a month during the summer
That said it went up to 4500k a month for a high quality placement when we moved. If you can afford it then great. If not you will need to think about finances. Having twins really changed our lifestyle financially. A singleton would have been amazing financially.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

sarah1513 wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1) Don't tell him. Don't hide it, but there are too many unknowns. The chance that he'll think, "ooh! they have new expenses, I shouldn't raise their rent" approaches zero. It is more likely he'll think either, "kids are destructive," or "that's more than two people," and try to force you out somehow or make you sign a new lease with built-in rent increases.
2) Talk to someone at the rent board about the occupancy situation. There are a number of competing laws at play here, and it is difficult to evict in DC, but why give him the opportunity to try to get you out before you know how strong your footing is to fight it?

Likely nothing is going to happen and all will be well. Renting is always stressful for these kinds of reasons, but it is generally best to not rock the boat if there's a potential downside that's worse than doing nothing.

Thanks. I just mentioned in reply to someone else, but I have a message in at the tenant advocate office to ask about this.

I don't think he can make us sign a new lease if we're otherwise compliant and have transitioned to month to month? But maybe if there is a loophole with having children.

Since you are month to month, he can require you to sign a new lease at any time. You can choose not to by deciding to move out instead.

You’re not from around here, are you?

[Anonymous]

OP, no one here announcing that being month to month makes you more vulnerable knows anything about DC tenant law. Call the Office of the Tenant Advocate and get informed about your rights.

[Anonymous]

sarah1513 wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure what good would come of telling him explicitly. I definitely would not expect it to effect the rent in a favorable way, especially if he's not the warm and fuzzy type. Does occupancy law override something specifically address in the lease you signed?

+1. I would be sure that the DC tenancy laws do in fact apply given that they are specifically counter to the lease you signed.

Agreed. I have a call in to the office of the Tenant Advocate to double check.

Really, I'm thinking that the language in the lease is truly just the "fill in the blank template" that the management company uses for every lease and they plug in the number of tenants on the lease and move on.

Also, our lease also specifically says we had to get permission and pay a $300 deposit to get a pet and when we went to pay the deposit for our dog (after already having gotten permission) he was like "what? you don't need to pay me, I trust you."

We're planning to tell him because it seems really weird and like we're hiding something for him not to know. And I'm hoping maybe it will make him feel guilty about giving us a significant rent increase when I know that it's not really merited by the market etc.

Wow, I’m not sure you’re cut out for parenthood. It’s none of his business what’s going on in your uterus and there is no way he’s going to give you a pity break on the rent

[Anonymous]

sarah1513 wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is all a business transaction. Dont think you are something special and rare bc you're expecting twins.

Not saying we're special (although technically, it IS rare!) but given that we're dealing with huge financial costs for all of this, and that we're dealing with an individual landlord, not a corporate one, we're thinking of it as trying to make a human appeal and see what happens.

Jesus, twins are NOT rare. Unless their conjoined.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a twin mom sitting here laughing at OPs naïveté

We’re ALL laughing at OP

[Anonymous]

OMG OP! You're entirely overthinking this.....as a landlord I WANT you to have children (one or two...three is too much wear/tear, but I am not going to tell you this to your face). It will prevent you from moving for a couple of years or more cuz you will be overwhelmed and too tired to do anything, which is better for me!!!! Babies and toddlers are not really destructive, as I have two under two myself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

sarah1513 wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1) Don't tell him. Don't hide it, but there are too many unknowns. The chance that he'll think, "ooh! they have new expenses, I shouldn't raise their rent" approaches zero. It is more likely he'll think either, "kids are destructive," or "that's more than two people," and try to force you out somehow or make you sign a new lease with built-in rent increases.
2) Talk to someone at the rent board about the occupancy situation. There are a number of competing laws at play here, and it is difficult to evict in DC, but why give him the opportunity to try to get you out before you know how strong your footing is to fight it?

Likely nothing is going to happen and all will be well. Renting is always stressful for these kinds of reasons, but it is generally best to not rock the boat if there's a potential downside that's worse than doing nothing.

Thanks. I just mentioned in reply to someone else, but I have a message in at the tenant advocate office to ask about this.

I don't think he can make us sign a new lease if we're otherwise compliant and have transitioned to month to month? But maybe if there is a loophole with having children.

Since you are month to month, he can require you to sign a new lease at any time. You can choose not to by deciding to move out instead.

You’re not from around here, are you?

West Coast. Is it really that different? In CA the landlord just has to give 30 days notice and you either sign the new lease or move out. This is even if the lease has a provision for going month to month after the initial lease term. I didn't realize this was different. oops

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, no one here announcing that being month to month makes you more vulnerable knows anything about DC tenant law. Call the Office of the Tenant Advocate and get informed about your rights.

He has already raised her rent while she has been month to month. Are you saying that he can't raise her rent when she is month to month, because it sounds like he already has. Please explain what you are saying. Is he capped at how much the max is that he can raise her rent by the DC tenant law while she is month to month? And if so, what is that cap?

Please explain.

[Anonymous]

Op, good luck with your twins. You will see when you walk into kindergarten and there are plenty of multiples (including triplets) that twins aren’t so rare anymore. Enjoy them - it goes by quickly and questions like this will be a blip.

Twin mom of teens

[Anonymous]

Certainly don't talk about it now. June is a long time away, especially in the context of a twin pregnancy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a landlord on Capitol Hill and I would never raise a tenant's rent just because they had a baby and I expected more wear and tear. BUT, I was at one time a tenant who got dinged for what I considered absurd wear and tear offenses (I once lost $400 of a security deposit because the landlord said there were a couple of crumbs in a kitchen drawer - my naked eye did not detect them!) so perhaps I am more sympathetic and expect people to live in the house comfortably and sometimes that means scuffs on the floor.

All that said, my property taxes go up every year unfortunately and there comes a point when you're questioning how profitable it is to be a landlord. I've never raised the rent on a tenant but I've raised it between tenants to account for the increased property taxes. If I had a tenant who stayed a few years I'd probably be forced to raise the rent. Just posting this to consider the standpoint of the landlord - they often have increased expenses too so it is hard to take into account the financial circumstances of your tenants. Good luck to you and your husband as you welcome your new babies into the world!

+1

We don't increase our rent every year, but when we do, it's because we need to charge more to cover expenses--property taxes went up, for example. Usually, we increase the rent between tenants, but we have had to raise the rent on existing tenants. If I needed to increase the rent, the fact that you were having a baby or two or three would not have any impact on my decision. I wouldn't jack up the rent because of it, but I wouldn't hold off on increasing it if I needed to.