Sean's Real Estate Service, LLC v. Glenn

17 Pa. D. & C.5th 501
CourtPennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Alleghany County
DecidedOctober 6, 2010
Docketno. LT10-401
StatusPublished

This text of 17 Pa. D. & C.5th 501 (Sean's Real Estate Service, LLC v. Glenn) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Alleghany County primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Sean's Real Estate Service, LLC v. Glenn, 17 Pa. D. & C.5th 501 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2010).

Opinion

FRIEDMAN, J,

— This decision is filed pursuant to Pa. R.C.P. 1038. See also Pa. R.C.P. 227.1(c)(2).

The captioned dispute was tried before the undersigned sitting without a jury. Plaintiff, a residential landlord, seeks to evict defendants from a single-family dwelling [503]*503they rented from it. Plaintiff bases its claims on a written document purporting to be a one-year lease between the parties. The grounds for eviction are said to be the violation of several terms of that lease. Defendants admit withholding some rent, but say they were justified, given plaintiff’s failures to honor its obligations to them in a timely fashion. Defendants also contend that the written lease is unenforceable by plaintiff because it is a contract of adhesion replete with unconscionable terms.

Defendants have been paying the monthly rent into court pending the outcome of this trial, and, in their counterclaim, demand that a portion of that escrow fund be returned to them. Defendants also contest the eviction, saying they have not materially breached any of the enforceable provisions of the lease and are entitled to reside in the house until the lease expires, at the end of this year.

After consideration of all the evidence, we conclude that defendants are entitled to possession and plaintiff is not. We also conclude that defendants are entitled to retain the unpaid rent that is not part of the rents escrowed, as compensation for the deficiencies, many of which remain uncorrected. However, we conclude, in the circumstances, that plaintiff should be given the rent that has been held in escrow by the Department of Court Records, Civil Division.

A threshold legal issue was whether the written lease itself is an unconscionable contract of adhesion which is not deserving of strict enforcement by this court. Another important legal issue that the court noticed during its review of the evidence is whether the written lease is [504]*504unenforceable because it lacks consideration. Our findings of fact, listed below, set forth the scenario we find credible. We have tried to group the findings according'to the areas of dispute. They are not listed in any particular order of importance. Based on those facts we conclude that there was no additional consideration furnished by plaintiff at the time the written lease was executed and that the tenancy began based on oral agreements only. The oral agreements were made first in November of2009 and then in December and very early January, no later than January 3, 2010, the date defendants took possession. We also conclude that, even if the written lease is regarded as the operable contract between the parties, it is unconscionable and unenforceable in the circumstances, under the well-settled law of Pennsylvania.

FINDINGS OF FACT

AGREEMENTS OF THE PARTIES AND GENERAL BACKGROUND

1. Plaintiff and defendants first began discussions of a rental in November 2009.

2. Plaintiff told defendants that a suitable house would become available and ready for occupancy by December 15,2009. (We expressly reject plaintiff’s evidence that the occupancy date was to have been much later, in the Spring of 2010.)

3. As a result of this representation, defendants gave plaintiff $1,500 to secure the premises for them; at this time (November 2009) no lease was entered into and no copy of plaintiff’s form lease was given to defendants.

4.The expected house was not ready as promised on [505]*505December 15, and plaintiff offered defendants a different house, the one now at issue.

5. Since defendants had already given notice to their then-landlord that they would be vacating as of the end of December, they agreed to accept the house at issue, subject to conditions to which plaintiff had agreed, as they had no other place to live.

6. Plaintiff was also required by law to obtain an occupancy permit, which would only be issued if many of those same conditions were met.

7. Defendant Trotman is handicapped from a stroke and has little use of her right arm and needs a walker to help her ambulate; defendant Glenn, her daughter, has three school-age children, so their housing requirements are not easily met, especially given the rent they are able to pay.

8. The alternate house, the subject premises, was not brought into compliance by January, although an occupancy permit was eventually issued a few months after defendants and the children moved in.

9. The written lease was not given to defendants for review or signature until January 6,2010, three days after they had moved into the premises on Sunday, January 3, 2010, based on the oral agreements made before then.

10. Both defendants signed the lease, based on a rapid oral summary of each page which Heather Wise, an agent of plaintiff, went over with them.

11. The court believes that Ms. Wise, in her haste to limit the harm to defendants caused by plaintiff’s failure [506]*506to meet the December 15 readiness date for the original house, had forgotten to follow the normal administrative practices for formalizing a lease agreement.

12. Although we are unable to say that she intentionally deceived defendants regarding the terms of the lease, she did mislead them at least inadvertently.

13. Ms. Wise knew at the time of the signing of plaintiff’s Exhibit 1 (on January 6, 2010) that Ms. Glenn was extremely tired, having just gotten home from working a nighttime assignment.

14. Ms. Glenn had asked if she could come in the next day to sign, but Ms. Wise refused to accommodate her, apparently in the erroneous belief that one day more would make a difference legally.

15. Ms. Wise did not give defendants a fair opportunity to review the lease and did not offer them the ability to consult an attorney about its terms.

16. Ms. Wise marked an “X” in the box on the lease at paragraph 81 (regarding having an attorney review the lease) either after defendants signed it or without bringing it to their attention at the time.

17. If read strictly, the terms of the written lease applicable to the Tenant’s obligations are among the harshest and most detailed that this member of the court has ever seen, while the obligations of the landlord are almost non-existent.

18. The written lease has an attachment titled “Rules and Regulations” which goes so far as to say how long a tenant may leave unwashed dishes in the kitchen sink (no [507]*507more than one hour).

19. One of the supposedly material violations with which defendants are charged is leaving their dishes in the sink for a longer period, allegedly overnight, on September 16-17,2010, an allegation we find unsupported by the credible evidence, even if we assume for purposes of argument that such conduct can be a material violation of the lease.

20. Plaintiff did not repair the many items needed to fulfill its promises to defendants.

21. Plaintiff did not deliver to defendants a house that met the borough’s requirements for occupancy at the time plaintiff gave defendants possession of the premises.

22. Although most of the repairs promised prior to the January move-in were cosmetic in nature, they were important to defendants.

23.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Commonwealth v. Monumental Properties, Inc.
329 A.2d 812 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1974)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
17 Pa. D. & C.5th 501, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/seans-real-estate-service-llc-v-glenn-pactcomplallegh-2010.