Visitor/guest charge not mentioned in rental agreement

[ajithisaac]

Hi!
Just wanted to see what the consensus was on paying additional rental for short-term(<1week) guests. I live in a shophouse in the west coast area and my brother will be visiting me for just under a week. I've rented out the master bedroom of the shophouse directly from the landlord, who does not live with us. I informed the LL that my brother will be visiting in order to pay for any additional PUB charges that may be incurred and also cos my other housemates insisted that I inform my LL. Now the LL wants me to pay extra 100sgd for the week. This was not mentioned in the rental agreement. It isn't a lot of money but as a matter of principle, this seems wrong. What are my rights here? Glad to hear out your opinions. Thanks in advance!

[ecureilx]

Hi!
Just wanted to see what the consensus was on paying additional rental for short-term(<1week) guests. I live in a shophouse in the west coast area and my brother will be visiting me for just under a week. I've rented out the master bedroom of the shophouse directly from the landlord, who does not live with us. I informed the LL that my brother will be visiting in order to pay for any additional PUB charges that may be incurred and also cos my other housemates insisted that I inform my LL. Now the LL wants me to pay extra 100sgd for the week. This was not mentioned in the rental agreement. It isn't a lot of money but as a matter of principle, this seems wrong. What are my rights here? Glad to hear out your opinions. Thanks in advance!

If the agreement didn't mention about visitors, I would say you are wrong in expecting the LL to be fair.

No comments

[ajithisaac]

Hi!
Just wanted to see what the consensus was on paying additional rental for short-term(<1week) guests. I live in a shophouse in the west coast area and my brother will be visiting me for just under a week. I've rented out the master bedroom of the shophouse directly from the landlord, who does not live with us. I informed the LL that my brother will be visiting in order to pay for any additional PUB charges that may be incurred and also cos my other housemates insisted that I inform my LL. Now the LL wants me to pay extra 100sgd for the week. This was not mentioned in the rental agreement. It isn't a lot of money but as a matter of principle, this seems wrong. What are my rights here? Glad to hear out your opinions. Thanks in advance!

If the agreement didn't mention about visitors, I would say you are wrong in expecting the LL to be fair.

No comments

Thank you for your note, ecurelix. Do you mean to say that only if it's mentioned in the rental agreement that I'm allowed guests without charge, that I can expect the LL to not charge me extra? In my case, the amount of additional charge is at the discretion of the LL?

[ajithisaac]

There was absolutely no clause stating anything about having visitors over or any additional charges that may be incurred as a result of that.

[Strong Eagle]

Your landlord is being an asshole. The question is, what are you going to do about it?

[earthfriendly]

There was absolutely no clause stating anything about having visitors over or any additional charges that may be incurred as a result of that.

And was there a clause stating that you can have guest staying for a week? A few days, I don't see an issue. A week seems pretty extended, don't you think? And also, if you feel uncomfortable with how your landlord is handling this situation and the $100 seems unfair. There are other options. Hostels and guesthouses?

Since there is no clause for this, it leaves wiggle room. Not just you but for the landlord too !

And as for your housemate, how does he feel about having to share the living space with your guest for a week? Is he ok with the arrangement?

[JR8]

Perhaps it depends on who else lives there, and who else contributes to the bills [which you don't say]?
It is my opinion [my 2C] that having occasional guests to stay is normal. Facing additional bills would IMO be abnormal, intolerant, unreasonable, ... an unfair opportunity to gouge additional profit?
If the LL really wants to be a prat over a few dollars of bills for an occasional guest then I'd have thought any such levy should be based upon the actual or estimated likely surplus utility bills incurred. $100 for a guest for one week sounds like a nonsense to me.

Do any other tenants have occasional guests, and if so what do they do?
p.s. I don't think the TA has to specifically allow for you to have guests, having guests is what normal people do. I think the TA would have to specifically ban you from having guests, or stipulate the 'charges' for doing so, and for you to have signed up to those when you agreed to take the place.

Sounds like yet another '''clever''' short-term plan by a local LL to try and make a few more $. That can lead to a reliable tenant giving up and quitting leaving the LL with a void and a loss. Some SGn LLs never cease to amaze me with their dumb blind greed that causes *them* to lose money.

[earthfriendly]

Do any other tenants have occasional guests, and if so what do they do?
p.s. I don't think the TA has to specifically allow for you to have guests, having guests is what normal people do.

Hear, hear. It is normal and never a problem having house guests. In the house that you own. I am not too sure when it involves a place that is rented. Afterall, it is the landlord's property. A landlord rents out to a tenant that he has met beforehand and is comfortable with. He has not met OP's guest. But I am making this too technical. At the end of the day, it is a private arrangement between two parties. And I have no preview on how the relationship is between the two of them.

I would not consider it an issue when we were renting the entire apartment. But it was a commercial rental complex that was professionally managed. There was no private landlord involved. That was what I liked about our rented apartment. No need to deal with the personal whims and fancies of private landlords.

[x9200]

Hi!
Just wanted to see what the consensus was on paying additional rental for short-term(<1week) guests. I live in a shophouse in the west coast area and my brother will be visiting me for just under a week. I've rented out the master bedroom of the shophouse directly from the landlord, who does not live with us. I informed the LL that my brother will be visiting in order to pay for any additional PUB charges that may be incurred and also cos my other housemates insisted that I inform my LL. Now the LL wants me to pay extra 100sgd for the week. This was not mentioned in the rental agreement. It isn't a lot of money but as a matter of principle, this seems wrong. What are my rights here? Glad to hear out your opinions. Thanks in advance!

If your tenancy agreement (TA) says nothing about having guests, then it is perfectly acceptable to have guests for a week or few days - this is what people do as a part of living, If you not abuse it by having them very frequently, I see no problem here. Your main concern should be IMHO not the LL but your co-tenants. The stay of your visitors should not affect any significantly their right to use the property - imagine (just an example) you have 2 visitors occupying the toilets in the morning just before everybody leaves for work, or the kitchen during the dinner time.

How the bills' payments are organized? Does LL pay anything for utilities etc?

I might consider paying these $S100 to the LL If your relations with the housemates are not very friendly (what appears to be the case by their request to inform the LL). This would shift to the LL the responsibility for some potential, minor cohabitation problems, like these I mentioned above.

[Strong Eagle]

Hear, hear. It is normal and never a problem having house guests. In the house that you own. I am not too sure when it involves a place that is rented. Afterall, it is the landlord's property.

I rented a house for 8 years. I never once informed the LL about any guests staying over.

If the OP's guest is staying in his own room, and nobody else cares, I would never say a word to the LL.

But, now that he has informed the LL, he is screwed, because he is going to have nothing but trouble if he refuses to pay.

[x9200]

Unless one agreed to inform the LL about the visitors, this is not the LL's business to know who visits, when and how long the visitor stays. Of course within the limit provided by the law.

This obsession of the LL's (or actually the agents) to know about the visitors is explained by the fear of illegal harbouring what may be a case sometimes, but in majority of other cases is just an excuse for the LL to control the tenants and often milk them like in this case.

[earthfriendly]

Oh yeah, that is right. The privacy issue. Super annoying if we have to act like kids getting big brother's permission. I mean we are adults. If I were a (reasonable) landlord and already renting to a good tenant that I trust, it is not gonna be an issue. I was thinking about young folks (or even adults) not using good judgment. I don't have the answers nor opinion on how to proceed. Two party tenants renting from a private landlord that is now demanding $100. What is the $100 about? Maybe ask LL nicely? A flat fee of $100 per incident or calculated based on per night or whatever.

[PNGMK]

OP hasn't explained how the bills work but it sounds to me as though he may be in a place that operates like a hostel (you pay for your room and the LL pays the common bills). If that is the case then he is screwed and I agree the LL is right to recover costs plus a markup. If it's a share house with a lead tenant (or all tenants) on the TA then it's up to the co-tenants to decide. Why he told the LL I have no idea unless it was the first (more like a hostel)

[ajithisaac]

Thank you for taking time to comment here.

@Strong Eagle Not sure what I'm gonna do. Probably try to reason with the LL?

@earthfriendly I see what you mean about the wiggle room. My housemates (couple) were the first ones I asked if they were ok, they didn't seem to have a problem. They just asked me to inform the LL. The thing is there just one common space in the house which is the kitchen-cum-dining area which I've never used, except for the water heater to make coffee. I don't eat at home, even if I do, I eat in my room, cos it gets really warm in the dining area. I just use my master room which has a attached toilet, so no question of fighting for resources such as toilet time.

@JR8 The PUB charge is factored into the house rent already. The current arrangement is that the LL would pay up to 150 sgd for the PUB charges and any additional charges above 150 would be split by the 3 occupants. I offered to split this extra monthly charge by four to account for any extra water or electricity utilised by my guest, although the guess will be here for less that 1/4 of the month.

@ x9200 my relations with the housemates is quite cordial. I understand that it would be wrong to trouble my housemates with additional competing for resources. We hardly see each other cos I don't use the common living space. The living room has been walled up by the LL to store her stuff which we don't have access to. See above for bills.

I hope I can reason with my LL that this is unfair. I even paid for the fibre termination point from my pocket cos the LL refused to install internet and none of the internet service providers had cable internet in my area. I already felt this was unfair but I did it cos I was desperate to get internet

[x9200]

Why your housemates insisted to inform the LL? Makes completely no sense to me. If you still want to negotiate with the LL instead of just going ahead and ignoring her baseless request, ask what is this money for? Ask, if she is aware that if this is like (de facto) renting part of the premises to your brother, what would actually be illegal and whether she is absolutely sure she wants to do the illegal thing.