AUS makes it easy for criminals to launder money through real estate

in some cases.. "concealing illicit money flows as rental income, and investing illicit cash into property improvement activities,"

the AUS government fails to prevent this. "The state’s real estate laws have not been updated in the almost decade since that ruling."

use of real estate for money laundering continues to be a problem all over the world. speculation over worth makes it attractive to criminals and hard to detect. governments should not allow housing to be a collectible asset traded by criminals.

My landlord has a storage closet in the house and he told his friend to come in today while I was at work. The front door has a deadbolt so rather than using the side door he jumped in through my bedroom window and went and got whatever from the storage and left.

My landlord texted me to tell me he was very disappointed that this is the second time in a row that I was not allowing access for his random friends and family to come over and check on the place (last time I actually was at the doctor's office when apparently his mom couldn't get in without more than 1 hours notice).

He's sending over his mother in the morning which he messaged me at 9pm. I really want to just leave the deadbolt unlocked and just call the cops and tell them she's trespassing when she shows up.

Also the icing on the cake of all of this is apparently the thing that his friend was coming to get was a gun that he was storing with my landlord because he is a prohibited possessor, not allowed to have guns because he has domestic violence charges.

Update: The mom did end up coming over. She started saying she's in charge now and went back and forth about asking me to do maintenance on the outside of the property that I'm not responsible for and just talking bs I said that they can just evict me if they want and then started screaming up until I said "If there isn't anything else can you please go". That made her pretty irate and she said she was calling the cops.

She started tossing things around the kitchen and I went into my room locked it and called the cops. They showed up in about a minute and asked her to leave and she said that the whole reason that she had came there was for a piece of furniture or something. They took her over to a couch that was probably bigger than her car and she tried dragging it for about 3 feet then said she doesn't need it and left.

The landlord ended up messaging me afterwards telling me I was never a tenant here and he's going to get proof and then asked if I could be out in a few weeks.

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/14800185

anyone else getting docusign spam to their email after re-signing their lease? this has now happened to me twice in two separate occurances.

Autobans coming for participation in subs that promote brigading of landlords

I know there was some debate surrounding whether to allow dissenting views or not on the sub. As I mentioned before I'm of the idea that political views shape business views. Back in the 50's through to more modern times steering minorities was commonly done. Was race a political and social issue? Sure. Should landlords of the time have been paying attention to it? Absolutely. Were there landlords at the time who thought it shouldn't have been part of a business discussion? Again, I'm sure there were.

I look at today's political climate as just another trend in social issues affecting the business world, our business world. If there can be civil conversation about it, I think it should be encouraged. After all, the people with those political views may end up being our tenants, our neighbors, or the neighbors of property we own. Understanding what they're thinking, expecting, and more importantly what actions they may take can only help us as business people. While I am sure that none of us agree with rent strikes, and 5 years ago no one would have even thought of such a thing affecting them, today's political and social environment has made it a reality we need to deal with. There was an attempt made to start a new sub over at /r/land_lord for only "non-communist" ideologies to post. That sub lasted a couple days before it was brigaded to death and the creator deleted their account. We've survived many attempts at brigading. I've taken the harassing message for me to die, to be taken for a walk to the guillotine, and the overall harassment directly sent simply because I am a mod of this sub. C'est la vie. Decades as a landlord has given me think skin.

The sub being private has worked out to quell the brigading that has been going on. We've got just about 600 users who requested and were permitted as approved users of the sub. While I am against autobanning people for having alternative views, there is a bot that can autoban users who post in controversial subs, then we can whitelist later if the user isn't here to harass and requests access. We're starting off by autobanning those who post or comment in the 3 main Chapo subs and LateStageCapitalism. If more need to be added, we'll get them added.

To assist with the potential for new users brigading we're going to re-implement account aging and minimum karma requirements for posting/commenting. This will increase the number of posts and comments which get removed, but it will help keep the brigading down. The bad part is that anyone who creates a throwaway account to try and post will have that post/comment auto-removed and it will need to be manually approved.

With the upcoming re-opening of the sub publicly to see if these new features help, I would ask that everyone remain vigilant and report any comments or posts which don't belong. We're a community and self-policing the content is important. Reporting things brings them up in a list that can easily be read and removed. Some trolls have multiple accounts which they age and gain karma solely to use in subs that have conditions like this. If opening the sub up floods us with brigading again, we'll go back private.

I've been getting a lot of messages from tenants that want access to the sub because they are searching Google for information and our sub is being linked to the answer. Much like I think it's good for landlords to learn the differing views that might affect them, I think tenants seeking out the view of landlords in these times only helps us all.

Thanks for being a member of the community, thanks for helping, and most of all, thanks for making this a great place to share ideas, resources, frustrations and successes.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.perthchat.org/post/225550

> Since the left is dead in the west, we can't beat them on the streets. But we can, at least, liable and slander their properties on semi anonymous sites!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/387793

> And the worst part is that, with so many companies shifting to work-from-home. it will create a culture (especially for early-career workers) that's less "work from home" and more "live at work." You'll be on call 24-hours a day, reachable at all times. And, for early-career workers getting out of college, it won't even seem like a strange transition from college dorms and fraternity/sorority houses to company housing. > > Not only will this lead to a culture where just living on your own at all is a major achievement, it will create a culture where workers don't own much of their own, because they have little storage space. It also means that leaving or job or (god forbid) getting fired or laid off will also render you homeless almost immediately. > > Maybe I should shh up before I start giving these companies ideas.

florida eviction

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/207220

> Does this really even need an explanation? The sound from loud speakers, especially ones with a lot of bass, travel through walls like crazy. This is disturbing to people who share a wall/ceiling/floor with you. It’s rude, inconsiderate, and selfish to play music or movies or whatever loud enough for your neighbors to hear. I shouldn’t be able to hear your music when I’m in my apartment, and you shouldn’t be able to hear mine. I say we ban them from use. The world would be a better place. Just put some fucking headphones on or listen to it on your phone speakers if you share a wall with someone. > > Have looked and can't find any apartments with this restriction in adulthood

Richardson-based RealPage Is Facing a DOJ Investigation Into Its Rent Pricing Software The real estate software company RealPage has been accused of using its rent pricing software to help landlords inflate market rents. Now it faces 11 lawsuits and an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice.

YieldStar uses data analytics to suggest appropriate pricing based on apartment availability. But property managers can let units sit vacant and off the market, which the algorithm interprets as a supply crunch that warrants higher prices. The program allows landlords to see anonymized, aggregated data showing competitor pricing. Many property managers that use the software control thousands of apartment units in individual markets, and the ProPublica story alleges that RealPage executives and developers were aware of the impact YieldStar had on pricing.

“We are concerned that the use of this rate setting software essentially amounts to a cartel to artificially inflate rental rates in multifamily residential buildings,” said the letter, which was also signed by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Illinois) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-New Jersey).

Citing an unnamed source, ProPublica said the matter has also renewed questions regarding the merger between RealPage and its largest competitor, Rainmaker Group, in 2017. That source said that some DOJ staff flagged the merger for further scrutiny then but were overruled by Trump appointees who chose not to challenge the merger in court.

Measure H ties rent hikes to a fraction of inflation and creates an independent board

The rent control measure is a first for Pasadena, an expensive city that in recent years has often been at the forefront of the region’s wider tensions over housing affordability and an even broader clash between state and local control over development decisions. Earlier this year, Mayor Victor Gordo was involved in a protracted dispute with the California attorney general related to the city’s response to the state housing law SB 9; after months of legal threats and tense discourse, the state authority ultimately recognized the city’s right to declare certain exemptions to the controversial law.

The measure, which takes the form of a new city charter amendment, is likely to apply in full to about 25,000 apartment units in the city, representing a major disruption to its rental landscape.

The measure creates a new independent rental board to oversee the program and a registry to keep track of rent-controlled apartments. For qualifying properties, it will restrict annual rent increases to three quarters of the inflation rate and implement just cause eviction protections and relocation assistance mandates.

The legislative effort was financially backed by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and labor groups and also championed by a wide umbrella of housing and progressive groups, including the ACLU, L.A. County Democratic Party, Abundant Housing LA and the Pasadena Tenants Union.

Advocates are calling on President Joe Biden to sign an executive order that would tie yearly rent increases to inflation. This comes after the Federal Reserve further increased interest rates last week.

Brooks-Davis and Gadley joined hundreds of other tenant rights advocates in Washington, D.C. this week to urge President Biden to sign their draft executive order that would force landlords, particularly corporations and private equity firms, to hold the line on rent increases. The proposal would cap annual rent increases at 3% or 1.5 times the rate of inflation, whichever is lower, and also apply the rule to government-backed mortgages.

“We’re challenging them on every level,” Gadley said.

The White House met with members from the Homes Guarantee Campaign Monday on tenant protections and rental affordability issues.

“Renters deserve access to safe and affordable homes that allow them to remain stable,” Bush said. “It’s not enough just to have housing. You need to have stable housing. You need to not worry about tomorrow.”

My theory is they hire some guy to swear at you and give you eviction notices every time you try to force them to fix something to discourage you from trying to get anything fixed.

Ive had 10ish landlords and 10/10 would yell and swear at tenants.

Consistently I'm the only tenant putting up a fight.

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/363145

> Let's have fun laughing at all the arguments landlords use to justify their parasitical existence. Timestamps below. Sources in the pinned comment as always.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/376864

> I'll still take one. My place is smaller than a shipping container any who.

From the John Oliver video here

In the west I get that we simp for landlords, but I've never even heard of like a Cuban anti landlord movement or ussr or whatnot.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/283491

> Housing is a human right.

Lots of conservatives tell me that having a landlord alleviates me of responsibilities bc landlord has to fix my unit.

Now that I know more about construction, if I did as bad of a job as them at repairs, I'd be fired. On top of refusing to do many repairs forcing me to do my own repairs. Even though I pay them, multiple landlords are belligerent (swearing at me, threats), which i'd 10000% be fired for at my jobs. Not to mention half of them don't give notice before coming into my room for 'repairs' (not even something to repair, just an excuse)