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A Ukrainian Househunting Story

We've been living in our current apartment since December of '08.  It's a two-bedroom, around 880 sq. ft., in only so-so condition.  The kitchen is cramped and in some ways crumbling, the bathroom is dark and dated, the windows are old and extremely drafty, and the old hardwood floors squeak incessantly when we walk, often waking up the kids during crucial naps or nighttime slumber.  For the above reasons, and perhaps most of all because we want a somewhat bigger place (three-bedroom) to accomodate our family in the future, we started looking for a new place to live back in early October.

Having said all of the above, let me just say that there are things about our current place that we absolutely love.  These are very important: 1) We love the location. 2) We love the landlords.  If we could just snap our fingers and make this apartment instantly bigger and nicer, we would gladly just pay more (within budgetary reason) and stay in the current location with the current owners.  

For the past four months, in our spare time, we've been in an on-again, off-again (but mostly on) search for a better place.  We've seen a number of places that just weren't right, a handful that got us thinking, and a couple that we were really interested in.  In the process we've interacted with more real estate agents than I could easily attempt to count, and have learned a lot about the rental housing market and business processes here.

A month or so ago, in the course of my normal scouring of local classified ads online, I noticed a listing for a rental that sounded like it might fit our criteria in terms of location and size.  I called the number and it turns out that the agent advertising it is a guy I had spent the evening with the very first day we started looking for apartments.  He had shown me a few that evening, but they weren't good fits and I hadn't heard anything from him since.  He remembered me and told me that the apartment was still finishing some remodeling, and that it would be available to view in a week or so.  Although he said he'd call me in a week, I wasn't surprised when he didn't (this is pretty usual), so I called him about ten days later.  This time he said that he had talked to the owner and she didn't want a dog.  End of story.

Until about a week after that, when at 10:00 at night he called me up.  I was grateful that he felt comfortable enough with me to call at that hour, and he told me that the lady who owns the apartment had reconsidered and that, if we liked the place, we could discuss about our dog.  So I made a plan with him to go view it the next day.  

We met up and looked at the apartment.  I was very impressed.  It fit what we were looking for in an apartment better than any place I've viewed in the past four months -- and I've viewed places that were up to 50% more than our budget (I didn't always know the asking price until I actually viewed places).  This place, whose monthly rent was exactly what we had budgeted, was just right.  It was three-bedrooms, good size, nice condition with tastefully done remodeling, a good layout, on the second floor above a business (which is perfect for us), a nice balcony (which we don't have in our current place), good furnishings, good storage, nice new windows, clean unsqueaky floors, and perhaps best of all, a nice big kitchen with good space and nice appliances.  The location was a small notch down from our current one, but still within our criteria (and in one or two ways, actually superior to our current location).  Seriously, I was sold.  I called Denyce and told her about it and then made the unusual move of calling the agent, who I had just said goodbye to, and asking for a second viewing in half an hour (this time with Denyce).  Thankfully he was available, and Denyce was able to see it for herself quickly.  She too was ready to decide on it, and so after confirming the price and that the dog was ok as long as we agreed to be responsible to repair any damage she might cause, we said we'd take it.  

The agent arranged for us to meet at the apartment that evening with him and the lady who owns the apartment. Our good friend and brother Valeriy came with us, to help us with translation.  Now the usual deal here is this: 1) The renter pays the agent 50% of one month's rent as his finder's fee; 2) The renter pays the owner up front for the first month and last month (usually the 12th month) of the agreed-upon term.  Depending on the landlord there may be a deposit paid in addition, or the last month's rent may double as a deposit as well.  We had already discussed the stipulations about the dog.  Besides agreeing on which bills the renter will be responsible for, everything else is pretty standard in the contracts used by real estate agents here.  

So we get there and although the landlady was friendly enough on first introducing each other, she quickly got rather stern in talking about how, whenever we move out, the apartment must be in exactly the same condition that it's in now.  Although I didn't really like the spirit behind that, it didn't bother me too much because I know it's a natural and understandable concern for someone renting their place out to someone with a dog and small children.  I also knew that our family generally has a history of -- if anything -- leaving places better than we found them.  She also insisted that we would need to pay all the bills.  The normal deal is that the renter pays electricity and phone, and the landlord pays the rest.  But we knew that it's not always that way and, in this case, we reluctantly agreed on it as the apartment really was worth it.  

The landlady then explained that, since this all happened so fast, she didn't have a contract ready to sign yet, and she would have her lawyer draft one the next morning, and we could meet that afternoon to sign it.  In retrospect, this should have been a red flag.  I noticed it at the time but didn't think much of it.  Like I said, by that point we had already discussed the usual points of contention: price, bills, and the dog.  I signed the real estate agent's contract saying he had done his job and paid his 50% of one month's rent, and paid the landlady 50% of one month's rent as a good-faith pledge until the next day, when we would pay the rest at signing.  She wrote out on a piece of paper that she had received the money from me, and signed and dated it.  Then in what was by far her nicest gesture in all of our interaction with her, she went ahead and gave us a set of keys.  The kids weren't quite ready to go, but she needed to go, so she did that so that we wouldn't have to rush out of the apartment.

That night and the next day Denyce and I discussed how great the apartment was, but also how a few things in our discussion with the landlady just didn't set quite right with us.  For example, the subject of us doing any repair or remodeling on the place came up, and she insisted that we not do anything -- that even if the toilet seat broke, we were not to have it repaired ourselves.  Now this was not because she didn't want us to pay.  On the contrary, it was clear that we were to pay for any kind of repair, no matter how small -- but we were not to do it ourselves or have someone else do it apart from her.  Everything was to go through her.  The more we thought about this the less we liked it, and the more questions came up -- including, how big of a potential repair would we have to pay for?  Sure, we don't mind paying for a toilet seat or for clearing a clogged pipe, but what if a plumbing disaster occurs and the apartment gets flooded?

She also had said something about us being responsible if an appliance broke.  Now this apartment had two wall-mounted AC units, and an ensemble of brand-new-looking appliances in the kitchen from a very nice brand.  That was one thing we liked about the apartment.  But we realized that it was possible that she had been saying that we'd have to repair or replace appliances ourselves even if it didn't go out do to any fault of our own -- just normal stuff breaking down, getting fried by a power surge, or simply stopping from old age (the refrigerators -- yes it had two -- and the AC units were not at all brand new).

So we entered our meeting with her the next day prepared to clarify these points and draw some lines if needed.  When she got there she presented us with the contract from her lawyer -- all five pages of it.  Now for a frame of reference, the rental contract on our current apartment (in which our relationship with our landlord has flourished) is one page, front and back.  This lady's contract was five pages in a smaller font.  And it was in Ukrainian to boot.  Our friend Valeriy was with us, but he is a native speaker of Russian only, and doesn't have a command of Ukrainian.

We started looking through it item by item, since we knew better than to just sign it without knowing what was in it, especially if it's a non-standard contract.  It was slow-going as Valeriy had to figure out the Ukrainian (thankfully Ukrainian is similar to Russian, but different enough that it was slow and difficult).  Before long we discovered that the contract specified that we would indeed be responsible for appliance repair or replacement, regardless of fault or cause of the problem.  Normal contracts, like the one we have in our current apartment, use a phrase that would be translated "if the tenant is at fault" or "by guilt of the tenant" to delineate which repairs we would be responsible for.  Not this one.  We negotiated this at length and although it wasn't easy, she finally agreed to add the standard wording about our limited liability.  

We plowed on and after about an hour she said that she was out of time and needed to go.  We had gotten through about 60-75% of the contract by that point and although it hadn't always been easy, we had come to agreement on everything up to that point.  She seemed a little flustered by the attention we were giving the contract but seemed to be enduring it reasonably well.  But if she had to go she had to go.  This was a Friday evening, and she said that over the weekend she would have the contract updated according to the changes we agreed on, and then meet us Monday morning to sign it.  

What happened next was the tipping point.  She said very nonchalantly that she would go ahead and take the rest of our payment now.  That is: the other 50% of the first month's rent, and the last month's rent too.  I gently but firmly declined, since we hadn't yet seen the finished contract and signed it, but I did offer to go ahead and give her just the other 50% of the first month's rent.  She immediately stood up and said something disapproving and stormed out to the hallway to put on her coat and shoes.  It was seriously a little tantrum.  Valeriy and I followed her out there and Valeriy attempted to explain that there was no need for this until we signed the contract, and that we were trying to be reasonable.  She said she was not offended but said that she would need to take the keys back from me, and quickly saw herself out and waited for us outside by her car.

We got our stuff together and got our coats and shoes on, locked the door, and headed downstairs.  Outside I gave her the keys back and told her I didn't want to start off on the wrong foot.  Before getting in her car and driving off, she replied, still in a very tart demeanor, "You're American. I'm Ukrainian. We'll never understand each other."  Ugh.  When I dreamed and diligently planned to do mission work in Ukraine, that was not the kind of thing I hoped to ever hear someone say.  We all didn't know what to think, but for sure none of us were feeling good about this.  But like it or not, we had until Monday to figure out what to do with the situation.  

Meanwhile, Valeriy took the contract home with him.  His fiancee is a native Ukrainian, so naturally she can handle the Ukrainian language in the contract just fine.  The two of them spent four hours that night poring over the contract, and comparing it to the standard contracts typically used by real estate agents.  They found a number of other major issues that we hadn't yet encountered in our reading of the contract that night with the landlady.  Clearly there was going to be more discussion needed and clarifications added to the contract.  By this time, however, Denyce and I were really questioning whether we even wanted this lady for a landlord, even if we got all the contract stuff sorted out satisfactorily.

The next day Valeriy called me and said that the landlady had called him and apologized for her behavior the night before.  This was an encouraging sign.  She said she just doesn't like when people don't trust her.  Valeriy assured me that no one should feel expected to trust anyone in the amount of a full two months' rent before even having a signed contract.  However, she said that she would send the revised contract, with her signature already on it, with her nanny, who would meet us on Monday.  She herself would not be able to be there.  This was not good, as Valeriy told me there were a number of other things that would need to be hammered out.  However, we held off on deciding anything about that until he and I could look through the contract together and he could show me the concerns that had surfaced in his reading of it with his fiancee.  

We met that night and after looking through the issues at hand, we decided that this contract was just a no-go, especially if the landlady wasn't planning on even seeing us again before expecting our signature.  Put simply, even after the things we had negotiated that last meeting with the landlady, the contract still was very heavy on protection for the landlord from almost any and all possible expense.  It was almost as if she had ordered her lawyer, "Write me up a contract that would ensure that the face value of the rent every month will be pure profit for me.  There should be no possible costs eating into it."  Meanwhile, of course, the contract exposed us to way too much liability than any renter should (or hopefully ever does) have to take on. 

So the next day Valeriy talked to her and passed on our decision: This contract has too many problems still unresolved, so let's either use a standard rental contract or forget it.  This was hard for us, because have I mentioned that we totally loved this apartment and it seemed like just about a perfect fit at the right price?  Oh yeah, I did mention that already.  Anyway.

Her response was quick, but refreshingly simple: "How about I just give them their money back, and we'll be done?"  OK, sounds good to us.  Because there was a part of us that wondered if we'd even get that 50% of one month back from her.  But she sent her nanny the next day to meet with me and Valeriy, and we indeed got it all back.

Now, the hard knocks of life come at a price, and although we got the 50% of one month's rent back from her ... we didn't get it back from the agent.  He was under no obligation to give it back, but we had hoped he might be willing to anyway.  The most he did was offer a possible discount if we use him again.  Not much consolation.  Lesson learned -- next time, don't pay the agent until you've agreed on the contract.  In my defense (and Valeriy's, who was there with me when I paid the agent), neither of us could even conceive at the time that I paid the agent that such a non-standard contract could possibly show up on the table.  Valeriy himself has rented apartments multiple times in Ukraine, and is himself an apartment owner who has tried to rent his apartment out too, and he didn't even consider this possibility.  We will now.

So I don't really have any more of a punchy conclusion to this post than that.  If you've read all the way to this point it's possible you're wondering why I even bothered to write about all this.  I guess it was just a fairly potent experience, relating to something very fundamental -- man's quest to provide housing for his family in the best way he can -- and I felt that it would be worth recording before the memory starts to fade.  Perhaps you found it interesting too.

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