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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Maladjusted73 on 2025-06-01 06:19:39+00:00.
I told this story to a friend. She suggested I share it here.
My family and I moved into a house in 2008 - 5 bedrooms, 3,200 sq ft, $1,600 a month. It was a decent price in 2008, and the rent stayed the same for many years. Since I'm reasonably handy, I would fix things myself rather than bother an old man. I lived there so long that I also made quite a few upgrades.
In 2024, the owner passed away, and his son inherited the property. A week later, he gave notice of intent to inspect the property. During the inspection, he kept trying to open drawers and look through my belongings, which isn't legally allowed, and was rude when I stopped him. As he left, he handed me a notice that my rent was increasing to $4,000 monthly, about $1,000 over market value. I would have paid higher rent if it had been reasonable, but I wasn't paying that much.
My month-to-month lease was worded to require three months' notice to raise the rent. I pointed out this fact, then gave him notice that I would be moving out at the end of that three months.
A few days later, I was served with an eviction notice. The month-to-month lease also required three months' notice to evict me without cause, so he tried evicting me with cause. He claimed I had made "unauthorized modifications" to the house and cited the back door with a dog door installed.
I still had the original door in the garage and the previous owner's permission, so it was neither unauthorized nor a modification. Regardless, the judge decided I needed to move out within 30 days, or he would grant the eviction. Additionally, he explicitly ordered that all modifications be restored to the original.
This is where the malicious compliance comes in, and I'm sure you already see this coming. All the "Smart House" additions I made were removed. The tool shed in the yard was removed. The pond was filled in. Closet organizers were torn out. Garage organizers were removed. The updated appliances were replaced with basic models. Every update I made was removed, and then I moved out.
He sued me for removing everything. His lawyer cited a law that says any changes to the property become part of the property, and it's illegal to remove them when vacating the property. However, my lawyer pointed out the order from the previous judge, stating, "All modifications must be restored to the original." I provided receipts for all the things I had removed, proving I had added them and was required to remove them. I won the case, and he had to pay my legal fees.
A few months later, I got a call from his sister. Some of my mail had not been forwarded, and she wanted to ensure I got it. We had a short conversation about the entire ordeal. She told me the house was actually inherited by four siblings. Her brother had lied to everyone.
First, he had raised the rent, knowing I would move out. He already had a deal to sell the house to one of those big rental companies. He told his siblings the house had negative equity and nobody would get anything from the sale. In reality, the house was paid off and worth about $700,000.
They had made an offer on the house, which included all the stuff I later removed. He couldn't afford to replace everything, so they took him to court over the sale. Since all four siblings were listed as owners, all were named in the lawsuit, which is how they learned the truth.
In the end, the house sold for $550,000. In exchange for not pressing fraud charges against him, his three siblings split the proceeds, and he got nothing.