'AITA for not extending the lease of a friend who knew about my GF’s infidelity and didn't tell?'
"AITA for not extending the below market lease of a close friend who knew about my girlfriend’s infidelity but didn’t tell me?"
My girlfriend and have been in a relationship for half a decade, and during this relationship, I became close with a lot of her friends. I considered these people my close friends, and while I hate sounding transactional, I did a lot more to these people than the other way, which I was fine with, because I thought they were my close friends.
One of these friends had some issues with her credit and she had a lot of debt to pay back on, so to help her with it, when she was looking for a place to stay, I was able to convince my parents to have her stay in a condo that they own (I help them manage it since they don’t live close by) and offer her extremely low rent (barely covers the property tax and the strata fee).
I broke up with my girlfriend when I found out that she cheated on me twice during a rough patch of our relationship, and later understood that everyone in this friend group except me knew about it, including this friend staying in my parent’s condo (who was one of these first people who knew, and knew at least 6 months before I did).
I was deeply hurt by how my so called friends acted, and their excuses of “we didn’t know if you were in a open relationship”, and “we thought it was none of our business” didn’t sit right with me.
If I were in their place, I would tell someone who I consider a close friend that their SO cheated on them. So, I cut off all my friends, and blocked them, and I told this “friend” that I won’t be renewing the lease at the current terms, and she can either move out or start paying market rent after the lease expires.
She still had 3 months left on the lease, and she moved out at the end of the term. AITA for doing this? My reasoning was that I thought this person was a close friend, which it appears is not how she saw me.
Here's what people had to say to OP:
deshi_mi wrote:
Money is money, and friendship is friendship, and they are separate. You will be NTA even if you will start to change the market price without any special reason.
OP responded:
The condo is paid off, and it wasn’t easy to convince them. I know it wasn’t the best economical decision, but I knew this person for as long I’ve known my girlfriend, and she and my ex-girlfriend were childhood friends. I saw an opportunity to help a friend out for a couple of years when the last tenant of my parent’s condo left, and took it.
squashy_TO wrote:
NTA - giving someone basically a free ride for an extended period is more than anyone can reasonably ask of a friend. Even if you chose to not continue the lease just because you wanted fair market rent, that would not be an AH move.
Where do you live though? Tenants right in the countries/state/provinces I’ve live don’t allow a landlord to end a lease without cause or very specific circumstances, and usually a one-year fixed term automatically rolls into month-to-month.
OP responded:
This was actually a while ago, and in Alberta. The law does allow fixed term tenancy, which doesn’t automatically roll over, unless both parties agree to it.
Ciaobellaxo4 wrote:
NTA, but 1: their loyalty was NEVER to you. You were their associate by extension of your GF. 2: it’s nobodies job to get involved in personal relationships. 3: you dated for about 5 years and were not married- that should have spoken more to you than anything. 4: you were aware you did more for them, than they did for you and were OKAY with it. That sir, means you are NOT the sharpest tool in the shed.
Complete_Ad5483 wrote:
Kinda. Like on a scale out of 100. The level of A-hole here is 5. Because you are doing this out of retaliation more than anything. I get it. If I was in your shoes...I’d evict them on the spot. I wouldn’t even give notice.
Don’t get me wrong it was a crappy thing for them not to tell you in the first place… What it does show however. Is that they wasn’t really your friends to begin with. They were her friends because they were loyal to your ex throughout the situation.
Fragrant_Spray wrote:
NTA. She lost the “friends and family” discount when she stopped being a friend. You gave her plenty of time to sort out her business. I don’t see the problem here.
aqua_not_capri wrote:
You might have been friends with them, but their loyalty was always to her. NTA. You’re not obligated to keep giving special treatment to someone who wasn’t honest with you when it mattered. You didn’t break the lease, you didn’t raise the rent suddenly, you just ended the ‘friend rate’ once it was clear the friendship wasn’t mutual. That’s completely reasonable.