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Priscilla Said:

qualified legal help, please! about insurance and landlord.?

We Answered:

You have no case against him - he didn't steal your stuff, and he didn't leave YOUR unit unlocked.

He's not legally liable for your stuff. He didn't cause the loss.

That theft exclusion is a problem. Most of the time, retail stores are required to have a central station alarm system for fire & theft, and if they don't, then the insurance companies won't cover theft. So no, it's NOT unheard of to have a theft exclusion on a commercial policy. Do you have the alarm system? If not, NO ONE would likely have GIVEN you theft coverage. Which would mean, there's no E&O case, either. If you DID have an alarm system, and it was noted on your application, then you should have had theft - but it would have COST more.

Then the E&O case boils down to, did he OFFER theft coverage to you, and maybe you declined due to cost? Or did he not even offer it to you? You very well might NOT have signed something seperate for the exclusion - you also probably don't have flood or earthquake coverage, and I'd bet dollars to donuts you didn't sign anything for THOSE exclusions, either.

E&O is when the agent made a mistake, or forgot to do something. It's basically professional liabiltiy coverage.

In any case, request the claim declination in writing, then have a free consult with a local attorney. The claim is too big to ignore, in my opinion, and you DO need an official declination in writing from the COMPANY in order to procede, if you sue the agent.

Sherry Said:

What do I do? How do I get my money back from commercial landlord and void the contract?

We Answered:

There is no such thing as an AS-IS rental contract when it comes to code violations and necessary repairs. You need to take him to court to settle this. The problem you have here is you got a "great deal" that you thought was just soooo good and yet you find out after the fact that it's really a horrible deal. This happens a lot.

Landlords are *required* to ensure the buildings they rent out are safe to operate in. This means, they are on the hook to fix it up. Just because they put "AS-IS" on the contract does not make it legally binding. Illegal rules are not enforceable.

With that said, if someone does an AS-IS sales contract to where you buy the building AS-IS (as opposed to renting it), then that's a different story. In that case, AS-IS means you buy AS-IS and it is up to you to do the full inspection and make your offer contigent on that inspection to ensure you can afford to fix it up before you buy it.