The landlord had told them he wanted to raise the rent to $3,500 and when they complained he decided to raise it to $9,500.
“We know that our building is not rent controlled and this was something we were always worried about happening and there is no way we can afford $9,500 per month," Yumna Farooq said.
This isn’t living with ones own choices. This is having others choices thrust into you and having to deal with their greed.
There is no obligation to enter into a tenancy knowing that the landlord can jack the prices up on a whim. There is plenty of choice – one can opt to move into a unit constructed before 2018 instead, or, in newer construction, one can make it a contractual condition of the tenancy to have an independently negotiated “rent control” in force.
To ignore all of that at the time and then cry about it later because the risk taken didn’t work out is just plain antisocial behaviour. We invented contract law exactly to prevent these kinds of surprises. If you want to play some other stupid game instead, expect to win stupid prizes.
I’m certain there are a lot of good options otherwise