Dear Claudienne

My client who is 77 years old, and suffering from cancer, became bedridden in May/June 2019 because of a fall in her hotel room due to a lack of electricity.

She has instructed me that she rented a room from the hotel and has paid more than (US$40,000) for rental of same over the period of her contract. The contract with the hotel began in April 2017.

On the instructions of the resort’s lawyers, my client has been served with a two-week notice to quit.

She wants to vacate the premises and is urgently in negotiation for the purchase of a property.

She therefore requires time to vacate the property and the resort’s lawyer has been requested to give her three months to do so.

In the meantime the resort has illegally disconnected the electricity in her room and this action has resulted in her falling and injuring herself.

The disconnection of the electricity from her room is a breach of her quiet enjoyment of the property. It is also a breach of the Rent Restriction Act. This action seemingly amounts to a criminal offence and the police have been informed of the disconnection of the electricity. 

She is urgently trying to purchase a property in order to vacate the room but in the interim the resort should adhere to the law.

SA

Any assistance you can give to have the resort forthwith reconnect the electricity to my client’s room would be appreciated.

Dear SA

Tell Claudienne has been told by the Rent Board that they have no say in this dispute as commercial properties do not fall under the Rent Restriction Act.

Tell Claudienne contacted the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA) and requested their intervention in this matter.

According to the information sent to the JHTA and to Tell Claudienne, the following outline that the hotel sent to their lawyers appears to be the basis for the notice to quit served on your client.

The outline to the resort’s lawyers reads as follows:

“Outlined below is a situation that we need your council on.

On September 2017, She (the client) approached me (the managing director), seeking a concessionary rate for an all-inclusive package. Upon hearing her situation, we agreed to offer her a nightly rate of US$53.33 using 30 days as the standard month.

In accepting the rate offered, she asked that we allow her to pay same rate on a monthly basis, to facilitate her cash flow. Several months into the arrangement, it was observed that she increasingly became quite unpresentable in terms of appearance and personal hygiene in public spaces. It was further observed that she frequently refused to allow the standard housekeeping services, and therefore, her accommodation also started showing signs of deterioration and has become a health & safety concern.

After several attempts, in terms of verbal conversations, to get her to conform to the standards at the hotel, to no avail, she started to become confrontational on each approach, especially as it related to the collection of the monies due.

Her behaviour was so abrasive that the housekeepers had little choice but to stop their attempts to clean her room.

Since December of 2018, she has stopped paying her nightly rate of USD $53.33, totalling US$1,600.00 per month.

On February 7th 2019 we issued a Notice to Quit to her, citing her unkempt appearance, health and safety threat and non-payment of monies due. In that notice we specified seven days for her departure.

We have since been unable, from December (2018), to collect from her, yet she continues to compromise our product with her pollution of the environment, eating from the buffet lines and getting boisterous each time she is approached to pay for her accommodation.

On April 8th, 2019, we received a letter from an attorney claiming to represent her asking us to desist from harassing her client, claiming that seven days is not a legal period for notice and implying that we are bounded to provide accommodation to her until she finalises a purchase of a property.

Please refer to the attached letter as evidence.

We need your help in resolving this matter ASAP. Keeping in mind that we are an all-inclusive hotel, which is guided by specific health and safety rules and regulations. Also we at no time indicated to her that we would deviate from the nightly rental, all-inclusive concept.

We are now in danger of losing in many ways, to include the fact that we have lost all the potential earnings for the peak period, at a much higher rate than was offered to her.

We need to get her to vacate our hotel, as she poses a threat not only to health and safety and our finances, but also to the reputation that we have worked hard to create.

We now await your guidance as to the best way forward.”

Tell Claudienne received the following e-mail from the resort:

“Thanks for the opportunity to respond to your queries regarding the captioned matter. Your having a complete understanding of the issues involved will make for transparency and good reporting.

First of all, I am sure that by now you know that we are a small chain of all-inclusive resort hotels, and that we operate under the statues of the Innkeepers Act of  1952/revised in 1981. It is mandatory that every resort post a copy of Section 4 displayed in visible printed form at the front desk or some other conspicuous location for all arriving guests to see and read if they choose to do so.

We therefore operate with those parameters in mind. We are not an apartment complex nor are we a tenant facility. She therefore rented her room as all other guests do with all the amenities included.

We are therefore attaching for your perusal, copies of letters between us and our lawyer as well as detailing our exhaustive efforts to resolve with the guest (tenant) the issues of improper upkeep of the room since she has refused housekeeping, and her delinquency in payment of rental since December 2018.

We have sought to have the assistance of the local tourism police liaison officer but that too has failed. It is instructive to note that we have subsequently found out that this action by this individual is not a single occurrence. I am sure that your investigative intuition will lead you to a confirmation of this fact.

We are quite surprised that with all our loss and tolerance we are subjected to further incur cost to go to the courts to have her vacate our hotel room.

Should you require further information, please feel free to contact our attorney.”

We note that after Tell Claudienne contacted the JHTA the hotel reconnected the electricity to your client’s room.

She occupied the hotel room for a longer period than the three months her lawyer had requested, but she has now vacated the room.

The hotel is suing her for the unpaid rent.