Landlord MIA for going on 2 years
So we live in Florida, in a decent neighborhood (not rich or gated, but nice neighborhood with well kept homes). The homeowner lives up north and doesn’t have any family in our town or close by. We’ve had numerous issues with the house over the years, a few examples I’ll throw out there are busted pipes in the walls resulting in major leaks, electrical problems resulting in us getting shocked when we touch certain outlets, leaks in the roof, deteriorating attachment on the house, etc… back when we were in regular contact, we paid out of pocket for the pipe repairs and she took it off of our rent, and maybe 6 months after that she sent her cousin down to fix our roof. This is where it gets a little wild. So this man was pushing 60, and he brought down his son with him, who couldn’t have been more than 14. He said they can’t do the whole roof because they don’t have a permit, so they’re going to do some now, and the rest later… A day into working, his son fell THROUGH my roof in my kitchen. He caught himself and was okay thank god, and they fixed the main leaks without anymore incidents. However, they left part of the built on attachment to the house open to the elements, which is where our breaker panel is located. Move forward 8 months or so, the homeowner keeps pushing back when the roof will be finished, mind you they left tools, a ladder, 20 packs of shingles, and a bunch of trash out back. As the weeks rolled on, we couldn’t contact her anymore. She never reached out from a different number about the rent that we usually send out via mail, and we honestly think she may have passed away. Still to this day over two years later, tools are still on my roof. I’m writing all of this because I want to put the money into the house to make the repairs needed to fix this place up, but my husband is worried a family member will come knocking one day and we will have to move or offer back pay for all this time we haven’t been paying. Is this place a lost cause? We can’t afford the rent on most places these days so is there any legal way we can become the homeowners here and put our money into making this house our home?