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Landlord Cancels Rent For Three Months To Help Local Businesses

Landlord Cancels Rent For Three Months To Help Local Businesses

He wants tenants to 'pay it forward'

Amelia Ward

Amelia Ward

A hero landlord in New Jersey, United States, has urged his tenants to 'pay it forward' after waiving their rent for three months because of Covid-19.

David Placek, who owns 12 properties, had already told his tenants that they don't have to worry about rent for April and May, but with the extent of the pandemic becoming clearer, he's added June to those dates too.

It means that overall, the landlord will be sacrificing about $50,000 (£40,000) of rental income, telling WABC-TV that he is 'fortunate' enough to be able to do so - adding that other landlords might not be in a financial position to.

David Placek.
Twitter/Governor Phil Murphy

Speaking to the news outlet, Placek said: "By and large we've gotten a good reception from our tenants, they're happy that we were able to do this early on and really able to show them some compassion and feelings for what they might be going through.

"We didn't ask them what financial position they're in."

Speaking to Fox News, he said: "It was more a question of why not do this for our tenants. We ask them to pay it forward so if they can go out and buy take out from the restaurants or gift cards from the other small businesses or pay it forward to the local food bank we had in Montclair, N.J. called Tony's Kitchen."

Governor Phil Murphy, 56th Governor of the State of New Jersey paid tribute to Placek's kind act on Twitter, saying he is the perfect example of the 'spirit' needed to get through these trying times.

He wrote: "David Placek is a landlord with a dozen tenants. He stepped forward to give every one of them a rent holiday through June. He exemplifies the spirit we need to see right now of people stepping up to make sure others can come out of this emergency stronger. "

As reported by The New York Times, another landlord in Brooklyn recently did a similar thing, cancelling rent for April across his 18 buildings and forgoing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Mario Salerno waived rent and put up a sign that read: "STAY SAFE, HELP YOUR NEIGHBOURS & WASH YOUR HANDS!!!"

Featured Image Credit: PA

Topics: Coronavirus, US News