17

Bob has strong evidence that his landlord engages in illegal activity as he allegedly hosts illegal poker sessions in his basement.

On the other hand, the landlord neglects his duties from the lease contract (the washing machine is broken for a long time and there's no hot water in the house).

Would it be blackmailing if Bob said to his landlord: "You're going to fix the hot water next week or I'll be reporting your 'little Las Vegas' to the police!"? Would that be a reason to terminate the lease contract and throw Bob out?

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  • 3
    If Bob was smart, he would say something like: "wow it would be a shame if someone told the cops about your poker game. Can I get the hot water heater fixed today?". No threat was made but it was implied.
    – Pete B.
    Commented Aug 9 at 17:34
  • 10
    If the landlord wants to break the lease over this, he'll have to explain how he's being blackmailed, and that will open him up to prosecution. So in general, it's usually safe to threaten to report someone's illegal activity.
    – Barmar
    Commented Aug 9 at 18:41
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    @PeteB.Bob is not smart to do that either. The landlord (or his associates) might be the sort of people who would deal with Bob summarily and permanently. Bob would be better off finding another place to live and pretend he doesn't know or care about the illegal activity.
    – Wastrel
    Commented Aug 10 at 13:56
  • Even if not exactly illegal, acknowledging that something is illegal and then not reporting it, for personal benefit is probably not what you want to be seen doing. A prosecutor might construe that as being an accomplice to it.
    – nvoigt
    Commented Aug 12 at 9:36

2 Answers 2

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In Switzerland, Bob doesn't need to go as far as reporting the illegal activity of gambling. He can file a complaint to have the situation remedied, and is also entitled to reduction of rent and/or compensation, which is arguably better than simply reporting the illegal activity. Switzerland also has decent tenant protection laws, so the landlord wouldn't likely find grounds for eviction even if they were threatened, or reported by, Bob for illegal activities.

That said, even if Bob did make such a threat, he's probably "safe". The laws require that someone attempts to make an "unlawful gain" in order for the criminal offence of extortion to occur. Since Bob is legally entitled to live in a habitable environment, he would not be in violation of this law, although certainly the landlord could try to claim that is the case. It would not cross over to extortion unless Bob did something overtly for personal gain ("give me a cut of the winnings or..."), rather than basic tenant rights.

Basically, Bob has no legitimate reason to make that kind of threat, and the landlord has no legal recourse for eviction based on such a threat. From a non-legal perspective, it'd probably be better for Bob to try and find a place to live that doesn't involve such a hypothetically shady landlord. Bob would more likely find himself a victim of an actual extortion threat rather than mere eviction.

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  • I guess we need a separate question on the difference between extortion and blackmailing.
    – PMF
    Commented Aug 10 at 6:48
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    @PMF Blackmail is a form of extortion, which is why sometimes there isn't a law for blackmail. Extortion can be things other than blackmail, like threatening violence. Commented Aug 10 at 13:17
9

Yes, but not in the circumstances described

Blackmail is defined in s249K of the Crimes Act 1900:

(1) A person who makes any unwarranted demand with menaces--

(a) with the intention of obtaining a gain or of causing a loss, or

(b) with the intention of influencing the exercise of a public duty, is guilty of an offence.

: Maximum penalty--Imprisonment for 10 years.

(2) A person is guilty of an offence against this subsection if the person commits an offence against subsection (1) by an accusation, or a threatened accusation, that a person has committed a serious indictable offence.

: Maximum penalty--Imprisonment for 14 years.

In the situation the OP describes:

  1. The demand is not “unwarranted” as the tenant has a contractual entitlement to what they are asking for,
  2. There are no menaces because:
    • Hosting a private poker school is not an indictable offence. In fact, it’s perfectly legal under the Unlawful Gambling Act 1998, so, it does not engage subsection (2).
    • as such, it would not cause a person of “normal stability and courage to act unwillingly”, which is central to the definition of menaces.
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  • So if the activity was illegal there too (say, running a pub that deliberately offers alcohol and tobacco to minors), it would be a menace?
    – PMF
    Commented Aug 10 at 10:02
  • 3
    @PMF Yes, but the demand still wouldn’t be unwarranted
    – Dale M
    Commented Aug 10 at 10:26
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    Just basing this on third party sources, but I would understand "hosts illegal poker sessions" as "poker sessions where the host earns money from them", which as far as I know (very much not into gambling, nor a citizen of the US 😅) are illegal in the US. Commented Aug 12 at 7:08
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    @DavidMulder: That may be true, but note that new-south-wales is not in the US either :)
    – psmears
    Commented Aug 12 at 13:58
  • @psmears 🤦 Thanks for pointing that out, not sure how I missed that. Looking up the laws for new south wales results in fact sheet FS3001 from the South Wales government which states that all money has to go to the winner basically, so luckily enough for me the same argument still happens to apply to New South Wales. 😇 Commented Aug 12 at 15:03

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