What is material Breach? What is fraudulent inducement?

Question

How are these law terms weighed valued in court? Would tenants prevail in court?Are tenants in the right to demand the month rent they lived in property back plus their moving expenses and also not pay the present rent? When there are no grounds for breach ,other than landlord overseeing the completion of the property as explained to tenants prior to move in. Thankyou

Answer 1

A breach is when a contact term or duty is violated. Breaches can be minor, in which case the other party is still bound, or the breach can be material, which is fatal to the contract.

In most jurisdictions, once one party has committed a material breach, the other party is no longer required to abide by the contract either.

Fraudulent inducement is whether the agreement, the mutual consent to the contract, was caused (induced) by fraud. Fraud is a significant misrepresentation of the truth, such that had the truth been known, the contract would not have been formed.

Fraudulent inducement is a defense to contract formation. In other words, if the contract was induced via fraud, it is not binding. Material breach is a defense to contract enforcement. In other words, after a material breach by one party the other party is not bound by the contract anymore.

This is the general legal theory for those terms. As far as your specific landlord-tenant issue, that is something that only a licensed attorney can advise you of, based on the laws of your state.

Answer 2

Well a good lawyer would need a lot more specific detail to answer your question. A material breach is one that is so significant that the contract cannot be performed by the other party if it is breached in that way. This is a matter of evidence and also depends on the wording of the contract. Fraudulent inducement is when the person relies on a specific fact to enter into the contract and that fact is not correct/ not intended by the performer and so the performer was committing fraud when inducing the contract. The other party has to have relied upon the fraudulent information or fact as a reason for entering into the contract. Also the performer must have had the intention to misled the other party. You should give more specific facts of the case for a good non generic answer.

Answer 3

Fraudulent inducement is basically lying to get the other party to sign a contract. When they find out about the lie, they can have the contract voided. Material breach only applies to when there is a valid contract that goes bad.

Assuming the tenant is totally right, they will still probably be held responsible for some rent...since they did derive some value from occupying the space. To give them all of the their money back would be to unjustly enrich the tenant at the landlord's expense. (unjust enrichment)