My boyfriend and I have been renting a house since the first of April. The house had some work that needed to be done on it. It needed to have the guttering put back on after they had to take it off after fixing a part of the roof last summer, there are 3 windows with small holes in them, and there's some water damage in one of the rooms. Our landlord assured us the problems would've been taken care of immediately, but it's now 3 months later, and he refuses to return our calls or anything. We signed a contract for a year, and I know the landlord could charge us for the remaining months, which would be several thousand dollars, but don't we have reason to break the contract? We're looking at buying a house, but i don't want to owe him any money. The house isn't in good condition, and it's not due to anything we've done to it, but we're paying for all utilities, and there are holes in the windows!!
2007-07-02 12:08:03 · 6 answers · asked by meg 2 in Business & Finance ➔ Renting & Real Estate
by law, you can have someone come and fix the problems, and subtract what it cost from rent due
2007-07-02 12:12:31 · answer #1 · answered by skcs11 7 · 0⤊ 3⤋
Talk to a lawyer. By law he has to fix the problems noted when agreeing to rent the property, hopefully you documented the problems before signing the lease. You can probably call the housing authority on him. Having a lawyer helps to protect your assets, so if the problems are not corrected or he starts harassing you, you be in a good position to break the lease without penalties. Good Luck.
2007-07-02 19:17:36 · answer #2 · answered by amysgetaways 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Check with your city's Housing Inspector. See if they will review the property and follow up with the landlord on any issues that must be fixed to keep the house up to code.
2007-07-02 19:17:00 · answer #3 · answered by Angie 6 · 3⤊ 0⤋
comes down to this plain and simple if you decided to breach the lease early, then you will have the legal burden of proof in the court to prove the problems not fixed by the landlord equates to them materially breaching the contract, your legal burden not the landlord
2007-07-02 20:39:51 · answer #4 · answered by goz1111 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Put the request in writing certify mail it keep your copy when the certified receipt comes back to you if in those next thirty days he does fix it you are not responsible to pay rent until he does. if he puts up eviction notice fill it out to appear to court and bring your evidence with you..
You can withhold rent or get out of your lease due to his negligence of getting your "work order" completed
2007-07-02 20:02:06 · answer #5 · answered by Charlotte Y 3 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Take pictures and log your calls to him, if you can E-mail him do that also so you have a record of attempts to get the issues resolved, that way you are covered and he will have no recourse, if you leave
2007-07-02 19:16:40 · answer #6 · answered by Pengy 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋