if we feel our rental home in unsafe and/or unhealthy can we leave immediately?

Question

Our rental home has no smoke detectors or fire extinguisher(sp). The water leaves nasty stains on all the dishes, toilets, and sinks. If you pull back the carpet in multiple places throughout the house you can see outside. If its very cold outside its impossible to keep the house warm because of all drafts even with all the heaters on. Our roof is leaking in multiple spots. Everyone says to tell the landlord and let him fix everything, but we just want out. We have no lease and the landlord makes us pay in cash. It seems fishy to us. Can we just leave without a notice?

Answer 1

if you don't have a lease there is nothing keeping you. pack up and go.

Answer 2

First off, you do have a month to month rental agreement although it is verbal but legal. Take pictures of everything, make a listofeverything as well, document that you have spoken to the landlord about repairs and let the landlord decide what if anything he will do for you. Next,contact the health dept. which will come out and inspect the premises. He will make a report and give you a copy as well as send a copy to the landlord. Once the landlord is made aware of the problems(by an outside company) he will be given time to make repairs. If he does great,but still consider giving 30 day notice that you are moving. If he doesn't, give a 30 day notice and file in court. The judge will decide who is telling the truth and who wins the judgement.

Answer 3

a; sorry about your dilemma.
b; the law requires MITIGATION
for each party; therefore, the
landlord has to have the opportunity
to fix the property --excluding a dangerous environment.
A judge would ask you how long it
was between your WALK through
till you signed the lease until you
found all these problems.

the law separates safe vs comfortable.

I am not sure if the landlord
would bother fixing the problems
with your unit.

THE law says this--which may help you to decide; if the landlord does not
fix things after a 30 day written notice,
the tenant may contract out the
work, the tenant must pay for the work
and the tenant may then send in
a dupe copy of the invoice and deduct
that amount from the rent--if more than the rent, he may withhold until
all that he paid has come off what
he owed.

IF you cannot afford to pay for the repairs, then I suggest you leave the
unit and never rent a unit without
doing a "full walk through."

[if you leave, the landlord then can sue you and you can counter sue
for unsafe unit, etc.]

Answer 4

You can do one of two things:

1. Call your town's building inspector. He can come evaluate the situation. He may very well state that the house is unlivable. Especially if you can see outside under the carpet.

2. Since you are on a month-to-month rental agreement, you must give the landlord a full month's notice. This means that in order to move out on February 1st, you must give him notice on or before December 31st. If you notify on January 1st you are too late and will owe another month's rent.

Answer 5

No, you can't leave without a notice, but you CAN give him a thirty day notice to leave according to your state statutes. The notice must be provided before a rent due date, and becomes effective thirty days after said rent due date.

In other words, if your rent is due on the first of the month and you give notice on the fifteenth of a month, the notice is considered tendered as of the first of the month, and then you can vacate legitimately as of the end of the following month.

Use caution following the previous poster's response regarding having the repairs done yourself and then deducting the costs from your rent. You are only able to do that in certain states whose statutes allow for that. Not all do, so check your state's laws before proceeding in that manner.

Answer 6

You are on a "month to month" lease. To legally terminate this lease the landlord needs your notice of lease termination a minimum of 30 days before the end of the month preferably in writing and mailed to the landlord "return receipt requested" to prove delivery and acceptance.

No reason for termination needs to be given.

Answer 7

A question comes to mind "Did you not check it out before renting?"

Having said that, it would be best to cover yourself against any landlord claims by contacting your local housing council, and asking for an inspection. If it's as bad as you describe here, they will order you out (best have someplace new lined up)