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Tenants’ Rights! – Two Biggest Landlord Concerns

by | Jun 17, 2021 | Firm News |

My Landlord Stops By Unannounced – So you’ve been living in your rented apartment/house for some time and you’ve noticed that the landlord likes to randomly stop by like he/she owns the place. Okay, they do own it; however, they have no right to just stop by. The terms of your lease should include a clause that states the amount of time required to give the tenant a heads up that they will be stopping by. This is typically 24 hours. What does that mean? It means that the landlord needs to communicate their intentions to you a full day before their visit. While you rent a residence, your right of privacy is intact. That means you shouldn’t live in a constant state of uncertainly that the landlord might stop by.

There are emergency situations that allow the landlord to enter the residence without prior notice and these are typically in order to secure the wellbeing of the residence. In the event of a water leak or another issue that will cause damage to the property, the landlord has the right to enter and take care of the situation. While these situations are rare, it is the home owner’s right to secure their property.

My Landlord Doesn’t Fix Known Issues – When you have an issue that needs to be repaired within your residence you need to communicate that to your landlord in writing. If you call them, it may not be enough. Under the law, you need to give a written request for the repair along with a reasonable amount of time to get the repair done. Depending on the concern, two weeks is typically considered to be a reasonable amount of time. If you’ve done this and you still haven’t gotten an adequate response from your landlord, it’s time to take the next step, which is withholding rent.

Withholding rent doesn’t mean you just don’t pay rent. You need to go to the bank and open an escrow account and deposit your rent payments in that account as they become due. If months go by and you still haven’t had the issue fixed and it’s no longer safe to live where you are, you can most likely break the lease by invoking a constructive eviction. For a more in-depth discussion of what to do when your landlord won’t fix known issues, you can visit our Blog post “Your Landlord Won’t Fix It, But You Have Options!

If you are having issues with your landlord and you require legal representations, please give our firm a call at (248) 349-6203 or email us below. Please be advised that we cannot give legal advice over the phone and can only provide legal advice to our clients.

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