When you are a tenant, your monthly rent payment buys you much more than just the right to occupy the property that you lease. When you pay your rent each month, you renew your entitlement to certain renter protections and tenant rights. While the specific protections and tenant rights may vary, every state places certain obligations and requirements on landlords in order to protect tenants. While the specific protections and tenant rights vary from state to state, there are certain things you must do as a tenant in order to be able to effectively enforce your tenant rights against your landlord. Read on for more information that will help you protect your tenant rights.
When you rent the home that you live in, you get certain renter protections and tenant rights. Every month when you pay your rent, that action entitles you to certain things from your landlord. It is every tenant’s right to live in a property that is safe. Every tenant has the right to expect that the landlord will start and complete any needed repairs in a reasonable amount of time. Every tenant has the right to a full and accurate accounting of any security deposit paid. Equally important, unless you caused damage to a property or failed to meet your financial obligations, as a tenant, you have the right to expect a full refund of your security deposit. Repairs and security deposit refunds are just the beginning. Depending on the state you live in, there are numerous protections and rights that you have as a tenant who pays rent. This article will be an introduction to an ongoing occasional series in which we will explore tenant rights and protections. Here we will provide an overview of tenant rights. Be sure to check back often as future postings will delve into greater detail about various tenant rights and state-specific information detailing what tenants must do to enforce their rights.
No matter what state you live in, you can safely bet your rent money that your state has a set of laws concerning the relationship between you and your landlord. Whether they call it the landlord-tenant act, landlord-tenant code, or landlord-tenant statute, every state in the U.S.A. has enacted laws or rules that govern the relationship between you and your landlord. While the amount of protection you get as a tenant varies depending on the state you are in, the landlord-tenant laws can cover nearly every aspect of your tenancy. From you completing and the landlord processing the rental application, to you paying and the landlord handling you security deposit, to your right to privacy and the landlord’s right to access while you are living in the property, all the way to you moving out and returning possession to the landlord, so many things are contained in these statutes or codes.
The importance of being familiar with your state’s landlord-tenant law cannot be overstated. As much as the lease that you signed, these rules and laws set forth what you, as a tenant, have the right to expect or even legally demand from your landlord, as well as the things that your landlord must do for you, and – most importantly – the specific steps that you must take and the exact requirements that you must meet in order to force your landlord to live up to its obligations to you.
If you were to read the landlord-tenant act for each state, it is likely that you would quickly notice a few things. By the time you reached the fourth state’s law, you would probably start to think that there’s a significant difference in the amount of protection renters get in different states. After reading a few more, your suspicion would be confirmed. Some states have statutes that are very landlord-friendly and others have ones that are far more tenant-friendly. It seems very unfair that geographic location plays such an important role in how landlords must treat tenants. We think this is especially unfair because the residential landlord industry, which was once dominated by small mom and pop type operations, is increasingly being overtaken by large national landlord corporations such as American Homes 4 Rent, FirstKey Homes, Invitation Homes, Main Street Renewal, and Progress Residential. In an upcoming post, we will discuss the importance of a tenant movement that demands national standards and regulations for this rapidly evolving and growing industry.
Continuing with our hypothetical project in which you decide to read the landlord-tenant laws for every state, there would be something else that you would notice very early on. In addition to telling landlords what they have to do for tenants, these statutes also tell you – the tenant – the steps you must to take to enforce your tenant rights against the landlord. While there are some minor differences from state to state, nearly every state requires that a tenant provide the landlord with written notice of any problem. In most cases, the clock does not start ticking on the landlord’s duty to take action until it receives written notice from the tenant. In some places, if the tenant fails to provide the landlord with written notice, the landlord is not under a legal obligation to perform.
Whether you are an Ohio tenant who needs to escrow rent payments because your landlord refuses to make repairs or you are a Texas tenant who wants to utilize Texas’ provision that allows a tenant to make a needed repair and then deduct the cost from the rent payment without having to get a court’s permission, you MUST provide the landlord with notice of the problem and then wait a reasonable period of time (the exact amount of time varies by state) to see whether the landlord will respond before you can take action. Some states require you to follow up in writing a second time. The requirement for written notice is not just for repairs. Written notice is required for nearly every option for remedy or relief that is available to tenants.
While nearly every state requires you to give written notice, most states do not give tenants sufficiently detailed information or guidance as to the steps that must be taken. While there may be some variation in requirements from state to state (so definitely have a look at your particular state’s law), here is some general guidance for preparing and sending a notice to your landlord:
- Identify yourself and the address of the property that you rent. This could be as simple as “My name is Tammy Tenant. I am writing to you about the property I rent from you which is located at 123 Landlord Lane, Landlordville, TN 12345.”
- Provide a clear and detailed explanation of your problem or of whatever it is you need from the landlord. If you are giving notice of repairs that need to be performed, make sure that you create a list that specifies each item to be repaired. Think of this as creating a checklist that you and the landlord can both use.
- Demand that your request be taken care of within a definite period of time. In most states, the statutes state that you have to give the landlord a “reasonable” amount of time to take care of your request. What is a reasonable amount of time depends heavily on the nature of the problem you are experiencing. For example, if you are giving your landlord notice that it must repair an essential service like heat in the winter or running water, you might demand that repairs be started within 48 hours. For other major repairs that are not deemed essential services, a reasonable amount of time might be 7 days. For minor items, 30 days might be considered reasonable. Because some states do provide a definite number of days, be sure to consult the landlord-tenant law for your specific state.
- State the action you will take or legal remedy you will seek. This would be based on whatever is provided for by your state. In some states, including Ohio, you can escrow your rent payment which means you pay your rent to the court instead of to your landlord. In other states, like Texas, you can make the repair yourself and deduct the amount from your rent. In a number of states, if your landlord fails to take the required action in the amount of time provided, you can terminate your lease and recover certain costs. Whichever remedy you plan to chose, make sure you include it in your letter of notice.
- Always be certain to sign and date the notice letter.
- Send the notice to your property manager but also send a copy to the corporate office (if applicable). Most statutes contain language similar to that found in Texas – “notice shall be sent to the person or place where rent is normally paid.” However, since it is likely that your lease specifies a different place – usually to its corporate headquarters – as the address to which notice must be sent – we recommend sending it both locally and to corporate.
- Always send the notice by certified mail. It is important that you be able to prove that you actually sent the notice to your landlord.
If you don’t quite know how to start putting together a notice to send to your landlord or if writing your own letter from scratch seems overwhelming, here are a few online sources that you can use as a guide. Take a look here https://www.texastenant.org/pdf_files/1034_Demand_Letter_Repair.pdf for a letter demanding repairs. This letter is for Texas but you can easily make a few changes to make it work for you. If your concern is something other than repairs, you can take a look here https://real-estate-law.freeadvice.com/real-estate-law/landlord_tenant/1558/ to find a template you can use for creating your own letter. If you’d rather avoid the trouble of preparing your own letter, check out ProTenant Agency’s Services Offered page here https://protenantagency.fairness4tenants.com/our-services/?et_fb=1&PageSpeed=off. For a very reasonable price (starting as low as $59.00), ProTenant Agency’s Tenant Support Specialists – all of whom are property managers and former employees of large rental property owners and/or property management companies – will prepare a professionally written letter for you and provide helpful information to help you present your demand to your landlord and negotiate for the best results.
Hopefully, once your landlord or property manager sees that you know your tenant rights and are also following your obligations as a tenant, they will move forward and handle your request in a timely manner. In the event they fail to do so and you need help with what to do next, check back here on our site as we are already working on a follow-up posting that will give guidance for what you should do next.
In the meantime, as always, we’d love to hear from you. Have you had trouble getting your landlord to live up to its obligations? What worked for you? What steps did you take and how long did it take for you to get results? Let us know in the comments below.