LANDLORD-TENANT RELATIONSHIP
RIGHTS AND DUTIES
EVECTION
Landlord-tenant laws govern the relationship, rights, rules, and responsibilities of the parties
to a residential rental agreement.
Landlords must also know the landlord-tenant laws in their state regarding when landlords can enter
their occupied rental property and the required notice that landlords must give tenants in advance of
planning to enter the premises. One of the most important aspects of landlord law in any state is the
statutes governing violation of the lease. If tenants fail to pay rent on time or damage the property,
you cannot just throw them out, set their belongings outside, change locks or take other illegal or
criminal actions. By renter's landlord's rights you must also supply tenants with fair
and proper notices. If you fail to word notices as designated in the statutes, you could possibly lose your
case in
court.
Rights and Duties of Landlords
The law imposes several duties on the landlord and gives
the tenant several corresponding rights.
These rights include:
(1) possession
(2) habitable condition
(3) noninterference with use.
Possession
The landlord must give the tenant the right of possession of the property.
This duty is breached if, at the time the tenant is entitled to take possession, a third
the party has paramount title to the property and the assertion of this title would deprive
the tenant of the use contemplated by the parties. Paramount title means any legal interest
in the premises
that is not terminable at the will of the landlord or at the time the tenant is
entitled to take possession.
If the tenant has already taken possession and then discovers the paramount title,
or if the paramount title only then comes into existence, the landlord is not automatically
in breach. However, if the tenant thereafter is evicted from the premises and thus
deprived of the property, then the landlord is in breach. Suppose the landlord
rents a house to a doctor for ten years, knowing that the doctor intends to open a
medical office in part of the home and knowing also that the lot is restricted to
residential uses only. The doctor moves in. The landlord is not yet in default.
The landlord will be in default if a neighbor obtains an injunction against maintaining
the office. But
if the landlord did not know (and could not reasonably have known) that the
doctor intended to use his home for an office, then the landlord would not be
in default under the lease, since the property could have been put to
normal—that is, residential—use without jeopardizing the tenant’s right to
possession.
Warranty of Habitability
As applied to leases, the old common-law doctrine of caveat emptor said that once the tenant has signed the lease, she must take the premises as she finds them. Since she could inspect them before signing the lease, she should not complain later. Moreover, if hidden defects come to light, they ought to be easy enough for the tenant herself to fix. Today this rule no longer applies, at least to residential rentals. Unless the parties specifically agree otherwise, the landlord is in breach of his lease if the conditions are unsuitable for residential use when the tenant is due to move in. The landlord is held to an implied warranty of habitability.
The change in the rule is due in part to the conditions of the
modern urban setting: tenants have little or no power to walk away from an
available apartment in areas where housing is scarce. It is also due to modem
construction and technology: few tenants are capable of fixing most types of
defects. A US court of appeals has said the following:
Today’s urban tenants, the vast majority of whom live in
multiple dwelling houses, are interested not in the land, but solely in “a
house suitable for occupation.” Furthermore, today’s city dweller usually has a
single, specialized skill unrelated to maintenance work; he is unable to make
repairs like the “jack-of-all-trades” farmer who was the common law’s model of
the lessee. Further, unlike his agrarian predecessor who often remained on one
piece of land for his entire life, urban tenants today are more mobile than
ever before. A tenant’s tenure in a specific apartment will often not be
sufficient to justify efforts at repairs. Also, the increasing
complexity of today’s dwellings renders them much more difficult to repair than
the structures of earlier times. In a multiple dwelling, repairs may require
access to equipment and areas in control of the landlord. Low and middle-income
tenants, even if they were interested in making repairs, would be unable to
obtain financing for major repairs since they have no long-term interest in the
property.
At common law, the landlord was not responsible if the premises
became unsuitable once the tenant moved in. This rule was often harshly
applied, even for unsuitable conditions caused by a sudden act of God, such as
a tornado. Even if the premises collapsed, the tenant would be liable to pay
the rent for the duration of the lease. Today, however, many states have
statutorily abolished the tenant’s obligation to pay the rent if a non-man-made
force renders the premises unsuitable. Moreover, most states today impose on
the landlord, after the tenant has moved in, the responsibility for maintaining
the premises in a safe, livable condition, consistent with the safety, health,
and housing codes of the jurisdiction.
These rules apply only in the absence of an express agreement
between the parties. The landlord and tenant may allocate in the lease the
responsibility for repairs and maintenance. But it is unlikely that any court
would enforce a lease provision waiving the landlord’s implied warranty of
habitability for residential apartments, especially in areas where housing is
relatively scarce.
Noninterference with Use
In addition to maintaining the premises in a physically suitable
manner, the landlord has an obligation to the tenant not to interfere with a
permissible use of the premises. Suppose Simone moves into a building with
several apartments. One of the other tenants consistently plays music late in
the evening, causing Simone to lose sleep. She complains to the landlord, who
has a provision in the lease permitting him to terminate the lease of any
tenant who persists in disturbing other tenants. If the landlord does nothing
after Simone has notified him of the disturbance, he will be in breach. This
right to be free of interference with permissible uses is sometimes said to
arise from the landlord’s implied covenant of quiet enjoyment.
EVICTION
Eviction refers to a landlord barring a tenant from using
the property, usually due to the tenant materially violating the lease and/or
not paying the agreed-upon rent.
A landlord, however, may not evict a tenant in
retaliation for the tenant reporting housing violations or other problems
with the condition of the property. This is typically referred to as
the doctrine of retaliatory eviction.
THE LANDLORD TAKES THE FOLLOWING STEPS
1.
Self-help eviction
1.
The landlord physically enters
the premises and causes the tenant to leave. The landlord, however, muse
use only a reasonable amount of force. In the limited number of jurisdictions
that still allow self-help evictions, a court would determine what a
"reasonable" amount of force would be.
2.
Sue the tenant.
1.
The landlord can sue to evict the
tenant. If the court rules to evict, then the landlord must allow a law
enforcement officer to enforce the judgment.
However, the majority of
jurisdictions do not allow for self-help evictions. Therefore, for a
landlord to evict a tenant, the landlord typically must sue the tenant in court
and allow the court to enforce an eviction order.