What Is The Law On Paying Rent When The Landlord Has Not Repaired Leaky Roof

If your landlord does not make repairs after you lot have either notified her in writing or she has been ordered by the Board of Health to make repairs, yous may need to consider other options:

Withhold Rent
Repair and Deduct
Organize
Suspension Your Lease
Go to Courtroom

Once you lot inform yourself of the options, you may want to consult with a tenant advocacy arrangement or lawyer (run across Directory).

1. Withhold Rent

One way to get your landlord to fix bad conditions is to withhold all or some of your rent until the landlord actually makes the repairs. This is called "rent withholding."⁴⁴

Tenants have a correct to withhold rent because landlords are obligated to provide safe and habitable housing under the warranty of habitability. If a landlord breaks this obligation, a tenant's obligation to pay the full amount of rent stops until repairs are made.⁴⁵ A tenant may want to withhold all or part of the rent, depending on the seriousness of the violations.⁴⁶ The law does not country how much or for how long you can withhold.

If you lot are considering withholding your hire, it is very important that you exercise it right. Before you begin to withhold, read the next sections in this chapter very carefully. Utilise the sample Rent Withholding Letter (Form 12).

Notation

If you are living in a hotel or motel or have lived in a rooming house for less than 3 sequent months, you lot exercise non have the right to withhold your hire to get the landlord to brand repairs. For more than information almost the rights of rooming house tenants, see Affiliate 15: Rooming Houses.

a. When Tin Y'all Withhold Rent

Before you lot tin can withhold rent, you lot must meet certain requirements.⁴⁷ If y'all can reply aye to all five of the questions below, you take met these requirements and can legally withhold your rent.

	Yeah	NO
Exercise defective conditions exist in your apartment?		
Do these weather condition "endanger or materially impair" the health, prophylactic, or well-being of anyone living in the home? (Come across Housing Code Checklist (Booklet two)).		
Does the landlord know about the defective conditions (and know this before yous were behind in your rent)?		
Were the conditions acquired past someone or something other than yourself or someone under your control (such equally a guest or a member of the household)?		
Tin your landlord brand repairs without yous having to permanently move out?		

If you lot answer yes to all v questions, you can legally withhold your rent and your landlord cannot evict you—although she may try. If a landlord tries to evict you and you have properly withheld your rent, your landlord may be violating other laws. See Chapter 12: Evictions - Retaliatory Evictions.

b. Withholding Gives You lot the Power to Negotiate

Rent withholding is the nearly direct way that you tin force your landlord to make repairs. More often than not, it is also the virtually successful tactic. It is peculiarly successful in a building where tenants concord to join together to withhold their rent. Meet Chapter 10: Getting Organized about how to organize a hire withholding entrada.

While you are withholding rent, you are in a better position to negotiate with the landlord about what you desire. Some of the issues that you tin negotiate include:

• The date when the landlord will beginning and consummate repairs,
• How much rent you will pay (or withhold) while repairs are being completed, and
• How much of the withheld hire you volition render (if any) once repairs are properly completed.

c. Protect Yourself When You Withhold

The right to withhold does not hateful that you have a right to live in your apartment hire-free. Rent withholding is a way to go the landlord to make repairs. Once a landlord makes repairs, you must resume paying rent.

The best fashion to protect yourself while you lot are withholding hire is to take your rent money and set it bated in a bank account separate from whatsoever other bank business relationship that you have. (Practice not keep greenbacks in your apartment.) Although the police does not require y'all to put your rent in a bank, there are several reasons why this is a good idea.

• First, if your landlord tries to evict you lot, you can show the court that you had the money to pay hire and you lot did not only stop paying because you were unable to pay. Setting upwardly a separate banking company account will also strengthen your case and give yous more credibility in the eyes of a guess if y'all accept the landlord to court or the landlord attempts to adios yous.
• Second, if a judge eventually orders y'all to pay some or all of the withheld rent to the landlord, yous will accept this money bachelor. If you don't pay, you can be evicted. Information technology is very unusual that a approximate would find that the conditions are and then bad that you would be entitled to withhold all (100%) of your rent, which is why it is and so important to have that rent money set bated.

Note

Legally, once your landlord makes repairs, you do non automatically have to give the landlord dorsum any of the rent y'all accept withheld. Simply a judge can social club y'all to do this. Y'all may decide to keep some or all of the hire you withheld because of the impact these conditions had on your apply of the apartment. If your landlord decides to take you to court to become back the withheld rent, explain to the guess how the conditions afflicted you and your family. Depending on the situation, a judge may make up one's mind you can keep part or all of the withheld rent.⁴⁸ To endeavor to avoid court and eviction, you can too negotiate with the landlord to try to hold on a fair sum to be given to the landlord for the period when you lot lived with the bad conditions.

d. Be Prepared for How Your Landlord May React

While you take a legal correct to withhold rent, your landlord may try to evict you. The best mode to protect yourself against eviction is to make sure you:

• Document the bad conditions,
• See all the requirements for withholding rent. For more than information meet When Can You Withhold Rent,
• Eolith your rent in a bank, and
• Employ the sample Hire Withholding Letter (Form 12) to notify your landlord about the bad conditions.

A re-create of a housing inspection study that accurately describes code violations is the best way to certificate violations of the land Sanitary Lawmaking. It is also proof that the landlord knew well-nigh the conditions.⁴⁹ Again, if y'all take a camera or video camera (or can borrow one), take pictures of the bad conditions ideally with a engagement and time stamp. If you print out the pictures write the date and time they were taken on the dorsum of the movie. A skilful picture will exist worth a thousand words if y'all need to prove that bad conditions be.

If a landlord wants to evict you, she must go to court and get permission from a approximate. If a approximate finds that you accept followed all the requirements under the hire-withholding law, you will have a legal defense to the eviction.^l This means a judge should not give the landlord permission to evict you lot and you can stay in your home. You lot may too have a legal claim confronting her for money damages. See Affiliate 12: Evictions for more well-nigh evictions and Chapter 13: When to Take Your Landlord to Court for more information well-nigh other legal claims.

A judge may also order you to pay an amount chosen the off-white rental value to the court. The fair rental value is the value of your flat with all its problems and code violations⁵¹ (run across box following this section). If a judge orders you lot to pay money to the court, ask the gauge likewise to order the landlord to fix all defective conditions. Ideally, you desire the court to hold onto your rent money until a landlord has made repairs. Although a court can decide to requite your landlord permission to employ the money you pay to the court to make repairs, you lot can ask the gauge to hold a hearing earlier returning this money to the landlord.⁵² This volition give you lot a chance to tell the guess if the landlord has fixed whatsoever of the problems.

At the end of an eviction instance, if a judge finds that, because of lawmaking violations, your landlord owes you the same amount as or more money than you owe her, you win the case and can stay in your flat. If, on the other manus, the court finds that you owe the landlord money, y'all can stay in your apartment only if you pay the amount you lot owe to the courtroom. (This is why it is important to ready aside your hire money—and then if a judge says y'all owe coin, y'all tin pay and stay.) You must pay this amount to the court within seven days of receiving a find from the court about the amount due.⁵³ If yous exercise not, y'all can exist evicted. The court may as well require y'all to pay sure court costs.⁵⁴

Determining Fair Rental Value: An Example

Because your stove doesn't piece of work, your toilet is broken, water leaks through the ceiling, and the landlord refuses to requite you a smoke detector, y'all withhold all of your hire. Your rent is $900 per calendar month.

Before you first to withhold, you lot notify your landlord in writing about all of these weather and go a housing inspection report. Y'all also put your rent money bated in the banking company.

Later on 3 months of withholding hire(a full of $ii,700), your landlord decides to effort to evict you instead of making repairs. She files an eviction example in court based on nonpayment of hire. Afterward hearing both sides of the case, a approximate finds that you properly withheld your rent. The judge also finds that during the 3 months y'all withheld your rent, the fair rental value of your apartment with all of the lawmaking violations was $450 per calendar month, as opposed to the $900 per calendar month that yous were beingness charged.

The court will then send y'all a notice saying you lot owe $i,350 for the 3 months you withheld hire plus court costs. If you pay this corporeality to the court within vii days of receiving this find, you can stay in your home. You too get to go on the other $1,350 you withheld.

If you do not pay the $1,350 plus court costs within the 7 days, the landlord is entitled to evict you. This is why information technology is so important to set the rent bated in a separate banking concern business relationship.

2. Repair and Deduct

Under certain weather, tenants in Massachusetts take the legal right to make repairs and deduct upwards to iv months' rent to pay for them.⁵⁵ This is referred to as "repair and deduct." The advantage of choosing to repair and deduct is that the repairs get washed. The disadvantage is that you are taking responsibility for making sure that the repairs are done well. Encounter the sample Repair and Deduct Letter (Course 13).

a. When Can You Repair and Deduct

To be able to deduct the cost of repairs from your rent, certain conditions must be met. If you can answer yeah to all five questions beneath, you can repair and deduct.

	Aye	NO
Are at that place violations that "endanger or materially impair" the health, safe, or well-being of a tenant that have beencertified by a housing inspector or that a court finds exist?		
Have y'all given the landlord or her amanuensis written discover of the violations?		
Did the landlord fail to substantially complete repairs inside 14 days after this written find, or inside such shorter fourth dimension if ordered past a housing inspector?		
Were the weather condition caused by someone or something other than yourself or someone under your control (such equally a guest or a member of the household)?		
Have you lot given your landlord access to your dwelling to make repairs?		

b. What Tin Y'all Repair

You are allowed past law to repair anything in your apartment or in the common areas of your building. If there are violations that affect several apartments or an entire edifice, a group of tenants can gather and have the repairs made. Make sure, nevertheless, that everyone is in understanding, that you have a certified Board of Health report documenting the problems, and that you lot accept given your landlord written notice of the violations. Each and every tenant can then deduct up to 4 months' hire for her share of the total.

For instance, you and other tenants may become the boiler in your building fixed, and then all affected tenants can later deduct upward to 4 months of hire, depending on how much the repair cost.

c. How Much Tin You lot Deduct

Under the police, you may deduct only a total of 4 months' rent in any 12-month period. Y'all cannot store up months of withheld rent over several years and and so deduct more than than 4 months' rent in a unmarried yr. If you determine to repair and deduct, salve all bills and receipts for materials and labor as proof of your costs. Remember: When yous make the repair, y'all are taking responsibleness for making sure it'due south done correct. When you hire someone to do the repairs, ask what complications or risks in that location may be in doing the repair. It is also a good idea to get a reference for anyone you rent and a few estimates for the work then you tin can show the cost of the person yous rent is reasonable

d. What If the Landlord Thinks You Deducted Too Much

If a landlord feels that you deducted too much for repairs, she is allowed to become to court to try and get dorsum some of this money. The law does non, withal, allow your landlord to evict you lot if the court believes that y'all have deducted too much rent.⁵⁷ It is as well illegal for landlords to raise your rent for repairs you legally fabricated under the repair and deduct statute, unless there is a court order permitting a hire increase.⁵⁸

If your landlord does take you to courtroom to try to get back possible excess rent deductions, do not ignore the courtroom notice. To show that the deductions were excessive, the landlord volition have to show that the deductions were for more than 4 months' hire during a 12-month period, or were unreasonable given the circumstances. In deciding if deductions were unreasonable, a judge will look to see what alternatives the tenant had at the time the violations were offset reported, how urgent the repairs were, and the quality and toll of the piece of work done.⁵⁹

Repairs for minor code violations, such as screens, small leaks, or pocket-size holes in the walls, will probably not exist found reasonable by the court unless at that place are so many of them that you can prove that the overall effect is unsafe.⁶⁰ This is difficult to do.

3. Organize

If other tenants in your building or customs face bad weather, there are ways to piece of work together to improve everyone's living atmospheric condition. Tenants tin can all concur to withhold rent until the landlord makes repairs. A grouping of tenants can ask a gauge to order the landlord to brand repairs. If the landlord absolutely refuses to fix the bad conditions, tenants tin can ask a court to engage a temporary landlord chosen a receiver in order to make repairs. For more see section in this chapter called Receivership. Tenants can also organize and together put pressure on the local Board of Health to inspect their apartments and enforce the state Sanitary Code and local health ordinances.

Chapter 10: Getting Organized gives you data most how to brainstorm to organize tenants. Information technology will also give you specific organizing steps you can accept to get repairs made.

4. Break Your Lease

When there are very serious violations of the Sanitary Code in your apartment and you feel yous must move, the law allows you to pause your lease. If yous do not have a lease, you lot tin can leave without giving the usual xxx-twenty-four hour period notice (or whatever discover may be required in your situation) to the landlord. You are allowed to break your lease or move out without giving the usual notice because the landlord has violated her obligation to provide a habitable apartment under the warranty of habitability.⁶¹

If yous motion out early on, your landlord may try to sue you lot for moving early on and for the residual of the rent due under any lease. For this reason, before y'all move out, it is wise to obtain a Board of Health study equally proof of the violations in your apartment.

Keep in listen

If violations are not serious, you may be held responsible for paying the rent if you leave without proper observe.

When you motility out because of serious violations, y'all are entitled to get back your security eolith. If you have to get to court to get your eolith back, y'all might have to testify that the weather condition in your apartment were severe enough to permit your leaving. For more than data most getting security deposits back and moving out, run into Chapter three: Security Deposits and Last Month'south Rent and Chapter 11: Moving Out.

5. Go to Court

If your landlord refuses to make repairs, you can take her to courtroom. The court has the ability to do a number of things. A guess tin:

• Order your landlord to make repairs,
• Order your landlord to pay you money for the harm that you accept suffered,
• Engage a receiver: a person or organization appointed by the courtroom to manage and set up up the belongings (see department in this chapter chosen Receivership)⁶² ,
• Fine your landlord or put your landlord in jail for violating the law.

There are primarily iv types of complaints that y'all can file with the court to demand that a landlord make repairs:

1. Tenant Petition;
2. Emergency Injunction, likewise called a Temporary Restraining Guild;
3. Criminal Complaint;
4. Civil Complaint.

a. Tenant Petition

Tenants tin ask a approximate to order their landlord to repair weather that violate the country Sanitary Code (or local health ordinance, if it is stricter). This is chosen a tenant petition.⁶³ Come across the sample Tenant Petition for Enforcement of the State Sanitary Lawmaking (Form xiv). When you file a tenant petition, a judge can:

• Order the landlord to brand repairs, or
• Engage a temporary landlord chosen a receiver to make repairs.

The benefits of bringing a tenant petition are that it may be a safety fashion for y'all to get repairs made without having to withhold rent and the courtroom filing fee is low.⁶⁴ If you withhold your hire, yous may have to go to courtroom to defend yourself confronting an eviction. If you file a tenant petition, you—not your landlord—are bringing the matter before a approximate. A tenant petition also puts you lot in a improve position to negotiate what you want with the landlord. For more well-nigh negotiating, see Chapter 14: Using the Court System - Negotiating a Good Settlement and Affiliate 10: Getting Organized - Negotiating a Solution with the Landlord.

When y'all file a tenant petition, a approximate also has the power to make certain other decisions. A judge may decide that until your landlord makes repairs, your rent should be lowered to the fair rental value of your apartment. The fair rental value is the value of your home with all of its problems. A approximate can require yous to pay this amount to the court clerk (in improver to any past rent yous accept withheld or owe) while the landlord makes repairs.⁶⁵ Ideally, yous want the court to hold onto this coin until the landlord makes repairs, and then that the landlord has some incentive to get them done. A guess can, even so, release this money to your landlord for purposes of making repairs.⁶⁶

Note

A judge also has the power in a tenant petition to order the Lath of Wellness to condemn a very unsafe building. This could lead to tenants' evictions.⁶⁷ (For more about condemnations, see What If Your Building Is Condemned in this chapter.)

b. Emergency Injunction

If you want a approximate to order your landlord to make emergency repairs, you tin can file a complaint and ask a court to issue an injunction.⁶⁸ An injunction is an order from the court that tells your landlord to take immediate action to right a problem or to cease doing something that is illegal. For example, a guess can order your landlord to immediately fix the heating arrangement.

In almost cases, tenants asking an emergency order called a temporary restraining order or TRO when they get-go go to court and file the complaint. Considering this is an emergency, you may request a TRO without first notifying the landlord. Run into a Temporary Restraining Gild (Grade xv).
Or try the MassAccess interactive interview, Complaint for a Temporary Restraining Order, that lets you complete, review, sign and transport your request for a Temporary Restraining Order to the court from your smart phone or computer.

If a guess gives you a TRO, it is good for but a curt menstruation of fourth dimension—the maximum is ten days. If you lot demand an gild to last longer than 10 days, yous must ask the courtroom to schedule some other hearing where you can request what is called a preliminary injunction. A preliminary injunction is an order that tin cover a longer period of time. If yous utilise Grade 15, you can ask for a hearing for a preliminary injunction at the same time you ask for a TRO.

If you get a TRO from the judge, take a copy of information technology to a sheriff's or constable'south role immediately. A sheriff or constable must serve it on your landlord. A TRO is not skilful unless your landlord has knowledge of it. If your landlord refuses to obey a TRO, you should go dorsum to court and tell the judge. If a judge finds that your landlord has non obeyed the TRO, the landlord may exist held in antipathy and can be arrested and fined.

When y'all file the complaint to seek a TRO and preliminary injunction, yous volition likewise demand to pay the filing and service fees. If you cannot afford these fees, you can inquire the court to waive or eliminate the filing fee and to pay the service fee. To do this use the Affidavit of Indigency form (Booklet 9).

c. Criminal Complaint

If your landlord refuses to make repairs, you can file an application for criminal complaint (and pay the filing fee) or ask the Board of Health to file an application for a criminal complaint. You can exercise this at the same time you pursue other strategies. Considering it can take several weeks for a court to schedule a hearing for a criminal complaint, this strategy does not ordinarily produce a quick result. A criminal complaint tin can, however, result in a landlord having to pay a fine or spend time in jail. The advantages of a criminal activity over a civil activity are:

• It may put more than pressure on the landlord to make repairs.
• If the Board of Wellness brings the criminal complaint, you may not have to become to courtroom considering the inspector can nowadays all the necessary evidence.

The major disadvantage of a criminal action is that you lose control over the instance. The Assistant District Attorney or the City's Chaser volition prosecute the case. You or your lawyer do not control the twenty-four hours-to-24-hour interval direction of the suit. Also, you must exist willing and able to appear in court, sometimes on a calendar week-to-week footing, if you are the person bringing the complaint. You may get quicker results if you file a civil complaint or a tenant petition.

At that place are two kinds of criminal cases that tenants can bring against landlords who fail to repair Sanitary Code violations. The first is where the landlord fails to comply with the Germ-free Code.⁶⁹ You lot or the Board of Health may bring this kind of complaint.^lxx Fines for violations of the country Sanitary Code can range from $10 to $500 a 24-hour interval.⁷¹

The second blazon of case is where the landlord fails to provide oestrus, hot water, or other utilities or interferes with your quiet enjoyment. Just tenants who are affected past the landlord'due south illegal behavior can file this type of criminal complaint. To bring this blazon of complaint, you do not demand a Lath of Health inspection, although it is very helpful. In addition to fining your landlord, a judge tin can also sentence a landlord to serve up to six months in jail for violation of the constabulary of quiet enjoyment.

d. Civil Complaint

If a landlord refuses to repair code violations, tenants can file a civil complaint or a pocket-sized claims lawsuit. A small claims case is a civil lawsuit that involves no more than $7,000.⁷² In a civil complaint, you bring a lawsuit against your landlord for coin for the harm that you have suffered or are suffering because of code violations; and you lot can also ask the judge to issue an injunction (see section called Emergency Injunction). You can also appoint a receiver (see section chosen Receivership). If you lot bring a civil lawsuit against your landlord considering she has failed to make repairs, in that location are primarily vi types of legal claims you tin can include:

• Alienation of Warranty of Habitability,
• Breach of Tranquillity Enjoyment,
• Unfair and Deceptive Practices,
• Negligence,
• Infliction of Emotional Distress,
• Nuisance.

Each of these legal claims is described in Chapter 13: When to Take Your Landlord to Court. As you read, y'all may find that your landlord has violated other laws. Before you lot decide to bring a lawsuit against your landlord, you need to carefully evaluate the strength of your case.

Source: https://www.masslegalhelp.org/housing/problems/getting-landlord-make-repairs/refusing-repairs

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