Who is liable for damage to a rented house not caused by tenant? Towards the end of a lease of a house, the glass in a sliding door was shattered and cost €300 to repair (which was paid by the landlord). When the tenant was leaving, the landlord deducted the cost of the repair from the security deposit. The tenant disputed the deduction on the following grounds: The door was actually damaged by a neighbour during an argument / fight. The landlord spoke with the neighbour's mother (the guy who allegedly broke the glass not being available at the time) who denied vehemently that the boy did it and supposed that the partner of the tenant did it in an act of rage (related to the argument but that's not really relevant), but promised to pay if the police (who had been called at the time) found that he did. Now my question is, must the landlord return the deposit in full and seek payment by pursuing the matter with the police, or can they withhold the amount from the deposit and leave it up to the tenant to seek reparations from the neighbour in question?
Under the Residental Tenancies Act of 2004, the landlord is obligated to carry out necessary repairs to both the structure and interior of the dwelling. The Act provides that this obligation (as with others) cannot be &quot;varied, modified, or restricted&quot; by a rental contract. Meanwhile, the tenant is obligated to not do any act that would cause a deterioration in the condition the dwelling was in at the commencement of the tenancy (with &quot;normal wear and tear&quot; explicitly disclaimed from the tenant's responsibilities). The landlord is not obligated to repair damages caused by the tenant violating that obligation. So the landlord is generally responsible for repairs (and, in fact, if the tenant had needed to arrange for the door to be repaired themself, they would have been able to deduct the cost from rent). If the tenant had broken the door, it would have been a breach of their responsibilities. But if a neighbor, or even the tenant's partner, had broken the door, it would not have violated the tenant's obligation and so the landlord would remain responsible for the repair.
I would presume that this is legal (without researching the laws in Cali. or Texas). Their contract is an offer to enter into an agreement. You accept that offer by signing. Their pre-requisite for that offer is that you pay the nonrefundable application fee. In other words, they are refusing to make you an offer until you pay a set fee. Now the degree of negotiability, among other factors, would go into determining whether the contract is fully enforceable. I did a little bit of research. (Please note that this is not legal advice. If this applies to a current situation, seek the advice of an attorney licensed to practice in your jurisdiction.) There does not seem to be any indication that the landlord needs to provide a sample lease to you before s/he decides that you are an eligible applicant. The application fee is not a contract to rent the premises; it is an application to be considered a tenant. Pro-Business Perspective: Why would I (the landlord) waste my time going over an application with someone and show them a model unit if they are not even eligible to rent from me? I have better things to do. Pro-Consumer Perspective: Why waste my time and money if I refuse non-negotiable terms in a lease? The application fee is capped in California and must be used to cover screening costs or refunded if not used. The likelihood of success in a claim regarding this might be indicated by the California Dept. of Consumer Affairs: "If you don't like the landlord's policy on application screening fees, you may want to look for another rental unit. If you decide to pay the application screening fee, any agreement regarding a refund should be in writing." It is important to note that you can always try to negotiate with the landlord. Personally, every lease I have had I have negotiated to get more favorable terms. You, as a tenant, have every right to try to negotiate, and should use that right.
This is related to Can a store sell merchandise I&#39;ve left in the store? The phone in question has been mislaid and anyone who finds it has a duty to deliver it to the owner of the bench for safekeeping pending the true owner's return: if the owner does not return within a reasonable time the phone becomes the property of the bench owner (e.g. the city that owns the park). However, the specific question here is: Where the owner has returned within a reasonable time but the possessor of the phone is now clearly attempting to steal it. Most jurisdictions recognise that a person is entitled to use reasonable force to defend their life or property. For example, the law in Australia1, is generally case law for which the authority is the High Court's decision in Zecevic v DPP (1987) 162 CLR 645: The question to be asked in the end is quite simple. It is whether the accused believed upon reasonable grounds that it was necessary in self-defence to do what he did. If he had that belief and there were reasonable grounds for it, or if the jury is left in reasonable doubt about the matter, then he is entitled to an acquittal. Stated in this form, the question is one of general application and is not limited to cases of homicide. So, you are entitled to do "what you believe upon reasonable grounds that it was necessary to do" to defend your property. This would include using physical force to stop their flight and return your property to your possession: it would not include force that posed real and foreseeable risk of inflicting death or grievous bodily harm upon them. In addition, because you have reasonable grounds to believe that they have committed a crime, you are allowed to arrest them and deliver them to lawful custody (i.e. a police officer). Naturally, if you do not have reasonable grounds them you have just kidnapped them. The consequences if you do injure them is that you can be charged with a crime (battery, grievous bodily harm, manslaughter, murder etc.) and/or be sued for damages (medical bills, lost wages etc.) in both cases you could use self-defence as a defence. The difference between self-defence and vigilante justice is one is legal and the other isn't
Probably not, although it is impossible to say without reading the lease. Usually leases are monthly. That means you pay for the entire month or lease term regardless of how much or how little you use the property. It seems weird that the lease ends on the 21st, but if that is the case, then you are legally obligated to pay for that time interval. That said, if you want to drive a hard bargain, you could threaten to reoccupy the apartment and stay in it until the 21st which are legally entitled to do, unless he refunds you some money. You would have to be a pretty serious hard-ass to pull this off, or be prepared to go to court. One possible course of action is that you demand return of the key and say you changed your mind and will be staying in the apartment until the 21st. Make sure the conversation is recorded and that he knows the conversation is recorded, or have a witness. He will refuse. You can then sue him for denying you the use of your property.
The landlady is trying it on. The purpose of a deposit is to protect the landlord from being left out of pocket by: damage to the property rent arrears Reasonable wear and tear does not constitute damage. It seems unlikely that the stiff tap is as a result of damage. The hob is not so clear cut: the landlady could argue that it was damaged, albeit by accident, and the cost of repair taken from your deposit. If she insists that the only remedy is to replace the hob, she should make an appropriate deduction to reflect the fact that it is several years old and will be replaced by one that is new (thereby gaining her some value). It would be reasonable for you to expect to see the written report from the gas inspector who has condemned the whole hob in that case. But I find it hard to believe that: the plastic knob cannot be replaced doing so would make the hob unsafe, if the knob can be removed for cleaning it's my understanding that if the hob is indeed broken, I only have to pay what it was worth at the moment before it was broken. Your liability is to return her to the position she would have been in had the damage not occurred. If that means replacing a removable plastic part instead of the whole hob, that would be a reasonable remedy.
Landlord-tenant laws are state-specific, and given the number of states it's impractical to scan all of the laws, but based on a reading of a handful of such laws I doubt that there is any law requiring landlords to pay the oil for a rented house. (The matter would be different if there was a multi-unit building with no individual control over temperature, thus pooled fuel usage). It's not clear to me what you assumed the agreement means, where it says "N/A". Perhaps you believed at the time that the place had a different heating system, and you relied on that assumption. In that case, you might be able to go to court and have the contract voided, and you could pick another place to live. If the "options" are specified so that some things are assigned to tenant, some to landlord, and some are N/A, that would especially lead to the reasonable belief that there was no oil heat in the house. But if the only indications were "landlord" versus "n/a", then you could interpret "n/a" as meaning "not the responsibility of the landlord". Analogously, if the agreement only lists "tenant" and "n/a" then a reasonable interpretation would be that this means "the tenant pays" versus "the tenant does not pay". This reasoning would also have to survive the alternative interpretation that the tenant pays for everything, except that n/a means "there isn't one of these". In other words, the meaning of the term might be determinable from the overall context of what's in the agreement. Since the house does not come with a full tank (as with car rentals), the question of what to do with the residual oil at the end of the lease should also be specified. Unlike gas or electric, you're not just paying for actual consumption, you're paying for potential consumption, and you would have an interest in the remaining half-tank at the end of the lease. You could just walk away from that investment (pumping it out and taking it with you could be illegal, since the stuff is kind of a contaminant), or you could have an agreement where the landlord buys the oil back from you, but that should be specified in the agreement (and I assume it isn't). This kind of consideration could support a claim that you reasonably believed that there was no oil system (if there were, there would be some term relating to your interest in the residual oil), or even a belief that the landlord would pay the cost of the oil (since he ultimately gets the remaining oil at the end of the lease). You attorney (hint) should advise you how to approach this.
Joint tenancy means that you both have equal (full) rights to the entire property, so just as you don't his permission to live there or to invite guests, he doesn't either. Unless they threaten you in some way (and you get a court order barring them from entering), there is no legal means to deprive an owner of their property rights, while they are still an owner.
Once your rental contract starts, your landlord must give you access to the rented flat. If he doesn't do so he is in breach of contract. You could sue him, but that would be a bad start for a longer term contractual agreement. It might be less time and effort to look for a new flat. And do you really want to be in a long term contract with someone who breaches contract right from the start based on arbitrary reasons? In any case, you can and you should cut the rent proportionally for every day without access to the flat. Your landlord has by no means a right to check your luggage. Even if there would be such a regulation in the contract, it would be void, because of invasion of privacy. It looks to me that you are in for some bad times with such a landlord. I can assure you that most landlords are not like this. Another reason to probably look for a new flat. Legally you are right, but what does that help you if your landlord is trouble?