Can I legally refuse entry to a landlord? I am subletting an apartment from a friend who is technically my landlord. I refused him entry late at night after we had a row about a longstanding problem with one of the facilities in the apartment I just moved in to. The friend is angry at me saying that I &quot;Refused him entry to his own room&quot;, and sent messages requesting his room back within a week. There was no notice given before he wanted to enter the room, it was just something he decided after we had already met that night. Can I legally refuse entry to a landlord?
In general, a German landlord needs to give at least 24 hours notice before he can enter a home, and allowance from the renter. The renter also has the &quot;Hausrecht&quot;, not the landlord. There are exceptions, most of them to prevent damage from an ongoing danger threatening the house. A clear example would be a broken water pipe. 1 week notice also appears to violate tenant laws - I hope you have a written contract about the subletting.
You can read about your rights as a California tenant at http://www.dca.ca.gov/publications/landlordbook/catenant.pdf This is rather ridiculous: 1) No judge will evict someone for paying rent by mail. (I assume you have the new landlord's address.) 2) If the landlord cashes the check you mail then he's not going to be able to claim you didn't pay the rent. If he actually refuses to cash your mailed check then that's all to the good for you. 3) You can ignore any requirements imposed by the new landlord that aren't in the lease, just as the landlord could ignore any new requirement imposed on him by you. Even some terms in a lease can be ignored, because not all terms in a contract are legal. (This is especially the case in tenant-landlord law.) If you think there will be trouble then use certified mail.
Is it legally possible for a tenant to replace their landlord? Generally not. The landlord-tenant relationship flows from the landlord's ownership of the property and the tenant can do nothing to change that (short of buying the land from the landlord in a voluntary transaction). If the landlord were a government agency, the tenant could petition the government to put a different employee in charge of managing the lease, and if the landlord were a trust it is barely conceivable that the tenant could assist some other party in removing the trustee and replacing the trustee with another trustee (particularly if the trust was a charitable trust or the tenant was also a beneficiary of the trust). But, generally speaking, this is not possible.
Notwithstanding the current COVID-19 regulations, I cannot find any Scottish law, regulation or rule that prevents a lawful tenant from having long-term visitors. However, it may (or may not) be a breach of the tenancy agreement depending on its terms which is where one should look for a definitive answer.
Generally speaking, you signature and delivery of the lease to the landlord makes it possible for the landlord to enforce. Particularly when, as in the question, the landlord presented the lease to you as an &quot;offer&quot; which you accepted without modification, it is probably binding upon the landlord even if the landlord does not sign it or return a copy with the landlord's signature. In jurisdictions that have a statute of frauds, your part performance by sending checks in the lease period consistent with the lease, and the landlord's part performance by continuing to allow you to occupy the premises without objection, would probably make the statute of frauds (which generally requires a signed writing by the party against whom a lease is enforced) to be inapplicable. On the other hand, if you materially changed a version provided by the landlord, there is a real question over whether there has been an offer and acceptance, or a meeting of the minds, agreeing to the new lease. Materially here meaning changes that are more than updating your contact details and go to the heart of the lease contract.
This is a very difficult situation. Discrimination is not the right frame within which to view this as your roommate doesn't have authority over you the way that an employer or landlord would. The basic legal issue would be whether your roommate is constructively evicting you from you residence without valid justification for doing so. And, the answer might very well be yes. But, even if that is the case, since the roommate is not an agent of the landlord, your roommate's actions probably don't relieve you from your duties under the lease. So, your relief might be to vacate the premises and then to sue the roommate for the rent you have to pay without receiving anything in return. This is expensive relative to the likely returns, and there is no certainty that you would win or that you would get your attorneys' fees if you prevailed. This would also be a slow solution taking several months at a minimum. Or, in the alternative, you could leave and cease paying the rent, forcing the roommates who remain to pay it if they don't want to be evicted as they are probably jointly and severally liable for the rent. (If they sued you for your share of the rent, constructive eviction by one of them would probably be a good defense.) The landlord could sue all of the roommates if they don't pay, causing them to be evicted and you to be on the hook for any rent or other amounts that they owe, including the landlord's attorneys' fees (and hurting your credit). You could probably cross-claim for indemnification of any amounts you were required to pay in that lawsuit against your roommate. But, this too would be an expensive, complex and slow solution if the remaining roommates don't decide to simply keep paying the rent. It would be very hard for you to evict your problem roommate for breaching the lease by denying you your equal rights to the premises, since you are not the landlord, although it isn't impossible that a court would allow this relief and it would be relatively quick. It would also leave open the question of who was responsible for the evicted roommate's rent. The remaining roommates would be liable vis-a-vis the landlord, and would face eviction if they don't pay, and probably couldn't get a new roommate without the landlord's permission. And, the evicted tenant would probably remain on the hook vis-a-vis the landlord, but might not have a duty to indemnify the roommates who stayed. Also, in any lawsuit where you sue the roommate, the roommate would likely counterclaim against you for non-disclosure of HSV2, and while that would probably not prevail in the end, it would make the legal process hellish for you. The trouble is that there are really no good solutions that you could easily impose on them. A mutual agreement between the landlord and the other tenants to release you from the lease so you could find somewhere else, or to release the problem tenant from the lease so that you and your other roommate could replace that person, is probably the best solution, but that takes mutual agreement of multiple parties.
The government of California has an extensive manual that says what you can and cannot do. To terminate a lease (a rental agreement for a year is a lease), there would have to be just cause for eviction (p. 65), such as failing to pay rent, violating terms of the agreement, cockfighting, and so on, and that does not include being a pain in the neck. Nor would the need to make repairs justify terminating a lease. On p. 79 they clarify that retaliatory eviction for exercising their legal rights is prohibited per California Civil Code 1942.5, and will result in fines. P. 35 ff. covers landlords entering: you may enter to make repairs, but must give 24 hour written notice (6 days if mailed), entering between 8am and 5pm business days, but you can also arrive at alternative times orally. If the local code-enforcers require you to do some modifications on the property, that is a separate matter and does not create a just cause for terminating the lease. For instance, if the electric service is not properly grounded and they require you to fix that, that does not constitute the structure "being destroyed". If the repairs make the building actually and certifiably uninhabitable, you might be on the hook for finding lodging for the tenant for the period of the repairs, so ask your attorney about that. Assuming that the tenant is not somehow responsible for the problem being repaired, then you will almost certainly have to keep the person for the duration of the lease.
Yes, but not without notice KS Stat § 58-2557 (2015) 58-2557. Landlord's right to enter; limitations. (a) The landlord shall have the right to enter the dwelling unit at reasonable hours, after reasonable notice to the tenant, in order to ... exhibit the dwelling unit to prospective or actual purchasers, ...