LANDLORD RIGHTS

Dispute with tenant can arise for a number of reasons. Most of the time, these dispute lead to the eviction of the tenant. The legal process involved in evicting a tenant is extremely stressful, time consuming and costly. Often, landlords tend to make the mistake of not seeking attorney's help when dealing with tenant. As a result, landlords get lost in the legal maze of landlord-tenant court and seek legal help after much frustration and fatigue. A savy tenant can be a source of great stress for a landlord. We have dealt with many types of tenants. Tenant who has refused to tender rent, tenant, defaulted on, or breached, the lease agreement or engaged in other conducts.

In instances where the landlord files a complaint pro-se (by himself/herself), more often than not, the process will be extremely costly and time consuming in addition to the stress involved. The process can take months and, on rare occasions, even years. During the course of the litigation, usually tenant is not paying rent. Additionally, the tenant may damage the property and/or fixtures. Usually, the tenant alleges housing code violations and reports the landlord to appropriate housing authorities to inspect.

In the course of the litigation, the landlord is forced to fix various items, spend valuable time prosecuting the case, and during this time, is not collecting rent. In the meantime, the landlord continues to pay property taxes, mortgage, and utilities. In addition, if found in violation of certain right of the tenant, the landlord may be required to pay back rent money to the tenant. On rare occasion, residential landlord may sell the property as a result of the stress and cost that comes with the dispute. In the end, they end up wasting valuable time, stressed out and spend lots of money when they could have dealt with the issue swiftly and with a fraction of the money.

Experienced landlords learn to avoid these pitfalls and obtain an experienced attorney from the beginning. It may seem that the legal field favors tenants, however, that is not true. Landlords have rights that protect them and their properies from troublesome tenants. There are laws and procedures landlords can utilize to protect their rights as landlords and evict troublesome tenants. Experienced attorneys know the ins and outs of landlord-tenant laws and can dispense of landlord's needs easily.

TENANT RIGHTS

Many tenants do not know when a landlord violates a lease agreement. Aside from what is written inside the lease agreement, tenants have rights and protections that are implied into every lease agreement. This means, even if the tenant does not know the right or never heard of it, that right/protection is impliedly put into every lease agreement by law.

For instance, in every residential and commercial lease agreement, there is an implied "Covenant of Quiet Enjoyment." In almost every case, this covenant is not included inside the written lease agreement. Nonetheless, by law it is implied into every lease agreement.

The Covenant of Quiet Enjoyment encompasses many conducts and actions of the landlord. Landlord can violate this covenant by acts or omissions (by not taking acts). In certain situations, landlord have the duty to repair the property. It can be the sidewalk, the common areas, the roof, wall, or window. Landlords can violate this covenant by failing to repair parts of the property they may be required to do so by local ordinance or statute.

Often, landlord try to waive this duty by including a provision inside the lease agreement that simply say "landlord has no duty to repair roof." This provision may be ineffective and under certain circumstances, qualifies as "Illegal provision" because under local ordinance, the landlord may be required to repair. Tenants generally are not aware of these laws and regulations and seeing the provision in the lease agreement presume that they agreed with it and there is nothing they can do if the roof is in bad shape.

Residential tenants have the additional advantage and protection of the "Implied Covenant of Habitability". This covenant is implied into every lease agreements between landlord and tenant. The tenant enjoys the protection of this covenant even if it is not mentioned anywhere in the lease agreement. This covenant imposes on the landlord the duty to make the premises fit for living. The standard varies from city to city and state to state.

These are actually some of the well known laws that protect tenants, there are many laws and different procedural tools that protect tenants against eviction or other issues. Whether you are looking to rent an apartment or house, or are involved in a landlord-tenant dispute you need to understand your rights as tenant. Particularly, if you are involved in dispute with your landlord, you can be at a great disadvantage if you don't know the laws and procedures in landlord-tenant law. Often, tenants approach us later than they should. Seeking legal assistance earlier will save you time, money and stress.

Tenants enjoy numerous rights that protect them against unfair and unjust landlords. Unlike what it was in the past, today tenant enjoy plethora of rights. Sources of tenants rights include the Lease Agreement, Federal, State and Local Statutes/Ordinances. Additionally, tenants have rights emanating from court decisions.

Often times, tenants know little about these rights and get taken advantage of by landlords. We have seen both commercial and residential tenants stressed out and be taken advantage of by landlords. Landlord frequently and unknowingly include illegal terms in the lease agreement that are unenforceable in court. On the other hand, many tenants have no clue what provisions are illegal. For this reason, tenants unknowingly acquiesce to illegal an unenforceable provisions.

Commercial tenants are less protected than residential tenant because they are presumed to be sophisticated for a number of reasons. Commercial tenants tend to be businesses and generally presumed to have the resources to employ attorneys. Consequently, important protections and rights that exist for residential tenants do not exist for commercial tenants. Commercial tenants have to protect themselves by seeking an experienced attorney, and many of them do. However, that is not the case for many start-ups and small businesses. Small businesses do not have the resources to consult an attorney at the beginning of the business. For many, the attorneys come into the picture when trouble comes knocking.

Many small business owners have come to us this way and have remained our clients thereafter. We help them draft the lease agreements. Including, striking out unfair or disadvantageous provisions inside the lease agreements and incorporating protective lease provisions