Can I Bill My Landlord For Repairs

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

Withhold Rent
Repair and Deduct
Organize
Break Your Lease
Get to Courtroom

Once yous inform yourself of the options, you may desire to consult with a tenant advocacy organization or lawyer (see Directory).

1. Withhold Rent

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

Tenants take a right to withhold rent because landlords are obligated to provide rubber and habitable housing under the warranty of habitability. If a landlord breaks this obligation, a tenant'due south obligation to pay the full amount of hire 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 police does not state how much or for how long you can withhold.

If you are considering withholding your rent, information technology is very important that you do it correct. Before you begin to withhold, read the next sections in this affiliate very carefully. Employ the sample Rent Withholding Letter (Form 12).

Notation

If you are living in a hotel or cabin or accept lived in a rooming house for less than 3 consecutive months, you lot do not have the correct to withhold your rent to get the landlord to make repairs. For more information about the rights of rooming house tenants, see Chapter 15: Rooming Houses.

a. When Can Yous Withhold Rent

Before y'all tin can withhold rent, yous must meet sure requirements.⁴⁷ If you can answer yes to all 5 of the questions beneath, you have met these requirements and tin legally withhold your rent.

	Yes	NO
Do defective conditions be in your flat?		
Exercise these weather "endanger or materially impair" the health, safety, or well-being of anyone living in the dwelling? (See Housing Code Checklist (Booklet ii)).		
Does the landlord know about the defective weather (and know this before you were backside in your rent)?		
Were the atmospheric condition caused by someone or something other than yourself or someone under your control (such as a invitee or a fellow member of the household)?		
Can your landlord make repairs without you having to permanently move out?		

If y'all reply aye to all five questions, you can legally withhold your rent and your landlord cannot evict yous—although she may try. If a landlord tries to evict you and you have properly withheld your hire, your landlord may be violating other laws. See Chapter 12: Evictions - Retaliatory Evictions.

b. Withholding Gives You the Power to Negotiate

Hire withholding is the most directly way that you tin force your landlord to brand repairs. More often than not, it is also the most successful tactic. Information technology is particularly successful in a building where tenants agree to join together to withhold their rent. See Affiliate 10: Getting Organized about how to organize a rent withholding entrada.

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

The date when the landlord will kickoff and complete repairs,
How much rent you will pay (or withhold) while repairs are being completed, and
How much of the withheld rent you volition return (if any) once repairs are properly completed.

c. Protect Yourself When Yous Withhold

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

The all-time style to protect yourself while you are withholding hire is to take your hire money and set it aside in a bank business relationship split up from any other bank account that y'all have. (Do not keep cash in your apartment.) Although the law does non require yous to put your hire in a bank, at that place are several reasons why this is a expert thought.

First, if your landlord tries to evict yous, you can testify the court that you had the coin to pay rent and you did not simply stop paying considering you were unable to pay. Setting upwards a separate bank business relationship will likewise strengthen your case and give you more credibility in the eyes of a judge if y'all have the landlord to court or the landlord attempts to evict you.
Second, if a gauge somewhen orders you to pay some or all of the withheld rent to the landlord, you will have this money available. If you don't pay, y'all can exist evicted. It is very unusual that a judge would detect that the conditions are so bad that you would be entitled to withhold all (100%) of your rent, which is why it is so important to have that rent money set aside.

Note

Legally, one time your landlord makes repairs, yous do not automatically have to requite the landlord dorsum any of the hire you have withheld. Only a estimate can club y'all to do this. You may decide to go along some or all of the hire you withheld because of the impact these conditions had on your use of the apartment. If your landlord decides to take you to court to get back the withheld rent, explain to the estimate how the weather condition affected yous and your family. Depending on the state of affairs, a estimate may decide y'all tin proceed office or all of the withheld rent.⁴⁸ To try to avoid court and eviction, you can also negotiate with the landlord to endeavour to agree on a fair sum to be given to the landlord for the period when you lived with the bad conditions.

d. Exist Prepared for How Your Landlord May React

While y'all have a legal right to withhold rent, your landlord may endeavour to evict you lot. The best way to protect yourself confronting eviction is to make sure you:

Document the bad weather,
Meet all the requirements for withholding rent. For more information see When Tin can You Withhold Rent,
Deposit your rent in a banking concern, and
Apply the sample Rent Withholding Letter (Class 12) to notify your landlord about the bad weather condition.

A copy of a housing inspection report that accurately describes code violations is the best mode to document violations of the state Germ-free Code. Information technology is likewise proof that the landlord knew about the conditions.⁴⁹ Once more, if y'all have a photographic camera or video photographic camera (or can borrow ane), have pictures of the bad conditions ideally with a appointment and fourth dimension postage. If you lot impress out the pictures write the date and fourth dimension they were taken on the dorsum of the picture. A proficient picture will be worth a thousand words if yous demand to bear witness that bad conditions exist.

If a landlord wants to evict yous, she must get to court and become permission from a judge. If a judge finds that you lot have followed all the requirements under the rent-withholding police force, you will have a legal defense to the eviction.⁵⁰ This means a gauge should not requite the landlord permission to evict you and you tin can stay in your habitation. You may too have a legal claim against her for money amercement. Run across Chapter 12: Evictions for more about evictions and Chapter 13: When to Take Your Landlord to Court for more than data about other legal claims.

A guess may also lodge you to pay an amount called the off-white rental value to the courtroom. The fair rental value is the value of your apartment with all its problems and code violations⁵¹ (see box following this section). If a judge orders you lot to pay money to the court, ask the judge as well to order the landlord to fix all defective conditions. Ideally, you desire the court to concur onto your rent money until a landlord has made repairs. Although a court tin decide to requite your landlord permission to use the coin you lot pay to the court to make repairs, you can ask the judge to agree a hearing earlier returning this money to the landlord.⁵² This volition give you a chance to tell the judge if the landlord has fixed any of the problems.

At the end of an eviction case, if a guess finds that, because of code violations, your landlord owes you the same amount as or more money than you lot owe her, you win the case and can stay in your apartment. If, on the other hand, the court finds that you owe the landlord money, you can stay in your apartment only if you pay the corporeality you owe to the court. (This is why it is important to prepare aside your rent money—so if a guess says you owe coin, you tin can pay and stay.) You must pay this amount to the courtroom within 7 days of receiving a detect from the court about the amount due.⁵³ If you lot practise not, y'all tin be evicted. The court may also crave you 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 give you a fume detector, you withhold all of your rent. Your rent is $900 per month.

Before you showtime to withhold, yous notify your landlord in writing most all of these weather condition and become a housing inspection written report. You too put your rent coin bated in the bank.

Subsequently 3 months of withholding rent(a full of $2,700), your landlord decides to effort to adios y'all instead of making repairs. She files an eviction case in court based on nonpayment of rent. Afterward hearing both sides of the case, a judge finds that yous properly withheld your rent. The judge besides finds that during the 3 months you lot withheld your rent, the fair rental value of your apartment with all of the code violations was $450 per month, as opposed to the $900 per month that you were being charged.

The court will then transport you a detect saying you owe $ane,350 for the 3 months you withheld rent plus court costs. If you pay this amount to the court within 7 days of receiving this discover, you tin stay in your home. You also get to keep the other $i,350 you withheld.

If yous do not pay the $1,350 plus court costs within the 7 days, the landlord is entitled to adios you. This is why it is so important to set the hire aside in a divide bank business relationship.

ii. Repair and Deduct

Under certain conditions, tenants in Massachusetts accept the legal right to brand repairs and deduct up to 4 months' hire to pay for them.⁵⁵ This is referred to as "repair and deduct." The reward of choosing to repair and deduct is that the repairs get done. The disadvantage is that y'all are taking responsibility for making sure that the repairs are done well. See the sample Repair and Deduct Alphabetic character (Class xiii).

a. When Can You Repair and Deduct

To be able to deduct the cost of repairs from your rent, certain conditions must exist met. If yous can answer yes to all v questions below, you can repair and deduct.

	Yep	NO
Are there violations that "endanger or materially impair" the health, safety, or well-beingness of a tenant that take beencertified by a housing inspector or that a court finds exist?		
Have y'all given the landlord or her amanuensis written find of the violations?		
Did the landlord neglect to substantially complete repairs within fourteen days after this written notice, or inside such shorter time if ordered by a housing inspector?		
Were the weather caused past someone or something other than yourself or someone under your command (such equally a guest or a member of the household)?		
Have yous given your landlord admission to your abode to make repairs?		

b. What Tin can Y'all Repair

You are immune by law to repair annihilation in your apartment or in the common areas of your building. If there are violations that affect several apartments or an entire building, a group of tenants can get together and have the repairs fabricated. Make sure, nevertheless, that everyone is in agreement, that you have a certified Lath of Health written report documenting the problems, and that you have given your landlord written detect of the violations. Each and every tenant can then deduct up to 4 months' rent for her share of the total.

For instance, you lot and other tenants may get the banality in your building fixed, and then all affected tenants can subsequently deduct up to iv months of hire, depending on how much the repair cost.

c. How Much Tin You Deduct

Under the police force, you lot may deduct but a total of 4 months' rent in any 12-month menses. You cannot store upwards months of withheld rent over several years and so deduct more iv months' rent in a unmarried year. If y'all decide to repair and deduct, save all bills and receipts for materials and labor equally proof of your costs. Remember: When yous brand the repair, you lot are taking responsibleness for making certain it's done correct. When you rent someone to practise the repairs, enquire what complications or risks there may be in doing the repair. It is likewise a skillful idea to get a reference for anyone you hire and a few estimates for the work so you tin can show the toll of the person you lot hire is reasonable

d. What If the Landlord Thinks You Deducted Too Much

If a landlord feels that you deducted besides much for repairs, she is allowed to go to court to try and get back some of this money. The police force does non, however, allow your landlord to evict you if the court believes that you have deducted also much hire.⁵⁷ It is likewise illegal for landlords to enhance your rent for repairs y'all legally made under the repair and deduct statute, unless there is a courtroom order permitting a rent increase.⁵⁸

If your landlord does take you to court to try to get back possible excess hire deductions, do non ignore the courtroom notice. To show that the deductions were excessive, the landlord will accept to show that the deductions were for more than 4 months' rent during a 12-calendar month period, or were unreasonable given the circumstances. In deciding if deductions were unreasonable, a approximate volition look to meet what alternatives the tenant had at the time the violations were first reported, how urgent the repairs were, and the quality and cost of the work done.⁵⁹

Repairs for small-scale lawmaking violations, such as screens, small leaks, or small holes in the walls, will probably not be found reasonable by the court unless in that location are so many of them that you can evidence that the overall upshot is dangerous.⁶⁰ This is difficult to do.

three. Organize

If other tenants in your building or community confront bad conditions, in that location are means to work together to improve everyone'due south living atmospheric condition. Tenants can all agree to withhold rent until the landlord makes repairs. A grouping of tenants tin can inquire a estimate to order the landlord to make repairs. If the landlord absolutely refuses to fix the bad weather, tenants can inquire a court to appoint a temporary landlord called a receiver in social club to make repairs. For more see section in this chapter chosen Receivership. Tenants can also organize and together put pressure on the local Lath of Health to inspect their apartments and enforce the state Sanitary Lawmaking and local wellness ordinances.

Chapter 10: Getting Organized gives you information about how to begin to organize tenants. It will too 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 you must move, the law allows you to pause your lease. If you lot do non have a charter, you can leave without giving the usual thirty-day notice (or any observe may exist required in your situation) to the landlord. Yous are allowed to break your lease or move out without giving the usual observe because the landlord has violated her obligation to provide a habitable apartment under the warranty of habitability.⁶¹

If y'all move out early, your landlord may try to sue you for moving early on and for the balance of the hire due under any lease. For this reason, earlier you lot move out, information technology is wise to obtain a Lath of Health report every bit proof of the violations in your apartment.

Go on in mind

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

When yous move out because of serious violations, you are entitled to get back your security deposit. If you have to go to court to go your deposit back, yous might take to prove that the conditions in your apartment were astringent enough to permit your leaving. For more information about getting security deposits back and moving out, see Chapter 3: Security Deposits and Last Month's Hire and Chapter 11: Moving Out.

five. Get to Court

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

Social club your landlord to make repairs,
Order your landlord to pay you money for the harm that yous take suffered,
Appoint a receiver: a person or organization appointed by the court to manage and set upward the property (see section in this affiliate chosen Receivership)⁶² ,
Fine your landlord or put your landlord in jail for violating the law.

There are primarily four types of complaints that you tin can file with the courtroom to need that a landlord make repairs:

Tenant Petition;
Emergency Injunction, also called a Temporary Restraining Order;
Criminal Complaint;
Civil Complaint.

a. Tenant Petition

Tenants can ask a judge to order their landlord to repair weather that violate the country Germ-free Lawmaking (or local health ordinance, if it is stricter). This is called a tenant petition.⁶³ Come across the sample Tenant Petition for Enforcement of the Land Sanitary Lawmaking (Course xiv). When yous file a tenant petition, a judge can:

Order the landlord to brand repairs, or
Appoint a temporary landlord called a receiver to make repairs.

The benefits of bringing a tenant petition are that it may be a condom way for you to get repairs made without having to withhold hire and the court filing fee is depression.⁶⁴ If you withhold your hire, yous may have to go to court to defend yourself against an eviction. If you file a tenant petition, you—non your landlord—are bringing the matter before a gauge. A tenant petition besides puts y'all in a better position to negotiate what you want with the landlord. For more almost negotiating, see Chapter fourteen: Using the Courtroom 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 brand sure 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 dwelling house with all of its problems. A judge tin can require yous to pay this amount to the court clerk (in add-on to any past rent you take withheld or owe) while the landlord makes repairs.⁶⁵ Ideally, you want the courtroom to hold onto this coin until the landlord makes repairs, and so that the landlord has some incentive to get them done. A judge tin can, yet, release this coin to your landlord for purposes of making repairs.⁶⁶

Notation

A judge also has the power in a tenant petition to order the Board of Health to condemn a very unsafe building. This could atomic number 82 to tenants' evictions.⁶⁷ (For more about condemnations, see What If Your Building Is Condemned in this chapter.)

b. Emergency Injunction

If you lot desire a judge to order your landlord to make emergency repairs, y'all can file a complaint and ask a court to effect an injunction.⁶⁸ An injunction is an order from the court that tells your landlord to take immediate action to correct a problem or to stop doing something that is illegal. For instance, a judge can order your landlord to immediately fix the heating system.

In most cases, tenants asking an emergency order called a temporary restraining society or TRO when they first become to courtroom and file the complaint. Considering this is an emergency, you may request a TRO without start notifying the landlord. See a Temporary Restraining Order (Grade 15).
Or try the MassAccess interactive interview, MassAccess interactive forms icon Complaint for a Temporary Restraining Order, that lets you consummate, review, sign and transport your request for a Temporary Restraining Society to the court from your smart telephone or computer.

If a judge gives you a TRO, information technology is skilful for only a curt period of fourth dimension—the maximum is x days. If you need an order to final longer than x days, you must ask the courtroom to schedule another hearing where yous tin can request what is called a preliminary injunction. A preliminary injunction is an order that tin embrace a longer menstruation of time. If you lot utilize Form 15, y'all can ask for a hearing for a preliminary injunction at the same time you lot ask for a TRO.

If y'all get a TRO from the estimate, have a re-create of it to a sheriff's or constable's office immediately. A sheriff or constable must serve information technology on your landlord. A TRO is non good unless your landlord has knowledge of it. If your landlord refuses to obey a TRO, you should go back to court and tell the judge. If a judge finds that your landlord has not obeyed the TRO, the landlord may be held in contempt and tin can exist arrested and fined.

When you lot file the complaint to seek a TRO and preliminary injunction, you volition also need to pay the filing and service fees. If you cannot afford these fees, y'all can ask the court to waive or eliminate the filing fee and to pay the service fee. To do this use the Affidavit of Indigency course (Booklet ix).

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 do this at the same time you lot pursue other strategies. Because it tin can take several weeks for a court to schedule a hearing for a criminal complaint, this strategy does not unremarkably produce a quick consequence. A criminal complaint can, however, upshot in a landlord having to pay a fine or spend time in jail. The advantages of a criminal action over a ceremonious action are:

It may put more pressure on the landlord to make repairs.
If the Lath of Wellness brings the criminal complaint, you may not accept to go to court because the inspector can nowadays all the necessary prove.

The major disadvantage of a criminal action is that you lot lose control over the case. The Assistant Commune Attorney or the City's Attorney will prosecute the case. You or your lawyer do non control the day-to-day direction of the suit. Also, you must be willing and able to announced in court, sometimes on a week-to-calendar week ground, if you are the person bringing the complaint. You lot may become quicker results if you file a ceremonious complaint or a tenant petition.

In that location are two kinds of criminal cases that tenants can bring confronting landlords who fail to repair Sanitary Code violations. The first is where the landlord fails to comply with the Sanitary Code.⁶⁹ You or the Board of Health may bring this kind of complaint.⁷⁰ Fines for violations of the state Sanitary Lawmaking can range from $10 to $500 a solar day.⁷¹

The 2d type of case is where the landlord fails to provide heat, hot h2o, or other utilities or interferes with your placidity enjoyment. Simply tenants who are affected by the landlord's illegal behavior tin can file this type of criminal complaint. To bring this blazon of complaint, you exercise not demand a Lath of Health inspection, although it is very helpful. In add-on to fining your landlord, a approximate tin can also sentence a landlord to serve upwards to 6 months in jail for violation of the law of tranquillity enjoyment.

d. Civil Complaint

If a landlord refuses to repair code violations, tenants can file a ceremonious complaint or a small claims lawsuit. A small claims case is a civil lawsuit that involves no more than $vii,000.⁷² In a civil complaint, you bring a lawsuit against your landlord for coin for the impairment that you have suffered or are suffering considering of code violations; and you can also enquire the estimate to outcome an injunction (meet section called Emergency Injunction). You can also appoint a receiver (see department chosen Receivership). If y'all bring a civil lawsuit against your landlord because she has failed to make repairs, in that location are primarily six types of legal claims you tin can include:

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

Each of these legal claims is described in Affiliate 13: When to Accept Your Landlord to Court. Every bit you read, y'all may observe that your landlord has violated other laws. Earlier you decide to bring a lawsuit confronting your landlord, you need to carefully evaluate the strength of your case.