After years of ignored complaints, deferred maintenance, and several emergency events, you’ve had enough of your landlord’s failure to repair your dilapidated rental home. You’ve made more complaints – oral and written – than you can count, you’ve reported them to the government and obtained notices of violation from your local code enforcement agency, and you’ve attempted to mediate the matter, possibly even through your local Rent Board. But these efforts proved fruitless. Your home remains plagued by conditions that render it uninhabitable to the point it endangers your health, safety, and body. You’ve already thought about suing your landlord and know it is possible, and you contemplated what constitutes an actionable habitability defect, and you’ve taken meticulous care of your rental home notwithstanding its hazardous and uninhabitable condition. You’ve cleaned daily, you’ve reported habitability defects timely, and you’ve complied with all lease provisions regarding care, maintenance, and upkeep. Your landlord or property manager initially ignored your complaints, but recently has taken to blaming you, the upstanding tenant, for causing the issues. Further, they are not attempting to charge you for repairs to defects you did not cause and have not exacerbated. This begets the question: Can my landlord or property manager charge me for repairs to issues and conditions that I did not create or exacerbate?
No, your landlord or property manager cannot charge you for repairs. Glenn R. Sewell Sheet Metal, Inc. v. Loverde, (1969) 70 Cal. 2d 666, 671 (A tenant is under no general obligation to correct defective conditions of leased premises.) (dictum); Rathbun Co. v. Simmons, (1928) 90 Cal. App. 692, 696 (Although, pursuant to California Civil Code section 1929, the tenant must repair all deteriorations or injuries to the premises caused by the tenants’ want of ordinary care, the tenant has no obligation to repair portions of the premises over which they have no control or authority.). Your landlord has a nonwaivable duty to repair habitability defects in your rental unit, provided they have the requisite notice. Green v. Superior Court, (1974) 10 Cal. 3d 616, 629; Erlach v. Sierra Asset Servicing, LLC, (2014) 226 Cal. App. 4th 1281, 1297; Peterson v. Sup. Ct., (1995) 10 Cal. 4th 1185, 1204 (The implied warranty “recognizes ‘the realities of the modern urban landlord-tenant relationship’ and imposes upon the landlord the obligation to maintain leased dwellings in a habitable condition throughout the term of the lease.”); California Civil Code §§ 1941, 1942.1. This remains true so long as you, or any of your guests, did not create or cause the habitabitly defect. California Civil Code §§ 1929, 1942.2. Further consideration of California Civil Code section 1941.2 highlights specific circumstances where your landlord may not have a duty to make a repair. They consist of:
- Keeping the rental unit clean and sanitary, notwithstanding its uninhabitable condition;
- Disposing of all rubbish, garbage, and other waste in a clean and sanitary manner;
- Properly operating all electrical, gas, and plumbing fixtures, and keeping them as clean as possible;
- Not permitting anyone to enter the unit that may willfully or wantonly destroy or damage the unit, and any parts of the common area, and also refraining from engaging in any such misconduct themselves;
- Occupying and utilizing the rental unit for living, sleeping, cooking, or dining purposes only to the extent they were designed or intended to be used for such purposes. California Civil Code § 1941.1(a)(1)-(5).
This also holds true as long as you did not exacerbate (fail to mitigate) the habitabitly defect that you did not cause or create. Blake v. E. Thompson Petroleum Repair Co., (1985) 170 Cal. App. 3d 823, 831, 832. To avoid exacerbating the issue, you should always timely report the habitability defect to your landlord or property manager, preferably in writing. Peterson v. Superior Court, (1995) 10 Cal. 4th 1185, 1205-1206 (The landlord’s actual or constructive notice of the alleged uninhabitable condition is an essential prerequisite to an actionable breach of warranty claim.). If you adhere to these practices, your landlord or property manager cannot lawfully charge you for repairs to make your home habitable.
But, what should you do in the event that your landlord or property manager attempts to charge you for repairs in this scenario? First, we suggest informing your landlord, again preferably in writing, that the proposed charge is unlawful pursuant to California law. Glenn R. Sewell Sheet Metal, Inc. v. Loverde, (1969) 70 Cal. 2d 666, 671 (dictum). If that fails, we implore you to make a few more attempts, provided the habitabitly defect at issue is not an imminent threat to you or another person’s health and safety. When providing notice to your landlord or property manager, we recommend attaching relevant government literature, and possibly even a recommendation for the appropriate vendor that can be sent to rectify the problem. Next, should the preceding suggestions prove ineffective, we encourage you to escalate the matter to the appropriate government agency, such as your local department of public health, or code enforcement agency. They will inspect the problem and, potentially, issue a notice of violation, which makes the matter an official matter of record and obligates the landlord and property manager to rectify the issue in a timely and adequate manner. If that still does not solve the issue, and the landlord has not made repairs and unlawfully persists in attempting to coerce you into paying for repairs, we recommend considering vacating permanently and, potentially, bringing an action for constructive and/or wrongfully eviction in a court of law. However, we caution you from taking this action until you have consulted with a couple of attorneys. Additionally, if you live in a rent-controlled apartment situated in a jurisdiction with a rent board, you might consider bringing a petition for a decrease in services after obtaining a notice of violation and before vacating permanently. If you are successful at your local rent board, you will obtain a rent abatement until your landlord ceases and desists attempting to charge you for the repairs and bears the costs themselves. A measured, well-documented approach can help you pursue repairs while protecting your housing and avoiding unlawful financial burdens.
Repeated complaints and broken promises should not define your experience at home. When substantial habitability defects persist and requests for repairs are met with unlawful demands to cover repairs to issues you did not create, pursuing a habitability claim may be an important step toward holding those responsible accountable and seeking compensation for the harm you have suffered. Your complaints, photographs, inspection reports, and records of losses can help tell that story, and help you as you litigate your breach of the implied warranty of habitabitly claim (not making & attempting to charge you for repairs) in a court of law.