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There are good landlords, there are bad landlords, and there are inexperienced landlords. Whether you’re purchasing your first rental property or you’ve been a landlord for years, understanding what you can and can’t legally do is important to your success. Considering an action in advance can save you a lot of trouble later, whether illegal or simply inconvenient.
There are some things you can do as a landlord:
A landlord must usually give at least 24 hours’ notice before they have the right to enter the tenant’s rental unit. In addition, you must have a legal reason to enter the apartment, such as:
The tenant may have the right to break the lease if:
The tenant must usually obtain a court order to get the landlord to stop the behavior. If the landlord violates the court order and refuses to quit the behavior, then the tenant can provide notice that they will terminate the lease.
The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, otherwise known as SCRA, offers certain protections for active duty military members. These members are protected when they receive a change of station order.
If a service member signs a lease and then receives orders that require the member to relocate for a period of at least 90 days, the tenant can provide the landlord with written notice of their need to terminate the lease agreement. This notice must usually be made at least 30 days before the desired date of termination. The tenant should also provide proof, such as a copy of the change of station orders or military deployment.
And then there are illegal actions you may not realize you’re taking as a landlord:
Learning more about what to do in certain situations can help you know how to handle them if and when they arise with a renter.
For whatever reason, you can’t simply lock your tenant out of the property if they don’t pay their rent. Instead, you must move through proper legal channels and take them to court to get an eviction order first.
You might want to avoid a lengthy eviction process. You might also want to avoid the risk that the tenant will pay the rent due when they get to court but will stop paying again right after the court date.
Tenants sometimes cause problems at the rental property, such as disturbing or harassing other tenants, conducting illegal activities out of their apartment, or breaking other clauses of the lease. Again, you must evict through the legal system. You can’t take unauthorized action on your own.
You shouldn’t retaliate against tenants who have made complaints about the rental property. The tenant might have made these complaints to you already or might have filed a formal complaint with the municipality or state. In either case, you can’t react by hiking the rent or filing an eviction action. You can’t harass the tenant or make the living conditions so uncomfortable that the tenant leaves the property, such as by refusing to make necessary repairs.
Let’s say you want a tenant out of the rental property so you can charge more rent to a new tenant. This commonly happens with rent-stabilized apartments or apartments where protected tenants reside.
The rent can only be increased by a certain percentage each year in rent-stabilized apartments, so a tenant who has been there for 15 years might be paying far below the market price for the unit. Protected tenants are similar in that you can only increase the rent by a certain percentage each year. These tenants cannot be evicted except for very specific reasons.
There are specific rules for how often you can increase a tenant’s rent and how much you can increase it. You must give proper notice, such as 30 to 60 days, before a lease renewal. You can’t increase the rent by more than is legally allowed in your state, such as by demanding a 10% increase when the maximum allowed by the state is 5%.
You might prefer to only rent to married couples or might not want college students renting together. You might even want to avoid having to make reasonable accommodations to the property for a tenant with a disability. This all falls into the category of discrimination.
Refusing to rent for any of these reasons is illegal and can open you up to a serious lawsuit. A landlord is legally responsible for following fair housing laws. There’s a federal Fair Housing Law and most countries have additional fair housing rules that landlords must follow. Make sure you’re up to date on these laws.
Two of the most common times a landlord violates the fair housing laws is when they’re posting ads to fill a vacancy or actually screening and interviewing tenants. Be careful and choose your words wisely.
You might unknowingly perform illegal actions to make up for an increase in costs such as property taxes, insurance, utilities, or maintenance. This could include trying to save money by hiring unskilled workers to perform repairs for less money or refusing to schedule required property inspections. Don’t do that; if your costs go up as a landlord, discuss your options with a lawyer and realtor.
You are required to keep the rental property in a habitable condition, so it’s illegal to refuse to make repairs that can affect a tenant’s health or safety. You also don’t want to make the repairs but illegally hire unlicensed contractors to do the work, such as electrical or plumbing.
If you are aware of a health or safety issue at the property, do not try to cover it up instead of fixing it. For example, there could be a known lead paint hazard. Don’t avoid the costly lead paint remediation by installing decorative molding over the hazard. This is breaking the law.
Another prohibited act is not respecting a tenant’s legal right to privacy. You have a right to enter a tenant’s apartment in an emergency, but you must give the tenant proper notice in almost all other situations. The amount of notice is usually spelled out in your landlord/tenant laws and, if not, it should be clearly stated in advance in your lease agreement.
In addition to proper notice, the landlord can only enter the apartment for legal reasons, such as to show the unit to prospective tenants or to make repairs. Do not place cameras or recording equipment inside a tenant’s apartment. This is completely illegal no matter what the reasoning behind it is.
Some landlords rent out apartments without getting the required inspections done first. Some countries require a new certificate of occupancy or a habitability inspection each time the unit is rented to someone new, or sometimes every few years. Some cities or towns require fire inspections prior to renting, confirming that the unit has the proper number of carbon monoxide or smoke detectors and that they’re in working order.
A landlord might try to keep a tenant’s security deposit for “repairs,” such as damage to the property that actually occurred prior to the tenant moving in, or for other fake breaches in the lease agreement. Legitimate reasons to keep a security deposit include unpaid rent and damage to the unit that you can tie back to the renter. Ordinary wear and tear do not warrant deducting money from the security deposit.
It depends on the lease. If the tenant is in a fixed-term lease, the landlord is required to give the tenant advance notice in writing that they are selling the property. If it’s a month-to-month lease, the landlord is not required to give advance notice. If there is an early termination clause in the lease, the tenant may not have any rights. A landlord could sell the property with the tenant’s lease, allowing them to stay put till the lease ends. The tenant could also offer to buy the property from the landlord. This may all vary by state.
If the rental property is not rent-stabilized, it’s likely that there is no limit on how much a landlord can raise the rent once the lease comes to an end. This may vary by country and city. Landlords are generally required to tell tenants in advance (at least 30 days) and in writing, if the rent will be increased by at least 5%.
Source: The Balance Small Business
Link: www.thebalancesmb.com/illegal-actions-your-landlord-could-be-taking-4154964
