Charlotte Property Management Weekly: With Obama & Landlords, You Can’t Legally Withhold Payment
Taxpayer: “This country is going down the drain quickly with no end in sight! Obama is proving himself to be a bum like the rest of them. “Change to believe in”? I’m laughing too hard to retort. You wanna know what? I’m not funding this incompetent government anymore and will not be a party to it. I’m not paying taxes until this country is fixed!”
Tenant: “This house is killing me! This week the faucet broke. A month before it was the air conditioner. It took 48 hours for the landlord to get the maintenance guy to fix it in 98 degree heat! 98 degrees my family put up with! My sweet daughter, Abby, must have gone through at least 20 popsicles. “Daddy, why is it so hot?” she quietly bleated as she read “Seventeen” Magazine with a cold washcloth lain across her forehead (with the few remaining ice cubes that our (too small) freezer could muster). The landlord should be paying us to live in this house! I’m certainly not paying him this month! Next month’s payment is “under review” too; we’ll see how the faucet repair goes.”
Obama and (diplomatic and highly educated) landlords: “I feel your pain! Once, my radiator broke in my dorm room at Harvard and it just wasn’t fair that it took over 72 hours to repair! The economy is weak and jobs are scarce. Injustices like this need to be made right! But… like with all things that are dearest to us, these things sometimes take time. In the meantime, if you don’t pay me, your house will be taken away.”
The point of these fictitious quotes is that tenants and American citizens do not have to like what is going on with their house or country, respectively. But they still have to pay.
There seems to be a common misconception that home repairs and rental payments are linked. Legally, they are not. If the house is falling apart, the lease still stands. If the country is (hypothetically) suffering high unemployment and being financially run into bankruptcy, citizens still have to pay their taxes. It’s the law.
However, this is not an open invitation for landlords to not complete necessary repairs in a timely fashion. Slow and incomplete repair work makes tenants very unhappy; keeping tenants as happy as possible is paramount to having them stick around! Plus, there are other painful avenues unhappy tenants can take to legally have a home that is functioning to building code. It just can’t happen through rent abatement.
But I’ve seen this played out. Tenants go to court thinking that repairs not being done to their satisfaction will get them a free pass from eviction from a judge. This is just not the case. They find out quickly that their repair issues (even if extremely legitimate) are a moot point in an eviction hearing; these arguments are not heard because it’s not the place for them to be arbitrated. In an eviction hearing, it comes down to one question, “Do you have payment or proof of payment?” If the answer is “yes”, the tenant wins. If the answer is “no, but”, they don’t.
Rental payments and repair work are two separate issues. Tenants are obligated to pay by contract. That’s it.
You don’t have to like Obama, but you don’t want to try not paying him!
Brett Furniss is the President & Owner of BDF Realty (“Charlotte’s Most Innovative Property Management & Investment Company”), and Rent-To-Sell Realty (“When You Need a New Solution to Sell Your Home”) which specialize in rent-to-own (lease options) and rent-to-sell homes. His newest book, A Real Estate Agent’s Complete Guide to Representing Rent-To-Own (Lease Option) Tenants (Delight Clients, Fill Vacant Homes, and Earn $2,250* Upfront! (*Minimum!)
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