Walk It Through: The Leaky Ceiling
Fit to live in, repair and deduct up to one month's rent, and moving out owing no more rent.
Water drips through a renter's bedroom ceiling every time it rains, and the landlord does not come to fix it.
Two things a person in this spot might do. Picking one shows what the law says about it.
One apartment and one leak. Housing inspector notices, retaliation within 180 days, and local rent ordinances are not worked through here.
A practice walkthrough, not a prediction of how any real one will go. Legal information, not legal advice.
Words this turns on
Terms with a legal meaning that is narrower than the everyday one. Each links to the definition and the authority behind it.
- Repair and deductThe tenant's remedy when the landlord does not repair within a reasonable time after notice: making a repair that costs no more than one month's rent and deducting it from the rent.
- RetaliationEvicting, raising the rent or cutting services within 180 days after a tenant, not behind on rent, gives notice to repair or complains about the condition of the home.
- Unlawful detainerThe court case through which a landlord gets a home back. For unpaid rent it starts with a written notice giving three days, not counting Saturdays, Sundays and judicial holidays, to pay or give up possession.
- UntenantableSubstantially lacking any of the standard characteristics the Civil Code lists, such as weather protection, working plumbing, hot and cold water, heating, or freedom from rodents and vermin.
- Domestic violence restraining orderAn order after a hearing barring abuse, contact and disturbing the peace, which can last up to five years and be renewed without a showing of further abuse.
- Duty to mitigateWhen a tenant breaches and abandons, the landlord recovers future rent only to the extent it exceeds what the tenant proves could reasonably have been avoided.