Walk It Through: The Complaint
A defense for 12 months, removal only through the court, and summary ejectment.
A tenant reports a broken heater to the city housing inspector, and soon after the landlord sends a notice ending the tenancy.
Two things a person in this spot might do. Picking one shows what the law says about it.
One apartment and one complaint. The notice periods for each kind of tenancy, unpaid rent, and stored belongings 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.
- Notice to quitThe notice ending a periodic tenancy: seven days for month to month, two days for week to week, and one month or more before the end of the year for year to year.
- Summary ejectmentThe court procedure by which a landlord removes a tenant, available after a demand to surrender the premises, when the tenant holds over, breaks a lease term that ends the tenancy, or deserts the premises behind on rent.
- Self help evictionRemoving a residential tenant any way other than through the court procedures of the landlord and tenant chapter, which the state's stated policy forbids.
- Retaliatory evictionA defense in summary ejectment that the landlord's action is substantially in response to a protected act, such as a good faith repair request or complaint, within 12 months before the case was filed.