Can I Make Repairs In My Apartment If I Pay

If your landlord does not make repairs after you lot have either notified her in writing or she has been ordered past the Board of Wellness to make repairs, you lot may demand to consider other options:

Withhold Hire
Repair and Deduct
Organize
Break Your Charter
Go to Court

One time you inform yourself of the options, you may desire to consult with a tenant advocacy organisation or lawyer (see Directory).

ane. Withhold Rent

One way to get your landlord to fix bad weather is to withhold all or some of your hire until the landlord actually makes the repairs. This is called "rent withholding."⁴⁴

Tenants have a right to withhold rent considering landlords are obligated to provide safe and habitable housing under the warranty of habitability. If a landlord breaks this obligation, a tenant'south obligation to pay the full amount of rent stops until repairs are made.⁴⁵ A tenant may want to withhold all or part of the hire, depending on the seriousness of the violations.⁴⁶ The constabulary does not country how much or for how long you lot can withhold.

If yous are because withholding your rent, it is very important that y'all exercise it right. Earlier you begin to withhold, read the next sections in this chapter very advisedly. Use the sample Rent Withholding Alphabetic character (Form 12).

Notation

If you lot are living in a hotel or cabin or have lived in a rooming house for less than 3 consecutive months, you do not have the correct to withhold your hire to get the landlord to make repairs. For more data about the rights of rooming business firm tenants, see Chapter 15: Rooming Houses.

a. When Tin You Withhold Hire

Earlier you can withhold hire, you must meet certain requirements.⁴⁷ If yous can answer yes to all five of the questions below, yous have met these requirements and can legally withhold your hire.

	YES	NO
Do defective atmospheric condition exist in your apartment?		
Practise these conditions "endanger or materially impair" the wellness, safety, or well-being of anyone living in the dwelling house? (Encounter Housing Code Checklist (Booklet 2)).		
Does the landlord know about the defective weather condition (and know this earlier you were behind in your rent)?		
Were the conditions acquired by someone or something other than yourself or someone under your control (such as a guest or a member of the household)?		
Can your landlord make repairs without you having to permanently move out?		

If y'all answer yes to all 5 questions, you tin can legally withhold your rent and your landlord cannot adios you—although she may try. If a landlord tries to evict you and you take properly withheld your rent, your landlord may be violating other laws. See Affiliate 12: Evictions - Retaliatory Evictions.

b. Withholding Gives You the Power to Negotiate

Hire withholding is the most straight way that yous can force your landlord to make repairs. By and large, it is also the most successful tactic. Information technology is peculiarly successful in a building where tenants concord to join together to withhold their rent. Meet Chapter 10: Getting Organized about how to organize a hire withholding campaign.

While you are withholding rent, you are in a improve position to negotiate with the landlord about what you want. Some of the problems that you can negotiate include:

The appointment when the landlord will first and complete repairs,
How much hire you will pay (or withhold) while repairs are existence completed, and
How much of the withheld rent you will return (if whatever) once repairs are properly completed.

c. Protect Yourself When You Withhold

The right to withhold does not mean that yous take a right to live in your flat rent-costless. Rent withholding is a way to go the landlord to brand repairs. Once a landlord makes repairs, you must resume paying rent.

The all-time manner to protect yourself while you are withholding rent is to accept your rent money and set it aside in a banking concern business relationship split from any other banking concern business relationship that you have. (Practise non keep cash in your apartment.) Although the police does non require you to put your rent in a banking company, there are several reasons why this is a practiced idea.

Beginning, if your landlord tries to evict you, you lot tin can show the court that y'all had the money to pay rent and you did not merely stop paying considering yous were unable to pay. Setting up a separate banking company account volition also strengthen your case and requite you more credibility in the eyes of a estimate if you take the landlord to court or the landlord attempts to evict you lot.
2d, if a judge somewhen orders you to pay some or all of the withheld rent to the landlord, you will have this money available. If you lot don't pay, you can be evicted. Information technology is very unusual that a judge would find that the weather are and so bad that you would be entitled to withhold all (100%) of your rent, which is why it is so important to have that rent money set aside.

Note

Legally, once your landlord makes repairs, you do not automatically take to give the landlord back whatsoever of the hire y'all accept withheld. Only a judge tin can society you to exercise this. You may decide to keep some or all of the hire y'all withheld because of the affect these conditions had on your use of the apartment. If your landlord decides to take y'all to courtroom to get back the withheld rent, explain to the approximate how the conditions affected yous and your family. Depending on the state of affairs, a judge may determine yous can go on office or all of the withheld rent.⁴⁸ To try to avoid court and eviction, you lot tin besides negotiate with the landlord to try to concord on a off-white sum to be given to the landlord for the catamenia when you lived with the bad conditions.

d. Be Prepared for How Your Landlord May React

While you lot have a legal right to withhold rent, your landlord may try to adios you lot. The best way to protect yourself confronting eviction is to make certain you lot:

Document the bad conditions,
Come across all the requirements for withholding rent. For more data see When Can Yous Withhold Rent,
Eolith your rent in a bank, and
Use the sample Rent Withholding Letter (Form 12) to notify your landlord near the bad conditions.

A copy of a housing inspection report that accurately describes lawmaking violations is the best way to document violations of the land Sanitary Lawmaking. It is also proof that the landlord knew about the weather.⁴⁹ Again, if you have a camera or video camera (or tin can borrow one), take pictures of the bad conditions ideally with a engagement and fourth dimension stamp. If y'all print out the pictures write the date and time they were taken on the back of the picture. A good film will be worth a 1000 words if y'all need to prove that bad conditions exist.

If a landlord wants to evict you, she must get to court and get permission from a judge. If a guess finds that you take followed all the requirements under the hire-withholding law, you will have a legal defence force to the eviction.⁵⁰ This means a judge should not give the landlord permission to adios yous and y'all can stay in your dwelling house. You lot may besides have a legal claim against her for money damages. Run into Chapter 12: Evictions for more about evictions and Chapter 13: When to Have Your Landlord to Court for more information about other legal claims.

A approximate may also order you lot to pay an corporeality called the fair rental value to the court. The fair rental value is the value of your apartment with all its problems and lawmaking violations⁵¹ (come across box following this section). If a judge orders yous to pay money to the court, ask the judge likewise to order the landlord to gear up all defective conditions. Ideally, you desire the court to hold onto your rent money until a landlord has made repairs. Although a court tin decide to give your landlord permission to employ the money yous pay to the courtroom to make repairs, you can inquire the judge to hold a hearing before returning this money to the landlord.⁵² This will requite you a chance to tell the gauge if the landlord has fixed any of the bug.

At the terminate of an eviction case, if a judge finds that, considering of lawmaking violations, your landlord owes you the same amount as or more than money than you owe her, yous win the instance and tin can stay in your apartment. If, on the other paw, the court finds that you owe the landlord coin, you tin can stay in your apartment only if you pay the amount you owe to the court. (This is why it is important to set aside your hire money—so if a judge says you owe coin, y'all can pay and stay.) You must pay this corporeality to the court within 7 days of receiving a notice from the courtroom well-nigh the amount due.⁵³ If y'all practice not, you lot can be evicted. The court may besides crave yous to pay certain court costs.⁵⁴

Determining Fair Rental Value: An Example

Considering your stove doesn't piece of work, your toilet is broken, water leaks through the ceiling, and the landlord refuses to give you a fume detector, yous withhold all of your rent. Your rent is $900 per month.

Earlier yous start to withhold, you notify your landlord in writing nigh all of these conditions and get a housing inspection report. You also put your rent money aside in the banking company.

Afterwards iii months of withholding rent(a total of $2,700), your landlord decides to endeavour to evict you instead of making repairs. She files an eviction case in court based on nonpayment of rent. After hearing both sides of the case, a gauge finds that y'all properly withheld your rent. The judge also finds that during the 3 months you withheld your rent, the fair rental value of your apartment with all of the code violations was $450 per month, as opposed to the $900 per calendar month that you were being charged.

The court will and so send y'all a notice saying y'all owe $ane,350 for the 3 months you lot withheld rent plus court costs. If you pay this amount to the courtroom within 7 days of receiving this observe, you lot can stay in your home. You also get to keep the other $1,350 yous withheld.

If you do not pay the $i,350 plus courtroom costs within the 7 days, the landlord is entitled to adios yous. This is why it is so important to ready the rent aside in a separate banking company business relationship.

2. Repair and Deduct

Nether certain conditions, tenants in Massachusetts accept the legal correct to make repairs and deduct upwards to 4 months' hire to pay for them.⁵⁵ This is referred to equally "repair and deduct." The reward of choosing to repair and deduct is that the repairs go done. The disadvantage is that you are taking responsibility for making sure that the repairs are done well. Encounter the sample Repair and Deduct Letter (Course 13).

a. When Tin can You Repair and Deduct

To be able to deduct the toll of repairs from your hire, certain conditions must be met. If yous tin can answer yes to all five questions below, you can repair and deduct.

	Yep	NO
Are there violations that "endanger or materially impair" the wellness, prophylactic, or well-being of a tenant that accept beencertified by a housing inspector or that a court finds exist?		
Accept you given the landlord or her agent written observe of the violations?		
Did the landlord fail to substantially complete repairs inside 14 days after this written discover, or within such shorter fourth dimension if ordered by a housing inspector?		
Were the conditions acquired by someone or something other than yourself or someone under your command (such as a invitee or a member of the household)?		
Have you given your landlord access to your domicile to make repairs?		

b. What Tin can You Repair

Yous are immune by law to repair anything in your apartment or in the common areas of your edifice. If in that location are violations that touch on several apartments or an unabridged building, a group of tenants can gather and have the repairs made. Make sure, nonetheless, that everyone is in understanding, that y'all take a certified Board of Health report documenting the issues, and that y'all take given your landlord written notice of the violations. Each and every tenant can so deduct upward to 4 months' rent for her share of the total.

For example, yous and other tenants may go the boiler in your building stock-still, so all afflicted tenants can afterward deduct up to iv months of rent, depending on how much the repair cost.

c. How Much Can You Deduct

Nether the law, you may deduct but a total of 4 months' hire in whatsoever 12-month period. You cannot store upward months of withheld hire over several years and then deduct more than 4 months' hire in a single year. If you decide to repair and deduct, relieve all bills and receipts for materials and labor as proof of your costs. Remember: When you lot brand the repair, you are taking responsibleness for making sure it's done right. When yous hire someone to exercise the repairs, ask what complications or risks there may be in doing the repair. It is also a practiced idea to get a reference for anyone you rent and a few estimates for the work so you can show the cost of the person you hire is reasonable

d. What If the Landlord Thinks Y'all Deducted Too Much

If a landlord feels that y'all deducted besides much for repairs, she is allowed to get to court to try and get back some of this coin. The law does not, even so, allow your landlord to evict you if the court believes that yous take deducted besides much hire.⁵⁷ It is also illegal for landlords to raise your rent for repairs y'all legally fabricated under the repair and deduct statute, unless in that location is a court order permitting a rent increment.⁵⁸

If your landlord does take yous to court to effort to become back possible backlog hire deductions, do not ignore the court notice. To show that the deductions were excessive, the landlord will have to show that the deductions were for more four months' rent during a 12-calendar month period, or were unreasonable given the circumstances. In deciding if deductions were unreasonable, a judge will look to see what alternatives the tenant had at the time the violations were first reported, how urgent the repairs were, and the quality and cost of the work done.⁵⁹

Repairs for minor code violations, such as screens, small leaks, or pocket-sized holes in the walls, will probably not exist institute reasonable by the courtroom unless there are so many of them that you can prove that the overall consequence is dangerous.^sixty This is hard to exercise.

3. Organize

If other tenants in your building or customs face bad weather, there are ways to work together to improve everyone'southward living conditions. Tenants can all concur to withhold rent until the landlord makes repairs. A group of tenants can ask a guess to order the landlord to brand repairs. If the landlord absolutely refuses to fix the bad conditions, tenants can ask a courtroom to engage a temporary landlord chosen a receiver in order to make repairs. For more encounter department in this chapter called Receivership. Tenants tin can too organize and together put pressure level on the local Lath of Health to audit their apartments and enforce the state Germ-free Code and local health ordinances.

Chapter ten: Getting Organized gives you information about how to begin to organize tenants. It will also requite you specific organizing steps you can take to get repairs made.

4. Break Your Lease

When there are very serious violations of the Germ-free Lawmaking in your apartment and you experience you lot must move, the law allows you to suspension your lease. If you do not have a lease, yous can go out without giving the usual 30-mean solar day notice (or whatever find may be required in your situation) to the landlord. You are allowed to break your lease or motility out without giving the usual find because the landlord has violated her obligation to provide a habitable apartment under the warranty of habitability.⁶¹

If you move out early, your landlord may effort to sue you for moving early and for the balance of the hire due under any charter. For this reason, before you move out, information technology is wise to obtain a Board of Health report as proof of the violations in your apartment.

Go along in mind

If violations are non serious, you may exist held responsible for paying the rent if you exit without proper detect.

When you move out because of serious violations, yous are entitled to get back your security deposit. If you take to get to court to become your eolith back, you might accept to show that the weather condition in your flat were astringent enough to permit your leaving. For more information nigh getting security deposits dorsum and moving out, see Chapter 3: Security Deposits and Last Month'southward Rent and Chapter 11: Moving Out.

5. Go to Court

If your landlord refuses to brand repairs, yous can accept her to courtroom. The courtroom has the power to practise a number of things. A judge can:

Club your landlord to make repairs,
Order your landlord to pay y'all coin for the impairment that you have suffered,
Engage a receiver: a person or organization appointed by the court to manage and prepare upwards the holding (encounter department in this chapter chosen Receivership)⁶² ,
Fine your landlord or put your landlord in jail for violating the police.

There are primarily four types of complaints that you can file with the court to demand that a landlord brand repairs:

Tenant Petition;
Emergency Injunction, also chosen a Temporary Restraining Order;
Criminal Complaint;
Ceremonious Complaint.

a. Tenant Petition

Tenants tin can ask a approximate to social club their landlord to repair atmospheric condition that violate the state Sanitary Code (or local health ordinance, if it is stricter). This is chosen a tenant petition.⁶³ See the sample Tenant Petition for Enforcement of the State Sanitary Code (Form 14). When you file a tenant petition, a approximate can:

Gild the landlord to make repairs, or
Appoint a temporary landlord chosen a receiver to brand repairs.

The benefits of bringing a tenant petition are that it may exist a safe way for you to get repairs made without having to withhold hire and the court filing fee is depression.⁶⁴ If you lot withhold your rent, you may take to get to courtroom to defend yourself against an eviction. If you file a tenant petition, you—not your landlord—are bringing the matter before a judge. A tenant petition besides puts you in a better position to negotiate what you want with the landlord. For more than about negotiating, see Affiliate xiv: Using the Courtroom Arrangement - Negotiating a Proficient Settlement and Chapter ten: Getting Organized - Negotiating a Solution with the Landlord.

When you file a tenant petition, a judge also has the power to make certain other decisions. A estimate may make up one's mind that until your landlord makes repairs, your hire should be lowered to the off-white rental value of your flat. The fair rental value is the value of your home with all of its problems. A estimate can require y'all to pay this amount to the court clerk (in addition to any past rent you have withheld or owe) while the landlord makes repairs.⁶⁵ Ideally, you want the court to concur onto this coin until the landlord makes repairs, so that the landlord has some incentive to go them done. A judge can, however, release this money to your landlord for purposes of making repairs.⁶⁶

Notation

A guess also has the ability in a tenant petition to club the Lath of Health to condemn a very unsafe building. This could atomic number 82 to tenants' evictions.⁶⁷ (For more about condemnations, see What If Your Building Is Condemned in this chapter.)

b. Emergency Injunction

If you desire a judge to order your landlord to make emergency repairs, you lot tin can file a complaint and ask a court to issue an injunction.⁶⁸ An injunction is an lodge from the court that tells your landlord to take firsthand action to right a trouble or to cease doing something that is illegal. For example, a estimate can gild your landlord to immediately fix the heating organization.

In most cases, tenants request an emergency gild called a temporary restraining guild or TRO when they first go to court and file the complaint. Because this is an emergency, you may request a TRO without showtime notifying the landlord. See a Temporary Restraining Order (Form 15).
Or try the MassAccess interactive interview, MassAccess interactive forms icon Complaint for a Temporary Restraining Order, that lets you complete, review, sign and send your asking for a Temporary Restraining Order to the court from your smart telephone or computer.

If a gauge gives you a TRO, information technology is good for only a short catamenia of time—the maximum is 10 days. If y'all need an society to last longer than 10 days, you must ask the court to schedule some other hearing where y'all can request what is called a preliminary injunction. A preliminary injunction is an order that can cover a longer period of fourth dimension. If y'all use Form fifteen, y'all can ask for a hearing for a preliminary injunction at the same time y'all ask for a TRO.

If yous go a TRO from the estimate, take a copy of it to a sheriff's or constable'southward office immediately. A sheriff or constable must serve information technology on your landlord. A TRO is not good unless your landlord has knowledge of it. If your landlord refuses to obey a TRO, y'all should get back to courtroom and tell the judge. If a judge finds that your landlord has not obeyed the TRO, the landlord may exist held in contempt and tin be arrested and fined.

When you file the complaint to seek a TRO and preliminary injunction, y'all will also need to pay the filing and service fees. If you cannot afford these fees, y'all can ask the courtroom to waive or eliminate the filing fee and to pay the service fee. To do this use the Affidavit of Indigency course (Booklet 9).

c. Criminal Complaint

If your landlord refuses to brand repairs, you tin can file an application for criminal complaint (and pay the filing fee) or inquire the Lath of Health to file an application for a criminal complaint. You can do this at the aforementioned time you pursue other strategies. Because it can take several weeks for a court to schedule a hearing for a criminal complaint, this strategy does not commonly produce a quick issue. A criminal complaint can, however, result in a landlord having to pay a fine or spend time in jail. The advantages of a criminal action over a civil action are:

It may put more than pressure on the landlord to brand repairs.
If the Lath of Health brings the criminal complaint, y'all may not have to get to court because the inspector can present all the necessary evidence.

The major disadvantage of a criminal activity is that you lose control over the example. The Banana District Chaser or the Metropolis'southward Attorney will prosecute the case. Yous or your lawyer do not control the day-to-twenty-four hours management of the arrange. Also, you must exist willing and able to appear in court, sometimes on a week-to-week basis, if yous are the person bringing the complaint. Y'all may go quicker results if yous file a civil complaint or a tenant petition.

In that location are two kinds of criminal cases that tenants can bring against landlords who fail to repair Sanitary Lawmaking violations. The first is where the landlord fails to comply with the Sanitary Code.⁶⁹ You or the Board of Wellness may bring this kind of complaint.⁷⁰ Fines for violations of the state Sanitary Code tin range from $ten to $500 a twenty-four hours.⁷¹

The second type of case is where the landlord fails to provide heat, hot water, or other utilities or interferes with your serenity enjoyment. Only tenants who are afflicted by the landlord's illegal behavior tin file this blazon of criminal complaint. To bring this type of complaint, you practise not need a Board of Health inspection, although it is very helpful. In add-on to fining your landlord, a judge tin can also sentence a landlord to serve upward to 6 months in jail for violation of the law of quiet enjoyment.

d. Ceremonious Complaint

If a landlord refuses to repair code violations, tenants can file a civil complaint or a pocket-size claims lawsuit. A small claims case is a ceremonious lawsuit that involves no more than $seven,000.⁷² In a civil complaint, you bring a lawsuit against your landlord for money for the harm that you have suffered or are suffering considering of code violations; and you can also inquire the judge to upshot an injunction (see section called Emergency Injunction). Yous can also engage a receiver (come across section called Receivership). If you lot bring a ceremonious lawsuit against your landlord because she has failed to make repairs, there are primarily six types of legal claims you can include:

Breach of Warranty of Habitability,
Breach of Quiet Enjoyment,
Unfair and Deceptive Practices,
Negligence,
Infliction of Emotional Distress,
Nuisance.

Each of these legal claims is described in Chapter 13: When to Take Your Landlord to Court. As you read, you lot may detect that your landlord has violated other laws. Before y'all determine to bring a lawsuit confronting your landlord, you lot demand to carefully evaluate the strength of your case.