How long does landlord have to fix clogged sewage line?: Sewage is leaking under mobile home out of a u bend pipe with no cap, started about 3 months into the lease. Afraid to cap it as sewage may back up into the house. There is constant sewage smell and standing sewage water under the house. We do not put anything down the toilets, no paper, no wipes. Landlord that owns the home snaked the line and determined the clog is somewhere under the ground. Notified the lot landlord. Took 4 weeks for her to get someone to jet the line. All good for about 3 weeks, now it's happening again. Can barely stand to be in the house the smell is so bad. Going to text her again in the morning. How long does she have to resolve this?? Am I able to complain to the city or health department? I don't have money for a lawyer or repairs and home owner has already paid the lot rent through the end of the lease.
Jennifer’s answer:
Hello, first let me say that I am sorry for what you are going through, and I hope this will help you get it worked out.
The short answer to your question is: 7 days if you sent the written request for repairs in writing by certified mail, or two periods of 7 days after you sent two written requests for repair to your landlord by any other means (regular mail, online portal, text message, or email).
The statute at issue for repair requests that concern your health and safety is Texas Property Code Sec. 92.056. What this statute requires a tenant to do is put in one written request for repair by certified mail, or two requests (both in writing if your lease requires repair requests to be in writing, or the second in writing if your lease is silent on this issue). After each notice for repair goes in to your landlord, the law allows the landlord a period of 7 days in which to "diligently" try to repair the health and safety condition. These requests for repair you send in must each be sent on days when your rent is paid to current. If you owe rent on the day you send the notice, then you are not entitled to repair within 7 days of that notice, and you will need to pay the rent, and send the notice again. If your landlord does not make diligent effort to repair the health and safety condition during the first period of 7 days after the first notice, you will need to send a 2nd notice on or after that 7th day AFTER the day your first notice was delivered, unless you sent the first notice by certified mail. In addition, the condition you are complaining of cannot have been caused by you, your occupants or guests (i.e. from flushing improper things, draining grease from cooking into the pipes, etc.)
If you sent the appropriate amount of notices in writing, if your notices were sent on days when your rent was paid in full, if the notices were sent about an issue that affects your health and safety, and if the landlord failed to make diligent repairs within 7 days of your notices, AND if you did not cause the damage you are complaining of, the expressly says that you are likely entitled to the following things:
"(e) Except as provided in Subsection (f), a tenant to whom a landlord is liable under Subsection (b) of this section may:
(1) terminate the lease;
(2) have the condition repaired or remedied according to Section 92.0561;
(3) deduct from the tenant's rent, without necessity of judicial action, the cost of the repair or remedy according to Section 92.0561; and
(4) obtain judicial remedies according to Section 92.0563."
You can access this text here: https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/SOTWDocs/PR/...
In addition, the law lays out that the remedies under section 4 above are as follows:
"Sec. 92.0563. TENANT'S JUDICIAL REMEDIES. (a) A tenant's judicial remedies under Section 92.056 shall include:
(1) an order directing the landlord to take reasonable action to repair or remedy the condition;
(2) an order reducing the tenant's rent, from the date of the first repair notice, in proportion to the reduced rental value resulting from the condition until the condition is repaired or remedied;
(3) a judgment against the landlord for a civil penalty of one month's rent plus $500;
(4) a judgment against the landlord for the amount of the tenant's actual damages; and
(5) court costs and attorney's fees, excluding any attorney's fees for a cause of action for damages relating to a personal injury."
If you are within city limits, I would call local code enforcement as well. See this link for a deeper explanation: https://www.loom.com/share/ae1ff4ef943f479db845...
Am I responsible to pay for replacement blinds after living in the same apartment 9 years? : I have lived there 9 years, same apartment, never, even upon moving in did I have new blinds. Also, the kitchen counters were sprayed with some kind of overcoating. There are about 3 small spaces that they say need resurfacing, and I am being charged for that.
Jennifer’s answer:
Under the Texas Property Code, at Section 92.104, a landlord cannot make deductions from a security deposit for items of normal wear and tear. It states that a landlord can only make deductions "for which the tenant is legally liable under the lease or as a result of breaching the lease." This means that your lease needs to state that you are liable for these kinds of damages, in order to charge you for them, but, in addition to that, (and even if your lease states that you are liable) there are certain kinds of damages that a landlord is still legally prohibited from deducting from your security or pet deposit, and those are normal wear and tear.
In your case, having had used blinds upon move in, and then living there for 9 years, there is a very good chance the blinds needed to be replaced simply because of normal wear and tear, and thus will be seen as an unlawful deduction from your deposit, or an unlawful debt collection, if you had no deposit. You can never be sure how a court will react, however, there are many factors here in your favor, including life expectancy of the blinds, full depreciation, the sheer length of your tenancy, that suggest replacement of the blinds should have been absorbed as a cost of doing business by the landlord.
This kitchen counters are a little less clear. I can't tell from your statements whether these three spaces that need resurfacing are spaces that you damaged (even on accident), or whether they simply wore out over time while using them normally. If this is just something that wore out over time, then it is likely not something that the landlord can charge you for, because it is normal wear and tear.
In addition to unlawful charges, you should also check the timeline for receiving notice of security deposits from your landlord in Texas, to ensure there are not any other issues that could help you get a full return of your deposit. For convenience, I have gone into a little more detail for you on video here: https://www.loom.com/share/5294199296eb4d33ac70...
Am I legally responsible to pay rent if my name is not on the lease when my roommate renewed the place?: My roommate has renewed the place for another year without informing me, however, my name is not on the new lease and I also didn't give the 60-day notice of leaving before my lease was ending. Am I in any way responsible for paying the rent, since my name is not on the new lease? I've already vacated my room and not living there anymore.
Jennifer’s answer:
Hello, the general rule in any situation where you are receiving a benefit, good or service, even if you didn't request it, is that you have to provide fair compensation for that benefit, good or service if the other side takes you to court over it. There is an old case we learn about in law school that sums this up nicely: a man went to a restaurant for breakfast, and without asking for it, the waitress brought him a coffee. The man drank the coffee, and then attempted not to pay for it by saying "I never asked for that coffee, I thought she just gave it to me for free," and the court said sorry Charlie, you drank the coffee, which means you enjoyed the benefits of it, and in fairness, you have to pay for the coffee. It would be different if the man had left the coffee sitting on the table untouched.
In the context of landlord-tenant law, I've stood in court on numerous occasions and seen the judge award "fair-market rent" to landlords for tenants without written lease agreements, who lived in the unit, and enjoyed its benefits. So, what I tell my tenant-clients in these situations is, if you are living in the unit, you owe rent, and the court will award the landlord rents from you. In a situation where you moved out, it is a bit different, because you are not using the rental unit (it's like leaving the coffee untouched). But, if this rent owed accrued during the time you lived there, there is definitely a possibility you can be held legally liable for the rent. It will be on the landlord to prove to the court that you lived there, and owed rent, and they won't be able to use the lease to say that you owe contract damages because you didn't sign it. It's unlikely that the landlord will try to bring you in on the suit for the lease damages simply because they aren't usually lawyers who file these lawsuits, but even if they do, they will have the uphill battle to prove that you owe them money, or what that amount of money is for "fair market rents".
Just to clarify some confusion on your end, I want to point out that when one contract is signed by multiple tenants, the concept of joint and several liability applies, which makes each party individually responsible for the entire amount of rents owed, and also tends to make an action by one tenant, and action by all. So, a landlord can choose to sue and collect all of the amount from one person, and then person would have to turn around and try to collect some back from their fellow tenant.