Tenants Duties

Question 1

Primary Duties

Answer 1

1) Repair
2) Pay rent

Question 2

T’s Duty to repair if lease is silent

Answer 2

1) Maintain premises
2) Make routine repairs
3) Not ordinary wear and tear repairs
4) Don’t commit waste
—–ameliorative waste exception: logn term tenant and the change reflects changes in the neighborhood

Question 3

T’s duty to repair with express covenant

Answer 3

1) Maintain in good repair/condition
2) T may terminate lease if presmises destroyed without T’s fault

Question 4

T’s duty to pay rent: t breaches and is in possession of premises

Answer 4

1) Landlord can evict through court (state’s unlawful detainer statute) (still entitled to rent)
2) Continue relationsihp and sue for rent

Landlord cannot engage In self help (changing locks, forcibly remove tenant or possession, etc.)

Question 5

T’s duty to pay rent: Tenant breaches but is out of possession (wrongfully vacates with time left on term of years lease)

Answer 5

Landlords options:

1) Surrender: End Lease
—-T shows (words or conduct) that she wants to give up the lease
2) Ignore: Do nothing (hold T liable for rent) (available in a minority of states, under majority, landlord has duty to mitigate)
3) Relet: new lease (hold T liable for deficiency)

Question 6

T’s duty to pay: Rent deposits

Answer 6

Majority: restrict SecDeposits to one month’s rent, require landlords to pay interest on sec deposits, and allow statutory or puitive damage for a landlord’s refusal to return a secdep.

Clauses that try to avoid this are void.

Landlord can retain SecDep for actual damage suffered to premises.

Question 7

Partial Condemenation and Duty to pay rent

Answer 7

In partial condemnation cases, the landlord-tenant relationship continues, as does the tenant’s obligation to pay the entire rent for the remaining period of the lease. The tenant is, however, entitled to share in the condemnation award to the extent that the condemnation affected the tenant’s rights under the lease.