When it comes to real estate, it’s all about rights

Posted by Mark Chapman on August 16th, 2010 at 12:21 am

Dane Hahn

By Dane Hahn

The Realty Column

Real estate is all about rights. Who has the “right” to do some­thing, and who has to with­stand the other fellow’s rights.

Real estate rights are spelled out in the long and some­times difficult-to-read doc­u­ments that lawyers and Real­tors always have in their briefcases.

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This week I spoke with a reader who has a deposit on a prop­erty she wants to rent. She called look­ing for advice because the landlord’s agent was hold­ing her deposit and would not return it while the land­lord attempted to refine the lease (think rene­go­ti­ate), and our reader wanted her money back.

She was will­ing to go for­ward with the lease if they would just get a copy to her so she could read it before she signed it (there’s a les­son here for our elected offi­cials), or she would be happy to have her $1,500 back and she would go find another place to live.

Her opin­ion was that the trans­ac­tion had bogged down, her Real­tor was not pay­ing atten­tion to the trans­ac­tion and the landlord’s Real­tor had her check and was unwill­ing to return it pend­ing get­ting the lease from the land­lord for her approval. She didn’t say, but I assumed that each time the lease was returned to one party or the other, there were more changes to be made.

Ten­ants have a bun­dle of rights, and, if you are a ten­ant, your fed­eral gov­ern­ment wants you to know about them. Among them are the rights to apply for an apart­ment with­out being dis­crim­i­nated against. And we can’t dis­crim­i­nate based on race, gen­der, color, reli­gion, age, nation­al­ity, phys­i­cal or men­tal dis­abil­ity or fam­ily sta­tus, sex­ual ori­en­ta­tion or mar­i­tal status.

There are some excep­tions to the equal-housing rule. Smok­ers are not a pro­tected class. Nei­ther are ten­ants who have pets. And a reli­gious group may offer hous­ing solely to mem­bers of its con­gre­ga­tion; retire­ment and single-family com­mu­ni­ties can invoke rent­ing stip­u­la­tions as well. A land­lord liv­ing in one side of a duplex and rent­ing the other side may also dis­crim­i­nate with­out penalty.

There is no law that pro­hibits dis­crim­i­nat­ing based on a renter’s level of income or credit score.

If you were denied hous­ing some­where, you have the right to know why your appli­ca­tion was rejected. Your land­lord is required to tell you if your appli­ca­tion is rejected because of crit­i­cism from an employer, bank, past land­lord or other ref­er­ence. It is also your right to know if your rejec­tion is based on a poor credit report.

Before you sign a lease, be sure to review it care­fully for any strange clauses or fine print that may take away some of your rights.

Most leases con­tain stan­dard con­trac­tual lan­guage, but may also con­tian clauses that limit your rights or increase your rent over time, some of which are stan­dard in com­mer­cial leases, but may be inserted by an aggres­sive land­lord and you have the right to nego­ti­ate them out if you and the land­lord can come to an agreement.

Ten­ant rights include the right to pri­vacy. Most leases state that the land­lord is not per­mit­ted to enter your apart­ment with­out your prior per­mis­sion or noti­fi­ca­tion, which you can’t unrea­son­ably with­hold. The land­lord must give you advance notice before com­ing into your apart­ment except to make emer­gancy repairs. As you get to the end of the lease, there may be a clause that allows the land­lord or his agent to give a tour to poten­tial renters.

Ten­ants have the right to a “hab­it­able premises.” In other words, your apart­ment must be fit to live in. This means basic neces­si­ties (such as heat, water and elec­tric­ity) must be con­nected, even if you agree to pay the util­ity bills sep­a­rately, and be free of safety haz­ards (such as bad wiring, miss­ing locks, bro­ken glass or holes in the floor). Also, your apart­ment should not be infested with bugs, mice or other pests.

One very impor­tant safety haz­ard to watch out for is lead-based paint. Lead-based paint was elim­i­nated from the mar­ket 32 years ago, but may still exist in a build­ing built prior to 1978. Land­lords and Real­tors are required to pro­vide you with a dis­clo­sure regard­ing lead paint. If you notice chip­ping, flak­ing or peel­ing paint in your apart­ment, con­tact your land­lord imme­di­ately. For more infor­ma­tion on lead and the health haz­ards it can cause, the EPA has a book­let avail­able at most Real­tors’ offices and also many paint stores.

Your land­lord may have the right to sue you for any num­ber of rea­sons, such as fail­ing to pay rent or vio­lat­ing your lease in some way, such as leav­ing early or over­stay­ing your term with­out mutual agree­ment, or dam­ages that are obvi­ously not due to nor­mal wear and tear.

If you are sued, you have the right to receive proper noti­fi­ca­tion in a timely man­ner, the right to make amends (pay the over­due rent, fix the lease vio­la­tion), and the right to appeal the lawsuit.

Land­lords can ask you to leave or begin evic­tion pro­ceed­ings, but no land­lord has the right to sim­ply throw you out of your apartment.

Back to my reader who asked the ques­tion: She said she’d call me and let me know how it all worked out, so stay tuned.

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If you have a real estate ques­tion you would like answered, address it to Dane Hahn, please include a phone num­ber so if I have addi­tional ques­tions I can call you. Send your ques­tions to dane.hahn@gmail.com

Dane Hahn is affil­i­ated with Tar­pon Coast Realty which has offices in Engle­wood, Boca Grande and Sara­sota. To reach him by phone call 603−566−5460.

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