Q: We are renting a townhouse and the garage door won't stay closed. Can we terminate the lease?
Our garage door will open in the middle of the night on its own. It will also open while we are gone for the week/weekend and stay open for days at a time without us knowing. We have told our landlord of the issue 3 times in 2 months and it still isn't fixed. They had their maintenance person come out once and told me the only way to fix it is to replace it. That was 2 months ago and nothing more has happened. We've called 2 more times to complain it's still an issue. They said they would send someone out and no one has shown up to fix anything.
A:
I should publish an article on this type of question because it comes up so often. I don’t mean the garage door issue but rather a tenant who is upset about the condition of the premises and wants to terminate the lease.
Here’s my answer.
1. If you and your landlord can come to an agreement to terminate the lease that is ideal.
2. You can move out, get sued, and then raise your legal defenses. If the landlord has an attorney and you don’t hire one you’ll likely lose. If your lease has a one-sided attorney’s fee provision (likely) then you get hit with having to pay your opponent’s reasonable attorney’s fees if you lose.
3. You can hire an attorney and file a declaratory judgment case to ask the court to determine that the landlord has breached the lease such that it should be terminated. You’d better pay rent into the court while the case is pending.
4. You can hire an attorney to try to negotiate a resolution acceptable to you.
I hope this helps and that you can avoid litigation.
1 user found this answer helpful
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