Q: Does our landlord have to compensate us for broken A/C during heat advisory?
We rent a house in Texas and were displaced for 14 days due to the A/C not working during a heat advisory. The property management company said via text that we would get $25/day deducted from our rent for each day the A/C is out. It has been two weeks since the issue was fixed and we have already paid next month's rent in full. The property management company is now going back and saying we may not get anything. Is there any recourse for us to get compensation in this situation?
A:
You may be able to sue the property management company based on the text. The amount is well below the small claims court jurisdictional limit of $20,000, so you can file suit in a justice of the peace court under its small claims jurisdictional amount without hiring a lawyer.
A word of caution: Some landlords will claim that a tenant has contributed to an HVAC failure and need for repair by asserting that the tenant has not timely changed the air filters on the unit. It can help your case and deflect any such accusation if you dig out your receipts for the last year or so of air filters to show that you changed them at least quarterly.
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