Renters’ Repair Dilemma
When you’re a renter, there is perhaps nothing worse than a landlord who refuses to fix problems that need fixing. Noisy neighbors are one thing, but when the living room roof begins to leak, priorities come clear quickly.
More than an irritant, repair neglect is an issue that affects the lifestyles and health of thousands of Southland residents. According to the state Department of Housing and Community Development, the Los Angeles-Long Beach area holds 30% of California’s substandard houses, condos and apartments--a sorry total of 407,000 units in need of rehabilitation or replacement.
Ten years ago, the number stood at 166,521, less than half the current figure.
“Substandard housing is a huge, huge problem and it’s getting worse every year,” said Paul Lee, director of litigation for the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, which mediates 12,000 tenant-landlord disputes each year.
As the share of those who rent in California fast approaches 50% of the adult population, complaints about rental repair neglect are on the rise. The state Department of Consumer Affairs annually receives more telephone complaints about rental repair issues than about new appliances or just about anything else.
Building inspectors in cities across the state report they are overwhelmed with increasing numbers of repair complaints. Crippled by budget cuts, most have neither the time nor the staff to meet the growing demand.
“In the best of all possible worlds, tenants would be able to complain to the local building department and they’d come out and take action against the landlord,” said Dara Schur, a tenants’ rights attorney for the Western Center on Law and Poverty in Los Angeles.
“The problem is the agencies are busy just trying to stay afloat.”
Most landlords do a good job of maintaining their property, if only because it represents a significant investment. And landlords complain, with some justification, that many problems arise from tenant neglect, not their own.
“We’re very concerned that the few bad apples who make the front pages leave the majority of good owners wearing black hats,” said Debra Carlton, director of research for the California Apartment Assn., which represents more than 25,000 property owners statewide.
Still, there are few means to force landlords to maintain their properties to state health and safety standards. Thousands of property owners will make needed repairs only after tenants complain to the authorities. Thousands more ignore the repairs entirely, or respond with an eviction notice, say tenant advocates.
Evicting a tenant in retaliation for a complaint is illegal under state law, but landlords have one clear advantage over most tenants who complain--they know the law.
“I think most tenants are unaware of their rights, or only find out about them when things get out of control,” said Rod Field, directing attorney for Legal Aid’s Eviction Defense Center, whose four lawyers counsel about 7,000 tenants each year.
Ignorance is especially rampant among the Southland’s growing ethnic populations, Field said. Unaware of their rights and badgered by hostile managers, many tenants would rather keep quiet about repairs than face eviction.
Moreover, the strategies most often employed by tenants to get repairs made have generally proved ineffective.
In the 1970s, attorneys advocated rent-withholding for dealing with negligent landlords. The non-payment strategy was bolstered by a 1974 California Supreme Court decision, Green vs. Superior Court, giving tenants the right to withhold rent from a landlord who repeatedly ignores requests to repair conditions that threaten a tenant’s health and safety.
But rent-withholding as a strategy to get repairs made has some serious drawbacks.
First, the condition of the rental unit must be serious enough to warrant non-payment. The plaintiff in the Green case, for instance, rented a rat-infested apartment with bad plumbing, no heat, a collapsed bathroom ceiling, faulty wiring and a dangerous stove. The court found that the landlord in that case had violated the “implied warranty of habitability,” which holds the landlord responsible for repairing conditions that seriously affect the rental unit’s habitability--now the standard for all California rental property.
Today, judges are increasingly liberal in their readings of the Green case, so tenants can win an eviction case without living in dire poverty. A leaky roof or smashed window will do, as long as there is proof that the tenant did not cause the defect, that complaints to the landlord went unanswered for a reasonable period of time, and that the defect made the rental uninhabitable.
But minor problems such as cracked paint or squeaky doors are not justification for withholding rent. Those who think they are could find themselves in deep trouble. If a judge decides the defects do not substantially affect habitability, he or she will rule in favor of the landlord. The complaining tenant can get stuck with a bill for the landlord’s attorney’s fees and strapped with a negative credit report that makes it harder to find a new place to live.
“Rent withholding is very effective and it’s definitely legal, but if the tenant guessed wrong on the severity of the repair, they may end up on the street,” warned Schur, of the Western Center on Law.
Even if the tenant wins an eviction suit, judges cannot order the landlord to make the needed repairs. So while withholding for the proper reasons is a defense that can stop eviction, it may fail to remedy the cause of the dispute--substandard conditions.
Another strategy, called “repair and deduct,” gives tenants more options. California law allows tenants to deduct up to one month’s rent at a time, twice a year, to cover the cost of repairs they made. The same conditions for serious defects and landlord notice apply as for rent-withholding.
“Repair and deduct” gives tenants a stronger legal footing than rent-withholding alone, since they can show their money went to address the problem. But deducting any amount from the agreed-upon rent without the landlord’s consent is still grounds for eviction, so tenants who repair and deduct face the same legal hurdles as those who withhold. They may even be ordered to pay the landlord the money they deducted for repairs.
Barrie J. Roberts, an attorney for Legal Services of Northern California in Sacramento, advises her low-income clients to take a new approach. Since rent-withholding and deductions can get them evicted, Roberts’ clients take their landlords to court.
Roberts’ strategy has the tenant pay for the necessary repairs themselves, without deducting the cost from rent. Then they sue the landlord in small claims court for the repair money and other damages, including a reduced rent.
“The beauty of the small-claims approach is that the tenant doesn’t face eviction for non-payment, they can get financial reimbursement for the cost of repairs and they get the repair made without ruining their credit record,” Roberts said. “It’s a slam-dunk defense for the tenant.”
Sure thing or not, he warned on one point: Small claims court is no cakewalk. Los Angeles’ small claims courts are overburdened with cases and delays can be long. It’s not unusual to spend an entire day waiting for a case to be heard only to find that it has been moved to the next day’s calendar. And that’s not the worst of it.
“Even if you get a (favorable) judgment, you have to go about finding a way to collect it,” said Legal Aid’s Field.
Field believes repair strategies are at best a piecemeal approach to the core problem.
“It all comes back to the fact that every year there are more people who need affordable housing and not enough housing to go around,” said Field.
“Landlords know they can rent whether they keep their places livable or let them rot,” he added. “Until we address the shortage problem, or start funding the agencies that enforce health and safety codes, it’s a property owner’s market.”
