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If your landlord does not make repairs later on you have either notified her in writing or she has been ordered past the Board of Health to make repairs, you lot may need to consider other options:

Withhold Rent
Repair and Deduct
Organize
Break Your Charter
Go to Court

One time you inform yourself of the options, you may want to consult with a tenant advancement system or lawyer (come across Directory).

1. Withhold Rent

One way to get your landlord to fix bad conditions is to withhold all or some of your rent until the landlord actually makes the repairs. This is called "hire withholding."⁴⁴

Tenants accept a right to withhold rent because landlords are obligated to provide safe and habitable housing under the warranty of habitability. If a landlord breaks this obligation, a tenant's obligation to pay the full amount of rent stops until repairs are fabricated.⁴⁵ A tenant may want to withhold all or role of the rent, depending on the seriousness of the violations.⁴⁶ The law does non state how much or for how long you lot can withhold.

If you are considering withholding your rent, it is very important that you do it correct. Before you begin to withhold, read the next sections in this affiliate very carefully. Utilize the sample Rent Withholding Letter (Form 12).

Notation

If you are living in a hotel or motel or have lived in a rooming firm for less than three consecutive months, you practise non have the right to withhold your hire to get the landlord to brand repairs. For more data virtually the rights of rooming house tenants, see Chapter 15: Rooming Houses.

a. When Can You Withhold Rent

Before yous tin withhold hire, you must meet certain requirements.⁴⁷ If yous can reply yes to all five of the questions beneath, you lot have met these requirements and tin can legally withhold your rent.

	YES	NO
Do defective conditions be in your flat?		
Do these conditions "endanger or materially impair" the health, safety, or well-existence of anyone living in the home? (Encounter Housing Code Checklist (Booklet 2)).		
Does the landlord know about the lacking weather (and know this before you were behind in your rent)?		
Were the conditions caused by someone or something other than yourself or someone under your command (such equally a guest or a member of the household)?		
Can your landlord brand repairs without you having to permanently move out?		

If you respond yes to all five questions, you can legally withhold your rent and your landlord cannot evict you—although she may try. If a landlord tries to evict you and you lot have properly withheld your rent, your landlord may be violating other laws. See Chapter 12: Evictions - Retaliatory Evictions.

b. Withholding Gives You the Ability to Negotiate

Rent withholding is the nearly direct way that you can force your landlord to brand repairs. More often than non, it is besides the most successful tactic. It is specially successful in a building where tenants agree to join together to withhold their rent. Come across Chapter 10: Getting Organized about how to organize a rent withholding campaign.

While you are withholding rent, you are in a better position to negotiate with the landlord about what you desire. Some of the issues that you tin can negotiate include:

• The date when the landlord will outset and complete repairs,
• How much rent yous will pay (or withhold) while repairs are being completed, and
• How much of the withheld hire you will return (if any) once repairs are properly completed.

c. Protect Yourself When You lot Withhold

The right to withhold does not mean that you have a correct to live in your flat rent-gratuitous. Rent withholding is a style to get the landlord to make repairs. Once a landlord makes repairs, you lot must resume paying hire.

The all-time way to protect yourself while you are withholding hire is to take your rent money and set it aside in a depository financial institution account separate from any other bank account that you lot have. (Do not keep cash in your apartment.) Although the law does non require y'all to put your rent in a bank, there are several reasons why this is a good idea.

• Starting time, if your landlord tries to evict yous, you can prove the courtroom that you had the money to pay rent and yous did not only stop paying because you were unable to pay. Setting up a separate banking company account will also strengthen your case and give you more brownie in the optics of a judge if you lot take the landlord to courtroom or the landlord attempts to evict you lot.
• Second, if a judge somewhen orders you to pay some or all of the withheld rent to the landlord, you will have this coin available. If you don't pay, you can be evicted. Information technology is very unusual that a approximate would observe that the weather are so bad that you would be entitled to withhold all (100%) of your rent, which is why it is so important to have that hire money set aside.

Note

Legally, once your landlord makes repairs, you do not automatically have to give the landlord back whatsoever of the rent yous accept withheld. Just a judge can guild you to do this. You may decide to go on some or all of the rent you withheld considering of the impact these atmospheric condition had on your use of the apartment. If your landlord decides to take yous to court to get back the withheld rent, explain to the judge how the conditions affected yous and your family. Depending on the situation, a judge may determine y'all can keep part or all of the withheld rent.⁴⁸ To effort to avoid court and eviction, you lot can also negotiate with the landlord to attempt to agree on a off-white sum to be given to the landlord for the period when yous lived with the bad conditions.

d. Be Prepared for How Your Landlord May React

While you lot have a legal correct to withhold rent, your landlord may try to adios you. The best way to protect yourself against eviction is to make sure yous:

• Document the bad atmospheric condition,
• Meet all the requirements for withholding rent. For more data see When Tin You Withhold Rent,
• Deposit your rent in a bank, and
• Utilize the sample Rent Withholding Letter (Form 12) to notify your landlord well-nigh the bad atmospheric condition.

A copy of a housing inspection written report that accurately describes code violations is the best fashion to certificate violations of the state Sanitary Code. It is also proof that the landlord knew about the conditions.⁴⁹ Over again, if you take a photographic camera or video camera (or can borrow one), accept pictures of the bad conditions ideally with a date and time stamp. If you impress out the pictures write the date and fourth dimension they were taken on the back of the flick. A good picture will be worth a chiliad words if you need to show that bad conditions exist.

If a landlord wants to evict you, she must go to courtroom and go permission from a judge. If a judge finds that you have followed all the requirements nether the rent-withholding police force, y'all will accept a legal defence to the eviction.⁵⁰ This ways a gauge should non give the landlord permission to adios you and you can stay in your home. Yous may also take a legal merits against her for coin damages. Come across Affiliate 12: Evictions for more than near evictions and Chapter 13: When to Take Your Landlord to Courtroom for more information about other legal claims.

A judge may also order you to pay an amount called the fair rental value to the court. The fair rental value is the value of your apartment with all its problems and code violations⁵¹ (encounter box post-obit this section). If a gauge orders you to pay coin to the court, enquire the judge also to order the landlord to set all defective conditions. Ideally, yous want the court to hold onto your rent money until a landlord has made repairs. Although a court can determine to give your landlord permission to use the money you pay to the courtroom to make repairs, you tin can ask the judge to hold a hearing before returning this coin to the landlord.⁵² This volition requite you lot a chance to tell the guess if the landlord has fixed whatsoever of the problems.

At the stop of an eviction instance, if a judge finds that, because of code violations, your landlord owes yous the same amount as or more money than you lot owe her, you win the example and can stay in your apartment. If, on the other manus, the courtroom finds that you owe the landlord money, you can stay in your apartment only if you pay the corporeality you lot owe to the courtroom. (This is why it is important to set aside your rent money—so if a judge says you owe coin, you lot can pay and stay.) Yous must pay this amount to the court within vii days of receiving a notice from the court about the amount due.⁵³ If you lot do not, you can be evicted. The court may besides require you to pay sure court costs.⁵⁴

Determining Fair Rental Value: An Example

Because your stove doesn't work, your toilet is broken, water leaks through the ceiling, and the landlord refuses to give you a fume detector, you withhold all of your hire. Your rent is $900 per month.

Earlier you offset to withhold, you notify your landlord in writing nearly all of these weather condition and go a housing inspection written report. You besides put your rent money aside in the bank.

Subsequently iii months of withholding rent(a total of $two,700), your landlord decides to try to evict you instead of making repairs. She files an eviction case in court based on nonpayment of rent. After hearing both sides of the case, a gauge finds that you lot properly withheld your rent. The judge also finds that during the 3 months you withheld your rent, the off-white rental value of your apartment with all of the lawmaking violations was $450 per month, as opposed to the $900 per calendar month that you were being charged.

The court will then send you a notice saying you owe $ane,350 for the three months you lot withheld rent plus court costs. If you lot pay this amount to the court within 7 days of receiving this notice, yous can stay in your home. You also get to keep the other $one,350 you withheld.

If you practise not pay the $1,350 plus courtroom costs within the 7 days, the landlord is entitled to evict you. This is why it is and so of import to set the rent bated in a separate depository financial institution account.

2. Repair and Deduct

Under certain conditions, tenants in Massachusetts have the legal right to make repairs and deduct upward to 4 months' hire to pay for them.⁵⁵ This is referred to every bit "repair and deduct." The advantage of choosing to repair and deduct is that the repairs get done. The disadvantage is that you are taking responsibility for making sure that the repairs are done well. See the sample Repair and Deduct Letter (Grade 13).

a. When Tin can Y'all Repair and Deduct

To be able to deduct the cost of repairs from your rent, certain conditions must be met. If you can answer yeah to all five questions below, yous tin repair and deduct.

	Aye	NO
Are in that location violations that "endanger or materially impair" the wellness, condom, or well-existence of a tenant that have beencertified by a housing inspector or that a court finds exist?		
Have you given the landlord or her agent written notice of the violations?		
Did the landlord fail to essentially complete repairs within xiv days subsequently this written discover, or within such shorter fourth dimension if ordered past a housing inspector?		
Were the weather caused past someone or something other than yourself or someone nether your control (such every bit a guest or a member of the household)?		
Have you given your landlord admission to your home to make repairs?		

b. What Can You Repair

You are immune by law to repair annihilation in your apartment or in the common areas of your building. If there are violations that impact several apartments or an unabridged building, a grouping of tenants can get together and have the repairs made. Make certain, nevertheless, that everyone is in agreement, that you have a certified Board of Health report documenting the problems, and that you have given your landlord written notice of the violations. Each and every tenant tin and so deduct up to four months' rent for her share of the full.

For example, you and other tenants may become the boiler in your edifice stock-still, and so all affected tenants can subsequently deduct up to 4 months of hire, depending on how much the repair cost.

c. How Much Tin You Deduct

Nether the law, you may deduct just a total of 4 months' rent in any 12-month flow. You cannot store up months of withheld hire over several years and and then deduct more than 4 months' rent in a unmarried yr. If you decide to repair and deduct, save all bills and receipts for materials and labor as proof of your costs. Think: When you make the repair, you are taking responsibility for making sure it'due south done right. When yous hire someone to practice the repairs, ask what complications or risks there may be in doing the repair. It is also a practiced idea to go a reference for anyone you rent and a few estimates for the work so you can show the cost of the person you hire is reasonable

d. What If the Landlord Thinks You Deducted Also Much

If a landlord feels that you deducted too much for repairs, she is immune to go to courtroom to try and get back some of this money. The police does not, all the same, let your landlord to evict you if the courtroom believes that you have deducted too much rent.⁵⁷ It is also illegal for landlords to raise your hire for repairs you lot legally made under the repair and deduct statute, unless there is a courtroom social club permitting a rent increment.⁵⁸

If your landlord does have y'all to court to try to get dorsum possible excess hire deductions, practise not ignore the court notice. To bear witness that the deductions were excessive, the landlord will take to show that the deductions were for more than iv months' rent during a 12-month period, or were unreasonable given the circumstances. In deciding if deductions were unreasonable, a guess will await to meet what alternatives the tenant had at the time the violations were start reported, how urgent the repairs were, and the quality and cost of the work done.⁵⁹

Repairs for minor code violations, such as screens, small leaks, or small holes in the walls, will probably not be establish reasonable past the court unless there are so many of them that y'all can prove that the overall effect is dangerous.⁶⁰ This is difficult to do.

iii. Organize

If other tenants in your building or community face bad conditions, there are ways to piece of work together to improve anybody's living conditions. Tenants tin can all concord to withhold rent until the landlord makes repairs. A group of tenants can inquire a guess to order the landlord to make repairs. If the landlord absolutely refuses to set the bad atmospheric condition, tenants tin can enquire a court to appoint a temporary landlord chosen a receiver in order to make repairs. For more than encounter section in this chapter called Receivership. Tenants can also organize and together put pressure on the local Lath of Health to inspect their apartments and enforce the country Sanitary Lawmaking and local wellness ordinances.

Affiliate 10: Getting Organized gives you information most how to brainstorm to organize tenants. It volition as well give y'all specific organizing steps y'all tin can take to go repairs fabricated.

4. Break Your Lease

When there are very serious violations of the Sanitary Code in your apartment and you feel you must motility, the police force allows you to break your lease. If yous practise not have a lease, y'all can leave without giving the usual xxx-24-hour interval observe (or whatever discover may be required in your state of affairs) to the landlord. You lot are allowed to intermission your lease or move out without giving the usual detect because the landlord has violated her obligation to provide a habitable flat nether the warranty of habitability.⁶¹

If you lot motility out early, your landlord may try to sue you for moving early and for the remainder of the hire due under any charter. For this reason, before you move out, it is wise to obtain a Board of Health written report equally proof of the violations in your apartment.

Continue in heed

If violations are not serious, you may exist held responsible for paying the rent if you lot go out without proper observe.

When you lot move out because of serious violations, yous are entitled to get back your security deposit. If you accept to go to courtroom to get your deposit back, you might have to prove that the weather condition in your flat were astringent enough to permit your leaving. For more information virtually getting security deposits back and moving out, see Chapter 3: Security Deposits and Last Month's Hire and Chapter eleven: Moving Out.

five. Go to Courtroom

If your landlord refuses to make repairs, you tin can take her to court. The court has the power to do a number of things. A judge can:

• Society your landlord to make repairs,
• Order your landlord to pay you coin for the harm that you lot take suffered,
• Appoint a receiver: a person or system appointed by the courtroom to manage and fix up the property (see section in this affiliate called Receivership)⁶² ,
• Fine your landlord or put your landlord in jail for violating the law.

There are primarily four types of complaints that yous tin file with the court to need that a landlord make repairs:

1. Tenant Petition;
2. Emergency Injunction, also called a Temporary Restraining Order;
3. Criminal Complaint;
4. Civil Complaint.

a. Tenant Petition

Tenants can inquire a judge to society their landlord to repair conditions that violate the country Sanitary Code (or local health ordinance, if information technology is stricter). This is called a tenant petition.⁶³ Meet the sample Tenant Petition for Enforcement of the State Sanitary Code (Form 14). When you file a tenant petition, a judge tin:

• Order the landlord to brand repairs, or
• Engage a temporary landlord called a receiver to make repairs.

The benefits of bringing a tenant petition are that it may be a safe style for you lot to get repairs made without having to withhold rent and the courtroom filing fee is low.⁶⁴ If you withhold your hire, yous may take to go to court to defend yourself confronting an eviction. If you file a tenant petition, you—not your landlord—are bringing the matter before a judge. A tenant petition too puts you in a better position to negotiate what yous want with the landlord. For more than nearly negotiating, come across Affiliate 14: Using the Court Organization - Negotiating a Practiced Settlement and Chapter ten: Getting Organized - Negotiating a Solution with the Landlord.

When yous file a tenant petition, a guess also has the power to make certain other decisions. A judge may determine that until your landlord makes repairs, your rent should be lowered to the fair rental value of your apartment. The fair rental value is the value of your dwelling house with all of its problems. A judge can require you to pay this corporeality to the courtroom clerk (in addition to whatever past rent you take withheld or owe) while the landlord makes repairs.⁶⁵ Ideally, you desire the court to concur onto this coin until the landlord makes repairs, so that the landlord has some incentive to get them done. A judge can, however, release this money to your landlord for purposes of making repairs.⁶⁶

Note

A judge also has the power in a tenant petition to club the Board of Wellness to condemn a very dangerous building. This could lead to tenants' evictions.⁶⁷ (For more well-nigh condemnations, see What If Your Edifice Is Condemned in this affiliate.)

b. Emergency Injunction

If you lot desire a judge to guild your landlord to make emergency repairs, you lot tin can file a complaint and ask a court to issue an injunction.⁶⁸ An injunction is an order from the courtroom that tells your landlord to take immediate activeness to correct a problem or to terminate doing something that is illegal. For example, a estimate tin gild your landlord to immediately fix the heating system.

In near cases, tenants request an emergency gild called a temporary restraining guild or TRO when they first go to court and file the complaint. Because this is an emergency, you may request a TRO without first notifying the landlord. See a Temporary Restraining Order (Form 15).
Or effort the MassAccess interactive interview, Complaint for a Temporary Restraining Order, that lets you complete, review, sign and transport your asking for a Temporary Restraining Social club to the court from your smart phone or computer.

If a judge gives you lot a TRO, it is proficient for only a short period of time—the maximum is ten days. If y'all demand an order to last longer than x days, you must ask the courtroom to schedule another hearing where yous tin request what is called a preliminary injunction. A preliminary injunction is an gild that can cover a longer period of time. If you use Form fifteen, you tin ask for a hearing for a preliminary injunction at the same time y'all ask for a TRO.

If you lot become a TRO from the gauge, take a copy of information technology to a sheriff'southward or constable'south office immediately. A sheriff or constable must serve information technology on your landlord. A TRO is not good unless your landlord has cognition of it. If your landlord refuses to obey a TRO, you should go back to court and tell the judge. If a judge finds that your landlord has not obeyed the TRO, the landlord may be held in contempt and tin exist arrested and fined.

When y'all file the complaint to seek a TRO and preliminary injunction, yous volition likewise need to pay the filing and service fees. If you cannot afford these fees, you tin ask the court to waive or eliminate the filing fee and to pay the service fee. To exercise this use the Affidavit of Indigency grade (Booklet ix).

c. Criminal Complaint

If your landlord refuses to make repairs, you lot can file an application for criminal complaint (and pay the filing fee) or inquire the Board of Wellness to file an application for a criminal complaint. You can do this at the aforementioned time you pursue other strategies. Because information technology can take several weeks for a court to schedule a hearing for a criminal complaint, this strategy does not usually produce a quick consequence. A criminal complaint can, notwithstanding, result in a landlord having to pay a fine or spend time in jail. The advantages of a criminal action over a civil action are:

• It may put more force per unit area on the landlord to make repairs.
• If the Board of Wellness brings the criminal complaint, you may non have to go to court because the inspector can nowadays all the necessary bear witness.

The major disadvantage of a criminal action is that yous lose control over the instance. The Assistant District Chaser or the City'southward Attorney will prosecute the instance. You or your lawyer do not command the day-to-day direction of the suit. Also, yous must exist willing and able to announced in court, sometimes on a week-to-week basis, if you are the person bringing the complaint. You may go quicker results if you lot file a ceremonious complaint or a tenant petition.

In that location are two kinds of criminal cases that tenants tin bring against landlords who fail to repair Sanitary Code violations. The first is where the landlord fails to comply with the Germ-free Lawmaking.⁶⁹ You or the Board of Health may bring this kind of complaint.⁷⁰ Fines for violations of the state Sanitary Code can range from $10 to $500 a solar day.⁷¹

The 2d type of case is where the landlord fails to provide heat, hot water, or other utilities or interferes with your quiet enjoyment. Merely tenants who are affected by the landlord'due south illegal behavior can file this type of criminal complaint. To bring this type of complaint, you practice not need a Lath of Health inspection, although information technology is very helpful. In addition to fining your landlord, a estimate can also sentence a landlord to serve up to 6 months in jail for violation of the law of quiet enjoyment.

d. Civil Complaint

If a landlord refuses to repair lawmaking violations, tenants can file a civil complaint or a small claims lawsuit. A small claims case is a civil lawsuit that involves no more than $7,000.⁷² In a civil complaint, yous bring a lawsuit against your landlord for money for the damage that you have suffered or are suffering considering of lawmaking violations; and y'all can besides enquire the judge to issue an injunction (see section called Emergency Injunction). Y'all can also appoint a receiver (see section called Receivership). If you bring a civil lawsuit against your landlord considering she has failed to make repairs, there are primarily half dozen types of legal claims y'all can include:

• Breach of Warranty of Habitability,
• Breach of Tranquillity Enjoyment,
• Unfair and Deceptive Practices,
• Negligence,
• Infliction of Emotional Distress,
• Nuisance.

Each of these legal claims is described in Chapter thirteen: When to Take Your Landlord to Court. Equally you read, yous may detect that your landlord has violated other laws. Before you determine to bring a lawsuit confronting your landlord, you lot need to advisedly evaluate the strength of your case.

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Source: https://www.masslegalhelp.org/housing/problems/getting-landlord-make-repairs/refusing-repairs

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