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Saturday, February 15, 2025

Law Made Sim­ple

Landlords: Do you know your rights?

by

20141123

Ran­da­lyn Rowe

Stu­dent, Hugh Wood­ing Law School

A ten­an­cy is a con­trac­tu­al re­la­tion­ship be­tween two par­ties, name­ly a land­lord and a ten­ant. The essence of a ten­an­cy is a grant by the land­lord to the ten­ant of 'ex­clu­sive pos­ses­sion' of a prop­er­ty to­geth­er with an in­ten­tion to cre­ate the re­la­tion­ship of land­lord and ten­ant. Since the ba­sis of the re­la­tion­ship is con­trac­tu­al, the rights of par­ties de­pend on the terms of the agree­ment.

There are how­ev­er cer­tain rights and oblig­a­tions which are part of all ten­an­cy agree­ments or are im­plied by law. In this ar­ti­cle, some of the usu­al rights and oblig­a­tions of the land­lord will be not­ed.

�2 Rights

Rent: A land­lord has the right to set and re­ceive on a spec­i­fied date, the rent for the prop­er­ty oc­cu­pied by the ten­ant.

En­try: The land­lord has the right to en­ter the prop­er­ty for the pur­pos­es of in­spec­tion and re­pairs. He must give the ten­ant at least 24 hours pri­or no­tice of his in­ten­tion. In cas­es of emer­gency how­ev­er, the land­lord can en­ter the prop­er­ty with­out the ten­ant's con­sent.Re­strict as­sign­ment/Sub­let­ting: The land­lord can rea­son­ably with­hold his con­sent or ab­solute­ly pro­hib­it the ten­ant from as­sign­ing/ trans­fer­ring his in­ter­est in the prop­er­ty or sub-let­ting/rent­ing the premis­es to some­one else.

Ter­mi­nate ten­an­cy: The land­lord can end a ten­an­cy by giv­ing the ten­ant a valid and writ­ten "No­tice to Quit." If the ten­an­cy is fixed, that is, for a spec­i­fied num­ber of years, the ten­an­cy will end at its ex­pi­ra­tion.If the ten­an­cy is pe­ri­od­ic, for ex­am­ple month­ly or year­ly, the no­tice pe­ri­od is one month and six months' re­spec­tive­ly.

A land­lord can al­so go to court for a pos­ses­sion or­der against the ten­ant for rea­sons such as non-pay­ment of rent or on grounds that the prop­er­ty is re­quired for per­son­al use.

�2 Oblig­a­tions

Re­ceipts: The land­lord must pro­vide the ten­ant with re­ceipts for pay­ment of rent.

Re­pairs: The land­lord must en­sure that the prop­er­ty is in re­pair and in all re­spects fit to live in at the start and du­ra­tion of the ten­an­cy.He must main­tain both the in­te­ri­or and ex­te­ri­or of the prop­er­ty. To car­ry out this du­ty, the land­lord must be in­formed of the ne­ces­si­ty for re­pairs and giv­en rea­son­able ac­cess to the prop­er­ty to do such re­pairs.

If the ten­ant af­ter rea­son­ably in­form­ing the land­lord of the need, un­der­takes such re­pairs, then the land­lord must re­im­burse him.

Qui­et en­joy­ment: The land­lord or any­one act­ing un­der him must not in­ter­fere with the ten­ant's right to peace­ful­ly oc­cu­py the prop­er­ty.

Fit­ness: When the prop­er­ty is fur­nished, there's an im­pli­ca­tion that it is rea­son­ably fit for hu­man habi­ta­tion, that is, it has met the min­i­mum health and safe­ty stan­dards such as wa­ter, san­i­ta­tion and prop­er ven­ti­la­tion.

Re­turn de­posit: Where the land­lord re­ceives a se­cu­ri­ty de­posit, he must re­turn it to the ten­ant at the end of the ten­an­cy.It may how­ev­er be kept if the ten­ant has, for ex­am­ple, failed to pay rent or has dam­aged the prop­er­ty.

�2 This col­umn is not le­gal ad­vice. If you have a le­gal prob­lem, you should con­sult a le­gal ad­vis­er. Co-or­di­na­tor: Roshan Ram­char­i­tar


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