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If your landlord does non make repairs subsequently you have either notified her in writing or she has been ordered by the Board of Health to make repairs, you may need to consider other options:

Withhold Rent
Repair and Deduct
Organize
Interruption Your Charter
Become to Court

Once you inform yourself of the options, you may want to consult with a tenant advancement organisation or lawyer (see Directory).

1. Withhold Rent

One way to get your landlord to set up bad atmospheric condition is to withhold all or some of your rent until the landlord actually makes the repairs. This is called "rent withholding."⁴⁴

Tenants take a correct to withhold rent considering landlords are obligated to provide prophylactic and habitable housing under the warranty of habitability. If a landlord breaks this obligation, a tenant's obligation to pay the full amount of hire stops until repairs are made.⁴⁵ A tenant may want to withhold all or part of the rent, depending on the seriousness of the violations.⁴⁶ The constabulary does not state how much or for how long y'all can withhold.

If yous are considering withholding your rent, information technology is very important that you do it right. Before you begin to withhold, read the next sections in this chapter very carefully. Use the sample Rent Withholding Letter (Form 12).

Note

If you are living in a hotel or cabin or have lived in a rooming firm for less than 3 consecutive months, you do non have the right to withhold your rent to get the landlord to make repairs. For more than information nigh the rights of rooming house tenants, see Chapter xv: Rooming Houses.

a. When Can You Withhold Hire

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

	YES	NO
Practice defective conditions exist in your apartment?		
Practise these conditions "endanger or materially impair" the health, safety, or well-existence of anyone living in the home? (Come across Housing Lawmaking Checklist (Booklet 2)).		
Does the landlord know about the defective atmospheric condition (and know this before you were behind in your rent)?		
Were the conditions caused by someone or something other than yourself or someone nether your control (such as a guest or a member of the household)?		
Can your landlord make repairs without you having to permanently move out?		

If y'all answer aye to all 5 questions, you tin legally withhold your rent and your landlord cannot evict you—although she may try. If a landlord tries to adios you and you accept properly withheld your rent, your landlord may be violating other laws. See Affiliate 12: Evictions - Retaliatory Evictions.

b. Withholding Gives You the Power to Negotiate

Hire withholding is the most direct style that yous can strength your landlord to make repairs. Generally, information technology is besides the most successful tactic. It is especially successful in a edifice where tenants concord to join together to withhold their rent. Come across Affiliate 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 lot want. Some of the bug that you lot can negotiate include:

• The engagement when the landlord will showtime and complete repairs,
• How much rent you volition pay (or withhold) while repairs are being completed, and
• How much of the withheld hire you will return (if whatsoever) once repairs are properly completed.

c. Protect Yourself When Y'all Withhold

The correct to withhold does not hateful that you have a right to alive in your apartment hire-free. Hire withholding is a style to get the landlord to brand repairs. In one case a landlord makes repairs, y'all must resume paying rent.

The best manner to protect yourself while you are withholding rent is to take your hire money and fix it bated in a banking concern account separate from any other bank account that you have. (Exercise not go along greenbacks in your apartment.) Although the law does non require yous to put your hire in a bank, there are several reasons why this is a good idea.

• First, if your landlord tries to evict you, you can testify the court that you had the money to pay hire and y'all did not merely terminate paying considering you were unable to pay. Setting up a separate bank account will also strengthen your instance and give you more credibility in the eyes of a judge if you lot take the landlord to courtroom or the landlord attempts to evict y'all.
• 2d, if a judge eventually orders you to pay some or all of the withheld rent to the landlord, you will have this coin bachelor. If yous don't pay, you can be evicted. Information technology is very unusual that a judge would notice that the conditions are so bad that you would be entitled to withhold all (100%) of your rent, which is why information technology is so of import to take that rent money set aside.

Notation

Legally, in one case your landlord makes repairs, yous do not automatically have to give the landlord back any of the rent you take withheld. Only a judge can order you to do this. Yous may decide to keep some or all of the hire y'all withheld because of the bear upon these conditions had on your use of the apartment. If your landlord decides to take you to courtroom to get back the withheld rent, explain to the guess how the atmospheric condition affected you and your family. Depending on the situation, a judge may decide you lot can keep part or all of the withheld rent.⁴⁸ To try to avoid courtroom and eviction, you lot can also negotiate with the landlord to endeavour to hold on a fair sum to be given to the landlord for the period when you lived with the bad conditions.

d. Be Prepared for How Your Landlord May React

While you have a legal right to withhold rent, your landlord may endeavor to evict y'all. The best way to protect yourself against eviction is to make sure you:

• Document the bad conditions,
• Encounter all the requirements for withholding hire. For more information see When Tin You Withhold Rent,
• Deposit your rent in a bank, and
• Use the sample Rent Withholding Alphabetic character (Form 12) to notify your landlord most the bad conditions.

A re-create of a housing inspection report that accurately describes code violations is the best way to document violations of the state Sanitary Code. Information technology is also proof that the landlord knew most the atmospheric condition.⁴⁹ Again, if you take a camera or video camera (or can borrow ane), take pictures of the bad conditions ideally with a engagement and time stamp. If y'all print out the pictures write the date and time they were taken on the back of the picture. A good picture will be worth a thousand words if you need to prove that bad conditions exist.

If a landlord wants to evict you, she must go to court and get permission from a estimate. If a judge finds that you have followed all the requirements under the rent-withholding police force, y'all will have a legal defense to the eviction.^l This ways a judge should not requite the landlord permission to evict you and you can stay in your home. You may also have a legal merits against her for money amercement. See Chapter 12: Evictions for more virtually evictions and Affiliate 13: When to Take Your Landlord to Court for more information about other legal claims.

A judge may likewise order yous to pay an corporeality called the fair rental value to the court. The fair rental value is the value of your flat with all its problems and lawmaking violations⁵¹ (see box post-obit this section). If a judge orders you lot to pay money to the court, enquire the approximate also to order the landlord to set all defective conditions. Ideally, you want the court to hold onto your rent money until a landlord has made repairs. Although a court can decide to give your landlord permission to utilize the money you lot pay to the court to brand repairs, you lot can ask the guess to concord a hearing earlier returning this money to the landlord.⁵² This will give y'all a chance to tell the judge if the landlord has stock-still whatever of the bug.

At the end of an eviction case, if a approximate finds that, because of code violations, your landlord owes you the same amount every bit or more money than yous owe her, you lot win the case and tin stay in your flat. If, on the other paw, the court finds that you owe the landlord coin, yous can stay in your apartment only if you pay the amount you owe to the courtroom. (This is why information technology is important to gear up aside your rent money—so if a approximate says you owe money, you can pay and stay.) You must pay this amount to the court within seven days of receiving a notice from the court about the corporeality due.⁵³ If you practise non, you tin can be evicted. The courtroom may also crave you to pay certain 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 rent. Your rent is $900 per month.

Before you start to withhold, you notify your landlord in writing about all of these atmospheric condition and get a housing inspection report. You too put your rent coin bated in the bank.

After 3 months of withholding hire(a total of $2,700), your landlord decides to effort to adios 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 judge finds that you properly withheld your rent. The estimate also finds that during the 3 months you withheld your rent, the fair rental value of your apartment with all of the code violations was $450 per month, every bit opposed to the $900 per month that yous were being charged.

The courtroom will then transport you a notice saying you lot owe $ane,350 for the 3 months you withheld rent plus courtroom costs. If you pay this amount to the court inside 7 days of receiving this find, y'all tin can stay in your home. You besides become to keep the other $ane,350 you withheld.

If you do non pay the $1,350 plus courtroom costs within the 7 days, the landlord is entitled to adios you. This is why it is so of import to ready the rent aside in a split up bank business relationship.

2. Repair and Deduct

Under certain conditions, tenants in Massachusetts have the legal correct to brand repairs and deduct upwards to four 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 y'all are taking responsibleness for making sure that the repairs are done well. See the sample Repair and Deduct Letter (Form xiii).

a. When Can You Repair and Deduct

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

	Yep	NO
Are in that location violations that "endanger or materially impair" the health, safety, or well-being of a tenant that take beencertified by a housing inspector or that a courtroom finds exist?		
Have you given the landlord or her agent written observe of the violations?		
Did the landlord neglect to substantially complete repairs inside xiv days after this written notice, or within such shorter fourth dimension if ordered past a housing inspector?		
Were the conditions acquired by someone or something other than yourself or someone nether your command (such as a guest or a fellow member of the household)?		
Accept you given your landlord access to your dwelling to make repairs?		

b. What Tin You Repair

You are allowed past law to repair anything in your apartment or in the common areas of your edifice. If there are violations that affect several apartments or an entire edifice, a group of tenants can get together and take the repairs made. Brand sure, however, that everyone is in understanding, that you accept a certified Board of Wellness written report documenting the problems, and that you have given your landlord written find of the violations. Each and every tenant can then deduct upwards to 4 months' rent for her share of the total.

For example, yous and other tenants may get the boiler in your building fixed, and so all afflicted tenants can subsequently deduct upward to 4 months of rent, depending on how much the repair cost.

c. How Much Can You Deduct

Under the law, you may deduct only a total of 4 months' hire in any 12-month period. You lot cannot store upward months of withheld hire over several years and then deduct more than 4 months' hire in a unmarried yr. If yous decide to repair and deduct, relieve all bills and receipts for materials and labor as proof of your costs. Remember: When y'all brand the repair, you are taking responsibility for making sure it's done right. When you hire someone to do the repairs, enquire what complications or risks there may be in doing the repair. It is also a good idea to get a reference for anyone you hire and a few estimates for the work and so you tin prove the cost of the person you hire is reasonable

d. What If the Landlord Thinks You Deducted Likewise Much

If a landlord feels that yous deducted too much for repairs, she is allowed to go to court to endeavor and get back some of this money. The constabulary does not, notwithstanding, allow your landlord to adios you if the court believes that y'all have deducted as well much rent.⁵⁷ It is also illegal for landlords to raise your rent for repairs y'all legally made under the repair and deduct statute, unless at that place is a court social club permitting a rent increase.⁵⁸

If your landlord does take you to court to try to get back possible excess hire deductions, practice not ignore the court notice. To show that the deductions were excessive, the landlord volition take to show that the deductions were for more than iv months' rent during a 12-calendar month menses, or were unreasonable given the circumstances. In deciding if deductions were unreasonable, a judge will await to see what alternatives the tenant had at the time the violations were offset reported, how urgent the repairs were, and the quality and cost of the work done.⁵⁹

Repairs for minor lawmaking violations, such as screens, small leaks, or pocket-sized holes in the walls, will probably not be institute reasonable by the courtroom unless there are so many of them that you tin prove that the overall effect is dangerous.⁶⁰ This is hard to exercise.

3. Organize

If other tenants in your building or community face up bad weather condition, at that place are ways to work together to improve everyone's living conditions. Tenants can all hold to withhold rent until the landlord makes repairs. A group of tenants tin can ask a judge to order the landlord to brand repairs. If the landlord admittedly refuses to fix the bad conditions, tenants can ask a court to engage a temporary landlord called a receiver in social club to make repairs. For more see department in this chapter chosen Receivership. Tenants can also organize and together put pressure level on the local Board of Health to audit their apartments and enforce the state Sanitary Code and local wellness ordinances.

Chapter 10: Getting Organized gives you data about how to begin to organize tenants. Information technology will also requite you lot specific organizing steps you can accept to get repairs fabricated.

4. Intermission Your Lease

When there are very serious violations of the Sanitary Lawmaking in your flat and you feel y'all must movement, the law allows you to break your lease. If you exercise not have a lease, y'all can leave without giving the usual xxx-twenty-four hour period notice (or whatever notice may exist required in your state of affairs) to the landlord. You are allowed to intermission your lease or motion out without giving the usual notice because the landlord has violated her obligation to provide a habitable apartment under the warranty of habitability.⁶¹

If you movement out early, your landlord may endeavour to sue you for moving early and for the residue of the rent due under any lease. For this reason, earlier you lot movement out, it is wise to obtain a Board of Health report equally proof of the violations in your apartment.

Proceed in mind

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

When you move out because of serious violations, you are entitled to get back your security deposit. If you accept to go to courtroom to go your deposit dorsum, you might have to show that the conditions in your flat were astringent plenty to permit your leaving. For more data about getting security deposits back and moving out, encounter Chapter 3: Security Deposits and Last Month's Rent and Chapter 11: Moving Out.

v. Go to Court

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

• Society your landlord to make repairs,
• Order your landlord to pay you lot money for the damage that you have suffered,
• Appoint a receiver: a person or organization appointed by the courtroom to manage and ready 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 you lot can file with the courtroom to demand that a landlord make repairs:

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

a. Tenant Petition

Tenants can enquire a approximate to lodge their landlord to repair atmospheric condition that violate the state Sanitary Code (or local health ordinance, if it is stricter). This is called a tenant petition.⁶³ Meet the sample Tenant Petition for Enforcement of the State Sanitary Lawmaking (Form 14). When you file a tenant petition, a judge can:

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

The benefits of bringing a tenant petition are that it may exist a safe way for you to get repairs made without having to withhold rent and the court filing fee is depression.⁶⁴ If you withhold your hire, you may have to go to court to defend yourself against an eviction. If you file a tenant petition, you lot—not your landlord—are bringing the thing before a judge. A tenant petition also puts you in a better position to negotiate what you desire with the landlord. For more well-nigh negotiating, come across Affiliate fourteen: Using the Court System - Negotiating a Skillful Settlement and Chapter 10: Getting Organized - Negotiating a Solution with the Landlord.

When you file a tenant petition, a judge as well has the power to make certain other decisions. A judge may decide that until your landlord makes repairs, your rent should be lowered to the off-white rental value of your apartment. The fair rental value is the value of your dwelling house with all of its problems. A guess tin can crave you to pay this corporeality to the courtroom clerk (in add-on to any past rent you take withheld or owe) while the landlord makes repairs.⁶⁵ Ideally, you desire the courtroom to hold onto this money until the landlord makes repairs, so that the landlord has some incentive to get them done. A guess can, still, release this coin to your landlord for purposes of making repairs.⁶⁶

Annotation

A judge besides has the power in a tenant petition to order the Board of Health to condemn a very unsafe edifice. This could lead to tenants' evictions.⁶⁷ (For more well-nigh condemnations, see What If Your Building Is Condemned in this chapter.)

b. Emergency Injunction

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

In about cases, tenants asking an emergency order chosen a temporary restraining order or TRO when they first become to court and file the complaint. Considering this is an emergency, you may request a TRO without offset notifying the landlord. See a Temporary Restraining Order (Form 15).
Or try the MassAccess interactive interview, Complaint for a Temporary Restraining Social club, that lets you complete, review, sign and send your asking for a Temporary Restraining Order to the court from your smart phone or estimator.

If a judge gives you a TRO, information technology is expert for just a brusque menstruum of time—the maximum is x days. If you need an order to concluding longer than x days, y'all must ask the court to schedule another hearing where you can request what is called a preliminary injunction. A preliminary injunction is an guild that can cover a longer period of fourth dimension. If you lot use Class 15, yous can inquire for a hearing for a preliminary injunction at the same time y'all ask for a TRO.

If y'all get a TRO from the gauge, take a copy of it to a sheriff's or constable's office immediately. A sheriff or lawman must serve it on your landlord. A TRO is non practiced unless your landlord has knowledge 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 can be arrested and fined.

When you file the complaint to seek a TRO and preliminary injunction, you lot volition also need to pay the filing and service fees. If you cannot afford these fees, you can inquire the court to waive or eliminate the filing fee and to pay the service fee. To practice this utilize the Affirmation of Indigency form (Booklet 9).

c. Criminal Complaint

If your landlord refuses to make repairs, you tin can file an application for criminal complaint (and pay the filing fee) or inquire the Lath of Health to file an application for a criminal complaint. You can practise this at the aforementioned time you pursue other strategies. Because information technology tin can have several weeks for a courtroom to schedule a hearing for a criminal complaint, this strategy does non usually produce a quick result. A criminal complaint can, however, consequence in a landlord having to pay a fine or spend time in jail. The advantages of a criminal action over a ceremonious action are:

• Information technology may put more force per unit area on the landlord to make repairs.
• If the Board of Health brings the criminal complaint, you lot may not have to go to courtroom because the inspector tin present all the necessary show.

The major disadvantage of a criminal action is that you lose control over the example. The Assistant Commune Attorney or the City's Attorney will prosecute the case. You or your lawyer do not control the day-to-day direction of the suit. Also, y'all must be willing and able to announced in courtroom, sometimes on a week-to-week basis, if you are the person bringing the complaint. You may get quicker results if you file a ceremonious complaint or a tenant petition.

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

The second type of case is where the landlord fails to provide rut, hot water, or other utilities or interferes with your quiet enjoyment. Just tenants who are affected by the landlord's illegal behavior can file this blazon of criminal complaint. To bring this type of complaint, yous do not need a Board of Health inspection, although information technology is very helpful. In add-on to fining your landlord, a judge can also judgement a landlord to serve up to 6 months in jail for violation of the law of tranquillity enjoyment.

d. Civil Complaint

If a landlord refuses to repair code violations, tenants can file a civil complaint or a modest claims lawsuit. A small claims instance is a civil lawsuit that involves no more $vii,000.⁷² In a civil complaint, you bring a lawsuit against your landlord for money for the harm that you have suffered or are suffering because of code violations; and you can as well ask the estimate to issue an injunction (come across department called Emergency Injunction). You can likewise appoint a receiver (meet department chosen Receivership). If you lot bring a civil lawsuit confronting your landlord because she has failed to make repairs, there are primarily 6 types of legal claims you can include:

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

Each of these legal claims is described in Affiliate 13: When to Accept Your Landlord to Courtroom. As you read, you may discover that your landlord has violated other laws. Before yous decide to bring a lawsuit against your landlord, you need to carefully 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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