What to do if my lease states that lawn/spa maintenance is part of the rent and the responsibility of landlord but she refuses to reimburse us for these services?
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What to do if my lease states that lawn/spa maintenance is part of the rent and the responsibility of landlord but she refuses to reimburse us for these services?
Our lease stipulates lawn and spa maintenance are a part of our rent and the landlord assumes responsibility of this. We received lawn maintenance dor 5 months and we never received spa maintenance the entire year. When it came time to do a new lease we asked the landlord to reimburse us rents for these services we never received (landlord/management company was aware of this but chose not to do anything about it). A new lease was not done so we are on a month-to-month. They have refused to reimburse us and now have asked us to leave. We were shocked at their response to say the least. What now?
Asked on August 21, 2012 under Real Estate Law, Arizona
Answers:
Anne Brady / Law Office of Anne Brady
Answered 11 years ago | Contributor
The advantage of being month-to-month is that you can leave on 30 days notice. The downside is you can be asked to leave on 30 days notice. The time to object to the landlord's breach of the previous lease by not providing agreed upon services was when the breach was occurring. Under A.R.S. 33-1361.B you may be able to bring a claim for damages resulting form the landlord's noncompliance with the rental agreement if you have actual damages -- i.e. if you paid for lawn maintenance and spa maintenance yourself on top of the rent because the landlord wasn't doing it. I assume the spa is owned by the landlord, so any damage to the spa would be the landlord's problem. If you don't want to move, you may want to volunteer to waive that claim in exchange for a new one-year lease. Or you may want to hire an attorney to either negotiate with the landlord or sue the landlord if you have actual damages.
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