Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Maryland

Re: Recovering rent and security deposit after fire destroys residence

Your lease should contain a clause that provides for abatement of the rent if you are forced to vacate under these circumstances. You should ask the landlord to return rent prorated to the end of the month and the security deposit.

However, the landlord is not responsible for your personal losses unless you can establish that the fire was caused by his negligence. This will probably be difficult unless the Fire Marshal's investigation points to an electrical or some other problem that the landlord's maintenance people should have known about and ignored. This is why you want to have renter's insurance.

Re: Recovering rent and security deposit after fire destroys residence

Check your lease to determine whether it has a clause that limits,or abates, the rent in instances where the premises are rendered uninhabitable. This would allow you to ask for a return of some or all of your February rent (this would depend on whether it is still possible to live in part of the property)and would limit future rent payments until the property is restored. If there is no clause of this type, you may have the option of paying future rent payments into escrow with the local district court until the neceessary repairs are made. If that becomes necessary, I suggest you consult with an attorney near you. Your security deposit is designed to protect the landlord against damage that YOU may inflict. If the damage was not caused by you, you should be able to recover all of your security deposit when and if the lease is terminated (once again, depending on the extent of the damage and whether the lease allows the landlord time to make repairs).

If you are unable to determine this from a reading of the lease, I suggest once again that you contact and attorney near you and ask that he/she review the lease.

As far as recovery against your landlord, you would first have to determine that he was aware of the problem that resulted in the fire ahead of time and did nothing to correct the problem.