Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Massachusetts
Not giving all services in Lease
I signed a lease for an apartment complex unit in the start of Feb. One of the major reasons that I made the decision on this complex was because of the fact that it included all utils and A/C. Back @ the end of April I notified the manager of the complex that my A/C is not working. Every week they say they send someone over to fix it and every week its still broken. Now being the middle to end of June it is still not fixed. I threaten to withhold rent and they said they came under new management and that its not there fault so they won't compensate me for the electric rights that I have not been able to use and they still are taking their time trying to fix the A/C. Is there anything I can do other then threaten. They told me it was against the laws to withhold rent in any fasion. Thanks
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Not giving all services in Lease
The fact that they came under new management is irrelevant; maybe it's not "their fault" but it's their responsibility to get it fixed.
They are certainly wrong about your right to withhold rent. Now here it is the end of summer and I just got your message, I'm sorry, so it's a bit late but there is a law describing the procedure to use to withhold rent (including a written notice with certain specific information contained in it.)
It is also possible under certain circumstances to dock your landlord of a certain amount of rent for their violation of the lease even if the cooling season is over and even if they got the problem fixed, if you were inconvenienced for awhile until they got around to fixing it. From the date you wrote that message, how long did it take you to get the problem corrected? How uncomfortable were you made? Did you lose sleep?
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