Nonpayment due to Landlord Negligence InFL

[duncan83]

I live in a 2bed 2 bath apartment in Tampa, FL.

It's taken my complex 2 1/2 months to complete repairs in my apartment. One was running hot water in the master bathroom. The other was a caved in ceiling in the other bathroom due to water rot (from a leak in the apt above) and termite damage. The job is now mostly done, but still not complete.

The Property Manager (PM) is claiming that the reason the repairs took so long is because we have a dog and they won't enter the apartment without the dog locked up. They never made attempts to make appointments with us, but just scheduled times with a days notice and expected one of us to be there.

I put my notice to vacate tomorrow (30 days notice). The typical penalty for canceling a lease with these people is an additional month's rent. I've been trying for two weeks to get them to waive that penalty in light of the poor maintenance schedule they've kept. They don't want to budge.

Should I hire a lawyer and go for the two months rent?

 

[presutin]

Read your lease agreement first to find out if there is a clause there regarding repairs and maintenance. Secondly, read the addendum to the lease regarding the pet policy and access to the unit. Finally, you will need to prove to the courts what damages you incurred when the repairs where being done to the unit. If you are going to court just because you feel that the repairs took to long and you are entitled to some sort of compensation because of it then you don't have much of a case...

 

[duncan83]

I'm considering court because I feel like I bought a contracted service which wasn't delivered. This might be an oversimplification, but I payed for a 2b2b and didn't receive that for more than 2 months.
I'm renting this space at a contracted price, for a certain square feet and certain features like two working bathrooms. It seems like if they don't deliver on those things then I shouldn't have to deliver on my part of the agreement (aka rent) either.
Additionally, most of the issue arises with several attempts to get someone to come fix it and having to wait a month for anyone to show up. I feel like that constitutes some sort of negligence considering there was exposed and faulty plumbing.
Call me crazy, but aren't landlords responsible for negligent maintenance and upkeep of the property?

 

[presutin]

Call me crazy, but aren't landlords responsible for negligent maintenance and upkeep of the property? Yes, they are and, per your posting, they were making every attempt to resolve the problem. Again, it all boils down to what you call negligence, how their negligence impacted your standard of living and, as a result of that, your demands to be compensated for it or be exempt from paying rent. You can try that argument, but there is no guarantee that your argument will deliver the results you expect and that is because you could have asked the management office to give you another unit that fit the description on the contract you signed up for and you could also have sent written complaints to management to document that these conditions were unacceptable to you and your family (which you have not indicated in your posting that you did). I hope it all works out for you!

 

[Gail_in_Georgia]

In addition, you claim that it takes management months to address the repairs but then state they wish to do these repairs with just a days notice.

Frankly, it sounds as if the issue on not getting these repairs done focus on you not cooperating by either having your dog locked up or someone being there to watch the dog.

You can't expect maintenance/repair folks to walk into a unit with an unsecured dog and the owners not present.

Gail