Legal rights and responsibilities of Landlord and Tenants
Introduction
The real estate and home ownership have been a lucrative business since time in memorial. The business involves buying and purchasing of the houses. Some houses might be new to the tenants, and some might have just been renovated for instance, in the case of Roger and Larry (Stocking, 2010). Both the clients and the owner of the business are supposed to abide by some laws and instructions that govern landlord ship and the tenants. According to Larry and his client Roger, they did not check the house under the disclosure format that allows the Landlord to show or give notice to their renters on the supposed defects and breakage in case it exists in the building. The result of knowing the defects is to avoid the arguments in mitigation from either side involved in the business (Portman et al., 1999).
Rights and responsibilities of landlords and tenants
Both the Landlord and the Tenant have to make agreements among themselves like for instance when leasing or renting. The concerned parties here (Larry and Roger) did not make agreements on paper but just did the payment criteria orally. The effect of such negligence would put the tenant in some terrible problems in that, deals were not made, and the Landlord might feel not responsible for paying the damage caused by the leaking roof at Larry’s house. The other rights that exist between Landlords and Tenants are the right to notices and rights from discrimination (Stocking, 2010). In this case, Larry and Roger would come to an equitable agreement in the context of warnings. Roger might have thought of moving from Larry’s house, but an agreement of notice should be vital since the house is rented and the contract is renewed every month via monthly payments. The right from discrimination may result from issues of race and poor renovations that might cause havoc like in this case the story of the house licking and destroying the renters property even after continuous consultations has been done (Robert et al., 2000).
Landlords are positions always to keep a close look up to the conditions, of the house. Larry tried and renovated the house but forgot to mend apparently the roofing. It might be argued that Roger’s complain just and at the same time inferior, but it is valid. The reason for this statement is because the renters rights have been violated and to make it worse; the Landlord took a lot of time to re-assess the problem at hand (Portman et al., 1999).The penalty for Larry as the landlord is because the damage was reported but he did not take faster actions even after being reminded so many times of the issue of the leaking roofing. The state laws in the U.S have it that tenants have the right to be left alone and that their premises are not to be accessed by the Landlords without prior notice. In the case of Larry, it was negligence and ignorance of his tenant that in this case, purports to the violation of tenants’ rights. The best thing about Larry was to show concern or if at all was busy, would have referred Roger to someone that would have gone to the house and mend the damaged roof (Leader and Ong, 2011).
The tenants also have the right to install antennae in the building for the purpose of watching the TV sets or the new digitalized decoders. In this case, if for instance, Roger had his antennae at the direction of the leaking roof, the electrical connections would have been severely damaged by the pouring rains. The right thing to do by Larry was to create time and repair the roof and make amends to the lost course. If at all Roger was to press a lawsuit against Larry, I doubt if it would have failed considering the poor renovations and the lack of concern for Larry’s responses to renters emergency. In this case, Roger would have only withheld rent and report Larry to the Hosing Commission for the omission of duty as Landlord. The case would have seen Larry pay a lot for damages and negligence (Robert et al., 2000).The matter will be a result of the tenant pursuing legal remedies that even the laws governing ownership of the house would not have saved Larry. In such events, the landlord will suffer financial crisis for the losses incurred to the renter under known negligence (Portman et al., 1999).
Mitigation rights to damages
Mitigation is the process by which the persons in contract try to maintain a high level of responsibility so as to minimize the losses that can be incurred in a house ownership and rental case. For instance, the issue of Larry and Roger about the leaking roof. The landlord would have come out of the problem by simply doing the repair to the leaked roof. The return benefits by this mitigation practice would have saved Larry as the landlord, a whole lot of time and money from the courts or the legal counsel regarding negligence perpetrated against Roger’s request (Leader and Ong, 2011). The various state laws in the U.S and the Britain had it that, any landlord or tenant that had breached the contract of leasing or renting a house was liable to pay damages by law. In this case, Larry had the chance to make things right but his negligence and arrogance put him in great disparity towards Roger’s claims. On the other hand, Roger was also to have had maintained his cool. The anger and frustration from the tenant allowed the destruction of some parts of the wall by a batted ball thrown to the corner of the house. Both Larry and Roger were liable for mitigation according to the law, even though the landlord had much problem than the renter (Robert et al., 2000).
Obligation to pay damages
Mitigation was also vital for both parties so that, the wastage of economic resources via repairs and renovations were to be easily avoided. If at all the landlord took Roger’s matter seriously, he would have cleaned the mitigation of damages by preventing further damage to the property. The leaking roof as proposed by the tenant was a one-time repair that according to law, was the responsibility of the landlord and Roger had every right to ask for help and even sue Larry for mitigated rights. An owner is liable to lease his or her property in the context of the tenant avoidance to mitigate damages. The case above indicates that the landlord was the cause of continuous damaged by the leaking roof and did not take prompt action as adhered to by the law (Robert et al., 2000).The landlord, therefore, was to pay for breaching the tenants contract then can later decide if the renter is to leave the house or continue staying by providing a prior notice.
For Roger, the only cautious step to take according to the law was to provide the burden of proof that Larry had failed to mitigate his duties even after several and continuous alarming. The effect would see the tenant as a law abiding citizen and the landlord as a breach. However, in the context of Roger damaging the wall of the house by throwing a bit ball via anger, the renter was also liable to mitigate his damages. The objective here is to create an environment where both parties show a clear responsibility towards another’s property and the renter’s safety (Portman et al., 1999).
Eviction rights and privileges
In the case of Roger damaging the walls of the house under frustrations, the landlord (Larry) had still the obligation to see that the repair was done even if the eviction notice was to be effected at that juncture. The owner is expected to check the leasing term of tenant such that, when he or she finally decides to evict the tenant, then a reasonable effort must take the course to justify whether to mitigate damages or not before eviction and re-renting the house on lease again. The reasonable effort is the action that the Landlord was expected to take from the time the tenant reported the case of the leaking roof. It involves the efforts to redeem the image and maintain the contractual agreement signed between the renter and his tenant when leasing the house (Stocking, 2010). In this case, if Roger did not take mitigation seriously, the landlord will take him responsible for the damages (Leader and Ong, 2011).The tenant will pay for the renovations costs that the owner might use as a tenant is got or captured by the resident. Whether the last tenant is collectible for payment or not, the surety of being reimbursed by the landlord is less even if the tenant had used their resources to mitigate the damages while gone to other premises (Portman et al., 1999).
Conclusion
Conclusively, the landlord and the tenant are both indebted with an utmost surety to responsible living. If the tenant has left the house in peril and must be renovated for re-renting, the landlord has the right to sue for mitigation of the concerned damages. The only course of action but the landlord is to prove to the court that, he or she had taken a high effort to repair the house, but the tenant was an inconvenience to the improvement. In the context of the household trying to correct or report the case to the landlord without any direct actions being taken, the tenant has the right to ignore or incur costs to the building and prove beyond reasonable doubt that, he or she had taken actions that warrant a high effort to control the situation. The control requires thorough documentations on any progress made between the renter and the landlord that can prove a level of effective effort either from both partners in the house business (Stocking, 2010).
References
Leader, Sheldon, and David, Ong (2011). Global Project' Finance, Human Rights and Sustainable' Development. Cambridge: Cambridge' University Press Print.
Portman, Janet et al. (1999). Every Tenant's Legal Guide. Berkeley: Nolo.com Print.
Robert J. Potts, Partner and Victoria Lam (2000). Avoiding Losses. A Landlords Duty to Mitigate: Blaney McMurtry LLP
Stocking, P (2010. Tristan’s Landlord-Tenant Law Blog: Retrieved from http://.www.petriestocking.com/blog/lanlord-tenant/
