Renter in house with burst pipe/ flooding

[Anonymous]

About a month ago a pipe burst in a wall while we were at work and flooded our entire basement. Our house has a walkout basement that contains 3 of the four bedrooms in the house. The top floor is just the primary bedroom/bath, kitchen, living/den and small dining room. The basement is not livable as there are about a dozen fans still running. Work is expected to begin soon.

Here’s the issue: we rent the house and our 3 children have been displaced from their room. The landlord has said the house meets the definition of livable and the three kids can sleep upstairs while repairs (which could take months) take place. Kids are ages 7-12.

We have rented this house for 4 years and have 9 months more on our current lease.

I’m at a loss of what to do. I don’t want to break the lease and move/ most likely lose being in boundary for our current school, but having five people live in approximately 750 square feet with one bed/bath is getting unmanageable.

I assume we have no recourse here. Yes, we have renters insurance. The landlord is not very open on what their homeowners insurance covers (does it cover us at all?).

Any suggestions on making our current situation manageable or what we should be asking the landlord for?

[Anonymous]

Are you sure they have property insurance that allows rental? And their mortgage allows rental? They might be out of compliance with terms/exposed.

If they have insurance for lost rent, they may be covered if you don't pay them.

[Anonymous]

Seems to me that half the house isn’t livable and you should be getting a 50% reduction in rent until it’s fixed. At minimal.

[Anonymous]

You are paying for a four bedroom house not a one bedroom house. He needs to reduce the rent over you out of the lease. You school boundary would change mid year? I’m not sure it would.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are you sure they have property insurance that allows rental? And their mortgage allows rental? They might be out of compliance with terms/exposed.

If they have insurance for lost rent, they may be covered if you don't pay them.

I have no idea and didn’t even think to ask this when we moved in. Though they have owned for many years and I’m pretty sure they have paid off the house. So it would just be an insurance issue.

If they do have exposure, can they push their liabilities onto us?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:About a month ago a pipe burst in a wall while we were at work and flooded our entire basement. Our house has a walkout basement that contains 3 of the four bedrooms in the house. The top floor is just the primary bedroom/bath, kitchen, living/den and small dining room. The basement is not livable as there are about a dozen fans still running. Work is expected to begin soon.

Here’s the issue: we rent the house and our 3 children have been displaced from their room. The landlord has said the house meets the definition of livable and the three kids can sleep upstairs while repairs (which could take months) take place. Kids are ages 7-12.

We have rented this house for 4 years and have 9 months more on our current lease.

I’m at a loss of what to do. I don’t want to break the lease and move/ most likely lose being in boundary for our current school, but having five people live in approximately 750 square feet with one bed/bath is getting unmanageable.

I assume we have no recourse here. Yes, we have renters insurance. The landlord is not very open on what their homeowners insurance covers (does it cover us at all?).

Any suggestions on making our current situation manageable or what we should be asking the landlord for?

If it is "livable" but as described I would just move. Id ask to break my lease.

If it is not livable ask to not pay rent so you can use that money to live elsewhere.

Is he right technically?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:About a month ago a pipe burst in a wall while we were at work and flooded our entire basement. Our house has a walkout basement that contains 3 of the four bedrooms in the house. The top floor is just the primary bedroom/bath, kitchen, living/den and small dining room. The basement is not livable as there are about a dozen fans still running. Work is expected to begin soon.

Here’s the issue: we rent the house and our 3 children have been displaced from their room. The landlord has said the house meets the definition of livable and the three kids can sleep upstairs while repairs (which could take months) take place. Kids are ages 7-12.

We have rented this house for 4 years and have 9 months more on our current lease.

I’m at a loss of what to do. I don’t want to break the lease and move/ most likely lose being in boundary for our current school, but having five people live in approximately 750 square feet with one bed/bath is getting unmanageable.

I assume we have no recourse here. Yes, we have renters insurance. The landlord is not very open on what their homeowners insurance covers (does it cover us at all?).

Any suggestions on making our current situation manageable or what we should be asking the landlord for?

If it is "livable" but as described I would just move. Id ask to break my lease.

If it is not livable ask to not pay rent so you can use that money to live elsewhere.

Is he right technically?

Yes, he’s technically correct as we have AC, a working kitchen, a bathroom, running water, etc. We are just cramped and will be for the foreseeable future. The other issue is he doesn’t come let the workers in, we have to do that. So I’m also running through PTO as I WOH. I’m just getting frustrated with the process.

[Anonymous]

Are you paying the same rent as before? Would paying lesser rent make the situation more bearable or you would rather just move?

[Anonymous]

agree you should reduce your rent by at least 50%, if not 75% due to number of bedrooms not available. You should also try to find some Legal Aid help to see if you can break your lease over this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are you sure they have property insurance that allows rental? And their mortgage allows rental? They might be out of compliance with terms/exposed.

If they have insurance for lost rent, they may be covered if you don't pay them.

What mortgage doesn't allow a property to be rented after the first year of ownership?

[Anonymous]

I think it is unfair that your landlord is expecting the same price for rent for much less space!

He should not be charging you your regular rent amount!
And yes while your home may technically be livable >> it is NOT liveable for the amount of people that are currently being housed!

You should be paying less rent!
If you do not want to wait while the repairs are finished (no one would ever blame you!), then your landlord should let you out of your rental lease so your family can find a more suitable place to live at.

If he refuses any of these options, I would demand he pay for a temporary living option like a hotel or AirBnB for the duration of the repairs.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Will the bedrooms be safe to live in once they are dry in a few days or will there be mold everywhere? If it's going to be moldy, then I recommend moving out ASAP. You might not be safe from the mold even if you are all cramming in to the 2nd floor, because the AC could be circulating the mold from the first floor up to the 2nd floor.

[Anonymous]

Put your rent in an escrow account. Tell your landlord you are disputing that you have enjoyment of your property under the full terms of your lease and you have placed your rent in escrow. Do this in a certified letter telling him the bank and account for the escrow. Let him know that he can sue you for the rent if he wishes to claim that you have full enjoyment of the property under the terms of your lease. Good luck to him proving to a judge that a flooded basement and displaced children from their bedrooms are compliance with a lease.

[Anonymous]

+1 to the above. I'm a landlord and I would never charge rent in your situation. I would actually expect a savvy tenant to proactively put the rent in escrow to light a fire under me to fix the problem.
My advice would be to decide what you really want: do you wish to move and break the lease, or stay but with a rent deduction? Whatever it is, ask your landlord. If he declines and won't work with you, contact a lawyer. You actually have a lot of leverage in this situation if you act wisely and in your family's interest.

[Anonymous]

You don't mention where you are. If in DC, I just went through a similar issue with my landlord, consulted DC office of tenant advocate, a lawyer, etc.

The good thing is that he is at least getting the repairs done promptly. But you are well within your right to abate rent of the portion of the house you consider unusable, and the above suggestion of an escrow account for that portion of rent along with certified letter is exactly the way to go.

In addition, I'd include in the letter, and in the abatement, reimbursement for any PTO you need to take to facilitate things (being reasonable: he is doing the repairs, so you have an incentive to facilitate them). If you have a high hourly wage, that's his fault for not being present or having a property manager.

Finally, if he doesn't move on some of the repairs, or is negligent in fully remediating things, you can also abate rent and get those repairs done using abated funds. Again, be very clear in documenting this. For example, mold inspection/testing should definitely be done following any the repairs to make sure things are OK and mold remediated if present, along, with, perhaps, HVAC duct cleaning if mold is present.

I was livid with the situation our landlord put us in due ot his negligence and in theory he was liable for significant sums if we went after him. Unfortunately, the stakes are rarely high enough to make it worth pursuing. However, the big takeaway from my legal consults was that you can use the law to take matters into your own hands and put it on the landlord to go after your escrow account, which a judge will never allow.