Tenants rent payment is late and then we get a "Letter"!

[Ken Williams]

We have a tenant that is section 8 in a home in NE. The home is very old and had some problems when we bought it. We fixed everything that we saw that needed fixed.

We recently had a storm come through and damage part of the roof in the house, which caused a slow leak. This was about 2 weeks ago. We tarped and stopped the leak until we can get it fixed. Material for the roof is scheduled to be delivered Wednesday and roofers will start right away.

This tenant has not payed rent for May and when we submitted a "notice to quit" she gave us a letter stating "It is within her rights as a tenant to have all emergency repairs fixed within 24 to 48 hours of notification" And gave a list of petty repairs and the roof repair. She goes on to say she will be getting quotes for painting the exterior f the house and will bill us for that. haha.

Anyways, when someone makes statements like this I want to take them serious no matter how crazy the claims.

We will be sending this in to the attorney for him to review but I wanted to get all of your opinions on this dilemma! I feel like I cannot get to many opinions on this.

Would you evict her for non payment of rent?

This tenant has only been in the home for 3 months and was late the 2nd month as well.

[Marc Freislinger]

Local and state laws will dictate where you stand, but in Indiana (and most if not all states), a tenant can NOT withhold rent for repairs without following proper procedure. That is, the repairs must be requested in writing with a reasonable time line given to complete them. The tenant must then pay rent, when due, into an escrow account, to be paid out to the landord when the repairs are completed. I never had a tenant actually do this, but your lawyer will know if they need a court order to open the escrow or not.

I would kindly explain to them that you cannot withhold rent for non-emergency maintenance issues (the majority of the list), and only do so for health-and-safety issues (the roof) if proper procedures are followed. Then I would proceed with the eviction. I've seen a lot of tenants go in front of a judge and say that they didn't pay rent because of the maintenance, and were evicted. If you have evidence of your preparation for the roof repairs, and everything else is cosmetic and/or tenant caused, I doubt you'd have any problems.

Finally, ignore everything I've said, and take your lawyers advice.