What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state? California
The tenant requested us to fix the leaking roof in the condo unit that we rent out to him. We cannot fix it ourselves because the HOA is responsible to do so. Since other condo units owners experience the same leaking problems, the HOA decides to replace the entire roof in summer. The HOA said patching it now will not keep the water accumulated from the rain to leak into the condo units because the roof is a flat top roof. So the only solution is to replace the roof. We have 2 problems now:
- the tenant begins to reduce rent money and won't pay until the roof leak is fixed because the water leaks into his bedroom. Since he doesn't use the money to do the repair himself, is it illegal for him to keep part of the rent money every month until the roof is replaced? Can we treat it as rent witholding until the roof leak is fixed?
- since we cannot fix the roof ourselves (the HOA will replace the roof in summer), we want to paint the ceiling to cover up the water stain as repair to the roof leak problem for now. If it doesn't rain heavily, the roof will not leak. Can we demand the tenant to pay us back the rent after we paint the ceiling? Can we evict him if he doesn't give us back the rent?
Please let us know what we can do in this situation to prevent the tenant from using the repair excuse to reduce the rent payment.
Thanks!
The tenant requested us to fix the leaking roof in the condo unit that we rent out to him. We cannot fix it ourselves because the HOA is responsible to do so. Since other condo units owners experience the same leaking problems, the HOA decides to replace the entire roof in summer. The HOA said patching it now will not keep the water accumulated from the rain to leak into the condo units because the roof is a flat top roof. So the only solution is to replace the roof. We have 2 problems now:
- the tenant begins to reduce rent money and won't pay until the roof leak is fixed because the water leaks into his bedroom. Since he doesn't use the money to do the repair himself, is it illegal for him to keep part of the rent money every month until the roof is replaced? Can we treat it as rent witholding until the roof leak is fixed?
- since we cannot fix the roof ourselves (the HOA will replace the roof in summer), we want to paint the ceiling to cover up the water stain as repair to the roof leak problem for now. If it doesn't rain heavily, the roof will not leak. Can we demand the tenant to pay us back the rent after we paint the ceiling? Can we evict him if he doesn't give us back the rent?
Please let us know what we can do in this situation to prevent the tenant from using the repair excuse to reduce the rent payment.
Thanks!
