If you need help or would like to speak with an experienced attorney, please call 801-365-1030 or click here to contact us.
Almost everyone has a story of a nightmare apartment or landlord they had to deal with. The standard advice is usually simply tough it out and move once your lease runs out. That hardly seems fair, especially if you are good tenant paying good money to stay at your apartment. Fortunately, in the case of deficient or dangerous conditions of a rental property, the state of Utah agrees.
The Utah Fit Premises Act (UFPA) is a state law that requires landlords to maintain rental properties by certain standards and in a safe condition. Under this law, a landlord has a duty to repair certain conditions that affect the habitability of the property, such as plumbing or electrical problems, or issues with the heating or cooling systems. Additionally, landlords are required to rectify any dangerous conditions as well.
If a rental property has certain deficient conditions, there are two remedies available to the tenant. A tenant can seek either the rent abatement remedy, or the repair and deduct remedy. This article is going to focus on the rent abatement remedy. The rent abatement remedy entitles the tenant to a refund of the rent as of the time of deficient condition, the rental agreement is terminated, and the owner shall immediately pay to the tenant their entire security deposit and potentially any prepaid rent.
In order to take advantage of the Utah Fit Premises Act, the tenant must provide written notice to the landlord. For the written notice to be legally effective the tenant must ensure the notice follows the conditions set out in the Act. Namely:
- The notice must contain a description of each deficient condition.
- The notice must contain the corresponding corrective period for each deficient condition.
- The notice must contain the remedy the tenant has chosen if the landlord has not made substantial action towards correcting each issue.
- The tenant must provide permission to enter the rental unit to take corrective action.
- The tenant must provide notice to the landlord according to terms stipulated in the rental agreement or according to 78B-6-805.
A person should ensure the notice contains the accurate corrective period for every deficient condition – for habitability issues, for example: electrical, plumbing, heating, etc. If a tenant is having issues with such systems of the property, the corrective period is 3 days. If the tenant is having issues with landlord fulfilling certain conditions of the rental agreement such as providing certain services, ensuring certain conditions, etc., the corrective period is 10 days.
However, there are certain conditions that are serious enough to be considered a dangerous condition. A dangerous condition is defined in the Utah Fit Premises Act as “a deficient condition that poses a substantial risk of imminent loss of life; or significant physical harm.” In such circumstances the curative period is only 1 day.
It is imperative that a person attempting to take advantage of the Utah Fit Premises Act follows the strict notice requirements within this Act. Failure to do so would likely forfeit your ability to terminate your lease and leave you in jeopardy of civil liability to your landlord. For instance, if your electricity ceased to work and you called your landlord to fix and weeks go by and the landlord doesn’t. If you decide that you want to break your lease, a court might find that you were in fact the person who violated the statute and now owe significant civil penalties to your landlord, despite the electricity not working.
Despite how you feel about the situation described above, it is important that you ensure that you are on the right side of the law. That being said, if you find yourself living in a rental property with deficient conditions, be sure to follow all of the requirements of the UFPA to the letter. Additionally, if you are a landlord, we are happy to help you with navigating the UFPA. To discuss these kinds of issues or any other tenant-landlord needs, feel free to reach to us.
If you need help or would like to speak with an experienced attorney, please call 801-365-1030 or click here to contact us.