There are many reasons a tenant may leave an apartment. They could find a new place to live, they could be evicted for neglecting to pay rent, or they could be forced out because the apartment becomes unlivable. This last one has been known to happen as a result of natural disasters such as a hurricane. However, many times a home will become inhabitable due to a landlord’s neglect or purposeful damage done to the property. This is called constructive eviction and it happens far too often to unsuspecting people in NYC. But what, specifically, has to happen for constructive eviction to occur? How can tenants fight back?
Types of Constructive Evictions
There are multiple ways tenants can experience a constructive eviction. There are multiple ways this can go about but, in NYC, all of them have to do with violating the Warranty of Habitability and/or the covenant of quiet enjoyment, which is the landlord’s responsibility to ensure apartments, and the apartment building, is safe and livable at all times.
Issues that make apartments unlivable include, but are not limited too:
- Being unable to use all rooms of your apartment,
- No water in your apartment,
- No heat in your apartment,
- Persistent mold/bug/rodent problems,
- Unsafe electrical wiring,
- Lack of or leaking of gas,
- Criminal activity in public spaces of the complex,
- Lead paint,
- Missing smoke and carbon monoxide detectors,
- Broken fire escapes,
- Any condition that is hazardous to life health and safety in the home.
If any of these issues arise, tenants are expected to contact their landlord to solve the issue. If the landlord fails to resolve the issue, which then leads the tenant to move out of the home, that constitutes as a constructive eviction. Constructive evictions can also occur if a tenant leaves an apartment due to safety and livability issues directly caused by the landlord. In addition, constructive eviction applies if tenants are only forced to leave for part of the year, like in the legal case of Johnson v. Cabrera, where frozen pipes made the home unlivable in the winter, but fine in the summer.
Legality of Constructive Eviction
Not all cases of constructive eviction are malicious. Constructive eviction can occur naturally when landlords are slow to fix issues because they’re busy with other properties. Repairs can be expensive and many building owners have more than one property to take care of, meaning they might completely forget about an issue plaguing your home, or just not have the funds to fix it. Whether it’s malicious or not, if you are forced to leave a home because it’s unsafe, it’s still constructive eviction, and you are likely entitled to damages as it is within your rights to have a safe environment to live in.
In some cases, constructive eviction is illegally used by landlords to sidestep normal eviction practices. This way they can force you out of a home, even if you’ve been paying rent on time and are generally a good tenant. Landlords can do this for any reason from wanting to charge more for your home or simply because they don’t like you. Either way, it’s a crafty trick to force good tenants out of a home they have a legal right to stay in.
Fighting Constructive Eviction
First and foremost, it’s important to keep records of every interaction you have with your landlord. Tenants are required to give landlords a reasonable amount of time to fix an issue, so it’s important that you have every interaction with a landlord in writing. This is simple to do, as emailing, or even texting, a landlord about a safety issue in the home requires them to respond or be held liable for any issues that arise. If they regularly push back repair dates, say they won’t fix the issue, or just ignore you completely, you will now have proof of their neglect. A paper trail will be your friend.
Once you have a paper trail and are forced to leave your home, make a complaint with the NYC government. If the emergency is leading to imminent harm, call 911 to get help. No matter what you have to do, you will also have to file a constructive eviction claim in small claims court or civil court depending on how much rent you paid during the inhabitability. Tenants who win these cases often don’t have to pay rent in the complex for a set period of time and can even be reimbursed for rent they lost while being forced to live in unsafe conditions.
Avoiding Constructive Eviction
Truth be told, there is no tried and true way to tell if a landlord will attempt constructive eviction. However, there are ways of identifying if a landlord has a history of neglecting their properties. Building and landlord violations are available for public consumption, which means you can look up a building’s history to see if these issues were resolved or if they keep popping up. A building with multiple heating violations, for example, might not be the best place to look for a home, as a lack of heat may make an apartment unlivable.
If you happen to find yourself in an unlivable apartment situation, and your landlord is dragging their feet, let them know that you know your rights as a tenant as well as their expectations as a landlord. This could prompt them to fix the issue faster and make your home livable. Landlords who do this maliciously are banking on the assumption that the tenants of their buildings don’t know their rights, so it’s good to remind them that you have power in this situation. No one likes going to court, after all.
Apartments in the city are required to be livable and safe, and landlords bear the burden of making sure their buildings stay that way. However, sometimes you run into a neglectful or malicious landlord who will ignore or intentionally damage a building, forcing you to leave your home. This is wrong no matter how you look at it, and you have the right to fight back. After all, you pay to live in this city, and you deserve to know your home is safe, comfortable, and reliable.
