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Timestamp: 2018-01-17 05:18:44
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Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 33', '§ 33', '§ 33', '§ 33', '§ 33', '§ 33', '§ 33', '§ 33', '§ 33', '§ 33', '§ 33', '§ 33', '§ 33', '§ 33', '§ 33', '§ 33', '§ 33', '§ 33', '§ 33', '§ 33', '§ 33', '§ 33', '§ 33', '§ 33', '§ 33', '§ 33', '§ 33', '§ 33', '§ 33', '§ 33', '§ 33', '§ 33']

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Arizona Tenants Advocates » Landlord challenges
Archive for the ‘Landlord challenges’ Category
A.R.S. § 33-1378 ALLOWS LANDLORDS TO EVICT WITHOUT GOING TO COURT
On April 13th of this year Gov. Doug Ducey signed a bill, SB 1185, that allows a landlord to evict a tenant’s roommate who is not on the lease without any due process whatsoever, just by calling the police and having the roommate removed. That law is effective in July 2015, enacted as A.R.S. § 33-1378. It allows a landlord to bypass A.R.S. § 33-1368, which requires him to give his tenant who is violating his lease a 10-day opportunity to cure the breach, and if the tenant doesn’t do so, to take the tenant to court. Instead, a landlord can now simply call the police and have the roommate removed even if the roommate is paying rent! Under A.R.S. § 33-1378 landlords are not required to give any notice whatsoever for removing roommates who are not named on the lease, or for calling law enforcement to remove such roommates.
Even worse, the new law also applies to guests. It doesn’t give any length of time for which a guest is allowed to stay. Thus, it could effectively permit your landlord to call the police on anyone he sees walking into your apartment whom he doesn’t like. You should warn any guests stopping over for a cup of tea that they may be hauled off in Ducey bracelets by the police.
A.R.S. § 33-1378 codifies the impermissibility of having guests, allowing the cops to abruptly swoop down and remove them. No more warnings, no more declaration of trespass. And under A.R.S. § 33-1378 any roommate who is not listed on the lease is afforded the same “courtesy,” even if he has been paying rent for many months, receives mail at the property, and has contracted for utilities at the dwelling. This horrible new law, allowing dispossession bereft of a court hearing, is an end run around affording occupants, or their guests, due process protections.
Moreover, arbitrary police removal of a tenant’s guests, merely on the landlord’s say-so, deprives bona fide renters of their constitutional rights of association. Then, supposing the cops spot something in the dwelling of questionable legality, suddenly the tenant or occupant or guest could face criminal charges based on evidence seized without a warrant and without the tenant’s permission to enter. This clearly is a violation of due process rights under the guise of landlord empowerment, giving new meaning to the term “police state.”
Notwithstanding the preceding, the terms of the lease can offer protection. If a tenant has a lease that allows an additional, identified occupant, then the previous rules remain in effect: the prime tenant is essentially in a landlord/tenant relationship with the subtenant (roommate), and the prime tenant, as well as the landlord, are required to use due process and go through the court system to evict the roommate.
The law definitely applies to all tenancies under a lease, but it is not so clear if it applies to other tenancies. Although it appears that A.R.S. § 33-1378 should be interpreted to exclude applicability to month-to-month tenancies, the language is a little vague and I could easily envision a Justice of the Peace concluding that the law allows ANY residential landlord to pull out a guest or (non-identified) resident using the police. I would like to be wrong, and certainly it is worth arguing that in an oral month-to-month tenancy the landlord has no say in how many tenants can be in the rental dwelling — that he gave up that right when he accepted rent without a contract.
What is so sad about this legislation is that it passed without the tenants’ rights community being brought into the law development process. Unfortunately, the Arizona state legislators and their landlord allies make a point of keeping tenants in the dark about pending legislation.
In the 2011-2012 legislative session, Representative Steve Urie, himself a landlord, sponsored a bill (written by landlord attorneys Matthew Koglmeier and Denise Holliday) that penalized renters for lodging maintenance or service requests, by depriving them of advance notice of the landlord’s entry. By the time I learned of the bill it had already passed the Arizona House of Representatives and was heading over to the Arizona Senate for review and votes. So I actually went and met Mr. Urie, face-to-face, who told me that he knew full well who I am and what ATA does. I then asked him: If that was the case, why did he not advise me of the legislation so I could provide input from the tenants’ perspective, about this matter of statewide concern? He replied that he had intentionally failed to notify me or Arizona Tenants Advocates about the pending bill because he knew we would have opposed the bill. Thereupon, I and many other tenants made a valiant effort to derail the law’s passage during hearings at the Arizona Senate, but we failed. The language is now enshrined in A.R.S. § 33-1343. When considered alongside A.R.S. § 33-1341(8), which requires a tenant to notify a landlord about maintenance or repair needs, A.R.S. § 33-1343 constitutes a punishment for doing just that, by depriving the tenant of privacy and security once such matters are brought to the landlord’s attention. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
By the way, following Mr. Urie’s retirement from the House, his grateful landlord compatriots rewarded (read: campaign donations and support) his efforts by electing him as Justice of the Peace for the Highland Justice Court (Gilbert area). So now there is a landlord, who by his own admission does not need to take tenant concerns into consideration, regularly presiding over landlord-tenant disputes. It is despicable.
In point of fact, my efforts in the Arizona tenants movement arose from a successful blockage of virulent anti-tenant legislation in 1993. We blindsided and foiled the landlord lobbyists; and with varying degrees of success, have been doing so ever since. Arizona Tenants Advocates, in various incarnations, was responsible for the creation of the Tempe Rental Code, and later played a role in formulating Glendale’s rental ordinance. Other municipal ordinances followed in Tucson, South Tucson, Youngtown and Surprise. Tenants, when active and organized, can make a difference. We have helped prevent enactment of other negative laws (HB 2128 from the 2011-2012 session), and been the impetus for new laws (modifications to A.R.S. § 33-1902, subsection C).
When I came to Arizona in 1988 after participating in social movements in New York State, there was no government or social service infrastructure to help tenants (except legal services organizations, limited to those whose incomes fall within poverty guidelines). When neighboring tenants knocked on my door and sought my help, it was the progenitor of the current incarnation of tenants rights and activism for Arizona. That movement is Arizona Tenants Advocates. We are an Arizona non-profit tenants union that is 100% membership-driven and funded. Join Arizona Tenants Advocates today and help keep tenants’ rights at the forefront of struggles for social justice in Arizona.
Posted in Courts, Landlord challenges, Stategies | 1 Comment »
LANDLORD’S GREED VERSUS DUTY TO MITIGATE
The play book of landlords is to run up damage claims against tenants. From the beginning, they fabricate claims in the lease by, for instance, offering a monthly rent supposedly discounted down from a fictitious, unrealistically high market rate. Then, when the tenant breaches the contract, perhaps by leaving before the full term has concluded, the landlord bills the tenant for the so-called concession which was predicated upon the contract’s completion. It is a blame game designed to line the pockets of landlords.
I believe these inducements, concessions, free rent or discounts - all these terms are used - should be illegal because they are almost invariably fraudulent in nature. They are, by design, intended to augment the damages suffered, based on falsehoods. In reality, landlords only get away with charging the real market rent, because they would never find takers willing to pay the inflated rate.
Another scam is charging a flat rate for utilities. It is illegal. The is because, under A.R.S. § 33-1314.01(E) a tenant may be held liable for utility charges ONLY by way of
(1) contracting directly with the utility provider,
(2) direct metering for the charges incurred,
(3) sub-metering as a means of assigning a portion of the aggregate charges in an apartment community, or
(4) allocating a portion of the aggregate charges by some reasonable means of calculation, called a ratio utility billing system, aka RUBS.
For any assessment of charges other than by way of direct utility contracting between the tenant and the utility provider, a landlord must provide a bill for the period showing opening and closing meter readings, and the dates for the meter readings. Since this statute was enacted I have yet to see a landlord submit a utility bill that contains all these elements. Landlords write the laws but do not abide by them, at the literal expense of tenants. They line their pockets with ill-gotten gains each and every billing period, paid by each and every tenant. It adds up to millions of dollars every year.
Getting back to the subject of a flat rate billing paid each month, it is even more egregious than an inadequate billing submission because there is no justification whatsoever breaking down the charges; it is unabashed theft. For a detailed analysis about utilities and essential services, see our website article, Utility of the Landlord-Tenant Act.
The other side of the coin of this realm is for landlords to maneuver circumstances to augment damages claims, which is contrary to their duty to mitigate (read: reduce, minimize or eliminate) the damages suffered. The legal doctrine of mitigation of damages is specifically incorporated into the Arizona Residential Landlord & Tenant Act in:
•	A.R.S. § 33-1305(A), which generally establishes that an aggrieved party has a “duty to mitigate damages;”
•	A.R.S. § 33-1321(D), which restates the duty in the context of applying the security deposit after the conclusion of tenancy;
•	A.R.S. § 33-1369, which mandates that a landlord, prior to effecting a repair himself at his tenant’s expense, must give the tenant notice of an alleged health/safety concern in the rental dwelling, allowing the tenant the opportunity to cure the violation; and
•	A.R.S. § 33-1370(C), which requires a landlord must use reasonable efforts to re-rent a dwelling that has been abandoned.
Each of these statutes obliges the landlord to minimize the effects and losses resulting from the injury. For example, under A.R.S. § 33-1321(D) if the landlord accuses the tenant of damaging the carpet, it must be brought to the tenant’s attention at the joint-move out inspection. This would allow him to mitigate the landlord’s damages by making the repair using the least expensive method he can. Or, pursuant to A.R.S. § 33-1369 if during the tenancy a landlord wants to charge his tenant for repairing a stove range burner damaged by the tenant and that poses a safety risk, he must first allow the tenant 14 days to repair it. Or, under A.R.S. § 33-1370(C) if a tenant gives his landlord a notice of abandonment and leaves before the expiration of his lease, the landlord has a duty to attempt to re-rent the dwelling unit at a fair price, and, failing to do so, the lease is deemed terminated as of the date the landlord received the tenant’s notice.
In each of this instances it can be argued that a landlord who fails to comply with these requirements has lost the right to hold the tenant liable, irrespective of the fact that the tenant may have caused the circumstance or condition. Under the doctrine of mitigation of damages, the landlord would be unable to recover those expenses. This is a very important principle that generally favors tenants, and in our casework at Arizona Tenants Advocates we constantly help tenants exercise this right. By so doing, we help tenants reduce their financial exposure, often reducing or totally eliminating landlords’ claims.
Sometimes the concept of mitigation of damages can be employed in a back-door manner, where its application is implied by virtue of landlord overreach, and/or when the landlord’s duties are not fulfilled. For example, a tenant can give notice of intent to vacate early, as if to abandon, leaving the dwelling spotlessly clean and rent-ready, with possession delivered to the landlord as a “turn-key” scenario. Of course, the landlord has a duty to try to relet the premises whereby, on the one hand, intentional or negligent failure to so so violates the duty to mitigate damages. Conversely, many landlords can’t resist illicitly doubling their revenues by renting to a new tenant whilst retaining the old tenant’s deposit (or prepaid rent) as compensation for the ostensibly lost rent. Collecting simultaneous rents is a big no-no, and also violates the duty to mitigate damages.
I would take this one step further. In my opinion, many non-refundable fees and specified-purpose deposits are nothing more than a scheme to evade the security deposit limitation of one and one-half times the value of the monthly rent. See A.R.S. § 33-1321(A). Despite that this statutory section establishes the limitation imposed on deposits “however denominated,” landlords routinely charge non-refundable fees/charges or excess deposits for pets, administrative fees, wear & tear, move-in, et cetera ad nauseum, invariably exceeding 150% of the rent amount. It is also quite common for landlords to assess fees (both refundable and nonrefundable) for redecorating and cleaning, despite that these are specifically prohibited by A.R.S. § 33-1310(14). If all this does not constitute an augmentation of damages, then the world is far more screwed up than my normal cynicism takes into account. Landlord charges are like π. . . never ending and unfathomable (legally).
But one thing you can definitively count on - they want to keep your money, if not to simply line their pockets, then to have you underwrite renovation of the dwelling unit. There are many arguments you can make why a certain so-called damage condition is unwarranted, and we have an article on this subject the Tenants Library, entitled How To Refute Landlord Monetary Claims. While it is the standard practice of landlords to assess the entire cost for replacing the item (such as a carpet), even if you actually caused the deficient condition the landlord must take into account its depreciated value. As with an automobile, the carpet value is reduced in proportion to its age, based on its normal lifespan. So you could argue that the a carpet that is fully depreciated in seven years would, as of the sixth year, only have a value that is one-seventh of its original cost. And that would be your maximum liability for its replacement. Anything more is unjustified and, again, would constitute an augmentation of the charge. Learn those terms: mitigation versus augmentation.
Landlords sometimes attempt a work-around the duty to mitigate by assignment of a “liquidated” worth of the damage, in substitution of what the actual damage might be. For example, $5.00 to replace each stove range drip pan. This may be a reasonable approach, so long as the amount reasonably approximates the actual damage. If not, the argument could be made that it violates contract law because it is excessively high, rendering the charge void as a penalty. For example, a $100.00 charge for each drip pan is unenforceable. Also, landlords occasionally try to collect the liquidated value in addition to the actual charge. This, too, will not fly, as the whole purpose of an assigned liquidated charge is to designate a predetermined sum in replacement of damages that would otherwise be uncertain or difficult to quantify. For this reason, collection of liquidated on top of actual charges constitutes an augmentation, rather than mitigation, of the damages.
The argument of mitigation of damages is powerful, and Arizona Tenants Advocates can assist you in presenting it. Benefit by using our knowledge for free. Join us and we can directly help you enforce your rights.
Posted in Illegal landlord actions, Landlord challenges, Stategies | No Comments »
Finally, through the ATA website we have a video class about how to give notice. Check it out. Here’s the link: http://arizonatenants.com/TenUversity.htm
Posted in Courts, Landlord challenges, Stategies | No Comments »
LEASE RENEWAL AND RENT INCREASES
How much can a landlord raise your rent with a new lease or new rental? There is effectively no limit on rental increases, as this authority is preempted by the state under A.R.S. § 33-1329. Therefore, cities and towns are precluded from the imposition of rent control. And of course, being that the State of Arizona has no interest in helping tenants by regulating rent, this means that at the end of your tenancy the landlord may raise your rent sky high (with the sole possible exceptions that it contradicts either an advertised rate or what is charged to others having identical circumstances).
Ah, but WHEN a landlord can raise the rent or decree other changes is another matter entirely.
One of the most frequent complaint topics on the Arizona Tenants Advocates (ATA) hotline is of landlords attempting to increase rents or terminate during the lease term, or during a month-to-month tenancy with inadequate notice.
When you are in a lease, having dates certain for its commencement and expiration, the lease terms and conditions (if legal) are of a contractual, binding nature. The contract would govern the rent amount, the amount of taxes, any increases in the rent and taxes, when those increases would take effect, and what happens at the lease’s conclusion.
There is no law regulating what kind of advance notice, if any, is required to stay on or vacate when the lease ends. On occasion a lease will state that it automatically renews unless either party gives notice otherwise. More frequently, a 30-day or 60-day notice must be provided by one party to the other. But leases can well be silent on the issue. In this situation, the lease just ends; the landlord and tenant part ways without any notice given.
To understand what you must do, carefully examine the details of your lease. Sure, leases are written with lots of legalese and are designed to give the landlord a leg-up, but there is no end run around knowing what your lease requires. Knowledge is the first step towards having power.
What happens if you neglected to give the requisite 30-day or 60-day notice? Again, that may depend on the lease’s language. However, if a tenant stays on and continues to pay rent after the lease has expired, its terms and conditions would hold over, except that the duration would be on a month-to-month basis. Month-to-month rentals are defined under A.R.S. § 33-1314. So it may be financially advantageous to give notice of terminating a month-to-month tenancy rather than paying for rent 60 days after the lease expired.
But what if the notice is given less than 30 days prior to the next rent payment date? Because the rental period is monthly, the rule of thumb is that such a notice becomes effective as of the next succeeding rental payment date. So, for instance, should the landlord notify you on June 2 that you must be out on July 1, he missed the boat by a single day. Your month-to-month tenancy would therefore conclude on the August 1 periodic rental date, meaning you can stay throughout July. Likewise, your notice to the landlord terminating a month-to-month tenancy must follow the same procedures. Either way, count your days carefully, because many months have 31 days, and February has 28 or 29 days. Accordingly, a notice to terminate on, for example, the March 1 rental date, must be submitted during the last several days of January.
Sometimes it seems like you are totally screwed because you missed the deadline for notices, and it is impractical to go the lease-break scenario, and you have already committed to move and pay rent elsewhere, and you can’t afford to pay two rents in one month, and you didn’t eat breakfast today so it is just a bad bad bad hair day. We actually had a call like that today.
Don’t despair - there may yet be a solution. While you could argue that the landlord has the duty to mitigate damages (see A.R.S. § 33-1305) by re-renting the property, maybe it is not in your interest to let him know that. Perhaps we at ATA can suggest a strategy to avoid eviction and possibly apply the deposit. Perhaps you could entice him to re-rent the premises because he is just a greedy sonuvabitch who wants to hold you liable whilst simultaneously receiving rent from a new tenant. Well, guess what? If he re-rents, there may be no damages suffered and an argument could be made for your deposit, or even some of your prepaid rent, to come back to you.
I just love tricking landlords. But remember, they usually have the upper hand, so don’t think you are so smart. You must make sure your hand is stronger. ATA can help you compose the best case scenario.
How? Let us recount the ways, dearie.
For ATA members, we have free forms that you can use to give the proper notices in the proper sequence. Or, you can individually purchase the forms for a very small charge. Read about our notices at this link http://arizonatenants.com/simple-notice.htm. Particularly, we have a notice form for responding to a landlord’s untimely notice of rent increase or vacating. It’s a really good form, so you may want to use it. You should also consider picking up the vacating and security deposits forms.
Alternatively, we can help you create custom letters addressing the issue, whereby we would actually sit down with you to determine and implement the best strategy. Information on this service can be found at this link http://arizonatenants.com/letter.htm.
While we are not lawyers, and cannot represent you in court, we can help you build a case that gives you the best chance of success in court. Been doing this in Arizona for over 22 years.
Posted in Courts, Illegal landlord actions, Landlord challenges, Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
JUSTICE COURT PROCEDURES
Justice courts are the jurisdiction in which most landlord/tenant issues are resolved, and they are not nice places for tenants to be in. Certainly any tenant who has been behind in his rent and has gone to justice court has no doubt observed the quick, summary nature of the proceedings. Most cases last barely a few minutes before the gavel comes down.
Justice courts are particularly problematic for tenants who have legitimately invoked their rights under the Arizona Residential Landlord and Tenant Act. Despite giving proper notice to invoke tenant remedies, if a tenant does not know how to present his case in justice court, he can (and probably will) find himself evicted despite his having followed the law. Getting evidence into the record is often an exercise in futility. So, even if you want to: make repairs and deduct the cost of them from the rent under A.R.S. § 33-1363; or be excused under A.R.S. § 33-1364 from paying daily rent while securing substitute housing due to lack of essential services; or pay a reduced rent due to a casualty damage, as permitted under A.R.S. § 33-1366. . . most times the justice court will cut your arguments off at the pass. Sometimes a justice of the peace (JP) will allow a tenant to present an argument, knowing he does not know how to present evidence on the record, and then rule against the tenant anyway.
If you are attempting to legally withhold rent, be sure you are entitled to do so, and have followed the proper steps. In the Tenants Library section of the ATA website, we have an article entitled, Stop the Rent Cycle - I Want to Disembark. Read it.
Presuming you have prepared a solid basis for not paying the full rent, should the landlord challenge your actions in court, NEVER admit you did not pay the rent. Instead, assert you have and, for example, then elaborate by explaining the full amount due was tendered. Otherwise, the JP will stop you right then and there, rule to evict you, and usually you will find yourself locked out by a court constable (sometimes a sheriff’s deputy) after five calendar days - this is the execution of what is called a Writ of Restitution.
But if you assert the rent due was paid, the JP may hear the case right away, so you had better be prepared to proceed. Alternatively, the JP will set the case for a hearing, perhaps several days or a week later. If that happens, you have to AGAIN bring with you every witness, every shred of evidence. Unless you have built a strong case with both testimony and evidence made part of the record, an appeal will be throwing good money after bad. That is why we highly recommend securing attorney representation – first, to evaluate whether your underlying case has sufficient merit to warrant defending it, and second, to make sure you have created a good trial record that will hold up on appeal.
If you are unable to retain legal representation, and are defending the case yourself , it is called pro per, which is short for propria persona. So have your case and legal factors clearly understood and at your fingertips ready for submission. At trial the plaintiff (in an eviction case, the landlord) presents his position first, saying why you allegedly owe the amount of rent he claims.
Then the JP will give you the opportunity, and you can prove what notices were delivered to the landlord, evidencing establishing proof that your notices were delivered, the basis for why you paid a reduced rent (e.g. contractor receipts for a self-help repair, or hotel receipts document the amount of your hotel bill that entitles you to deduction of daily rent plus 25%), and evidence the remaining rent due was actually paid. You will need to have at least four copies of every piece of evidence to be placed on the record - that is, a copy for the court record, a copy for the judge to peruse, a copy of the opposing side, and a copy on hand for your reference. You may also need original records available, to prove the copies are valid.
Never believe your friends or anyone else who assures you that you should be able to prevail. All you can do is improve the odds by having cogent legal and factual arguments.
To that end, Arizona Tenants Advocates (ATA) can assist you in preparing your initial custom notices to the landlord. Alternatively, at the very least ATA members should use our free notice forms, available for a range of purposes. That way, you will get the verbiage right, with proper legal citations, and be able to prove delivery of the notices. If you are not an ATA member, the forms can be individually purchased for a very low price.
Finally, in this Blog you may with to peruse earlier articles regarding court matters, entitled Signing Your Life Away; Small Claims: for Small Minds with Slim Pickin’s; and The Arrogance of Confidence.
-Ken Volk -
Posted in Courts, Landlord challenges, Stategies, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Posted in Courts, Illegal landlord actions, Landlord challenges, Stategies, Uncategorized | No Comments »
IS A TENANT WHO JUST MOVED IN ENTITLED TO AUTOMATICALLY BREAK HER LEASE CONTRACT?
A fairly common question we get is, if a tenant moves into an apartment and within a day realizes she made a mistake, or perhaps finds that the apartment is overrun with cockroaches or has some other problem, does she have a window within which she can cancel the contract. The general answer to this question is no. There’s no “grace period” under landlord/tenant law within which you can back out of a lease.
However, this does not mean she’s stuck. The Arizona Residential Landlord and Tenant Act is very weak in comparison with tenants’ rights laws in other states, mainly because it does not allow you to hold back the rent under most circumstances or use more than a minimal amount of rent (half a month’s) to make repairs. However, it does give tenants the right to terminate their leases for a variety of landlord misconduct, both substantive, such as cockroach infestation (A.R.S. §§ 33-1324(A); 33-1361(A)), or technical, for example, failure to register with the County Assessor (A.R.S. § 33-1902). Therefore, even though the tenant cannot simply break her contract based on some window of time, she can invoke one of the many sections of the landlord/tenant act to get out of her lease.
One of the interesting aspects of this is that very often the grounds the tenant cites for terminating her lease are not the actual reason she wants to do so. Sometimes there isn’t a remedy for the tenant’s particular problem, but there are demands she can make which, if the landlord does not comply, she can terminate her lease based on his noncompliance. In the case above, the tenant might be able to get out of the lease by claiming constructive failure to deliver possession if there is a particularly bad cockroach problem (A.R.S. § 33-1362), or maybe the landlord didn’t register his apartment with the County Assessor and he lives in one of the cities where termination on this basis is immediate rather than tied to a ten day notice period. The process of terminating a lease is very technical and is not something you should try without getting professional help. I actually pioneered this process in Arizona in 1999, performing over 6,000 such cases since then. I’ve been refining the actual practice of helping tenants terminate their leases for over 16 years.
Under A.R.S. § 33-1343, a landlord may enter your rental house or apartment for a host of purposes, including to:
Make necessary or agreed repairs, decorations, alterations or improvements
Exhibit the dwelling unit to prospective or actual purchasers, mortgagees, tenants, workmen or contractors
Typically, entry must be with two days’ advance notice so long as the time of day is reasonable. Exceptions are when it is impracticable to do so, for emergencies, or after you lodge a maintenance or service request. If you withhold consent, you may well be evicted.
Do not confuse two days with 48 hours; a landlord could, for example, give you notice to enter on Monday night, and then come into your dwelling Wednesday morning. This would be less than 48 hours, but still meet the two-day requirement.
You may well ask what is a reasonable time for entry. The Arizona Residential Landlord & Tenant Act does not define this. My thinking is that entry before 8 a.m. and after 7 p.m. is unreasonable. I also think it is unreasonable to enter on special holidays, such as Thanksgiving or Christmas Days. Ultimately the bottom line rests with what a judge would rule. Given the bias of the courts, it is risky to block a landlord’s access unless you have an unassailable position. Don’t press your luck.
But there is a time for standing firm and saying No. And that time is when you have first made a written record of warning the landlord to stay out unless proper advance notice is given. Usually such a warning, sent by certified mail or hand-delivered by process server, clearly gets the message across and modifies an abusive landlord’s conduct. The reason for this is because, following such notice, there can be no question that a landlord’s entry without proper notice violates the tenant’s right to privacy and security. Once you have so notified your landlord, in the event your landlord appears without warning not only are you well positioned to stand your ground and deny entry without notice, but also you would have built a strong case to seek remedy for abuse of access under A.R.S. § 33-1376 .
There are several remedies for abuse of access. You can ask to court to halt the landlord’s abusive entries, by way of injunctive relief. You can recover through court action monetary damages that you have suffered, with a minimum value of at least one month’s rent. And you can terminate the rental agreement, which can be self-enforced without court action.
ATA can help you do it right.
First, we have an article in the Tenants Library explaining details about landlord access, entitled Hey Landlord: My Home is My Castle, at this link http://arizonatenants.com/castle.htm. Read it. For ATA members, we have a free form that you can serve upon a landlord who enters without proper notice. Or, you can individually purchase the form for a very small charge. Read about our notices at this link http://arizonatenants.com/simple-notice.htm. Finally, we can help you create custom letters addressing the issue, whereby we would actually sit down with you to address and implement the best strategy. Information on this service can be found at this link http://arizonatenants.com/letter.htm.
For well over a decade, Arizona Tenants Advocates has been advising tenants about landlord abuse of access. Join ATA and become a part of the solution – for yourself and for other tenants.
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