NORFOLK, Va. - Housing is hard to come by these days so people may be jumping into any lease they can, but you should know your rights as a renter before signing on the dotted line.
One thing that renters should know is that the power is not completely in a landlord's hands. In July, the General Assembly in Virginia passed several new laws to help renters. However, a lot of people don't know about them.
Sabrina Lewis is a local renter who had to learn the hard way.
"Everything was covered with mold — my walls, my clothes," she said.
Lewis said mold appeared in her apartment after a water leak in a neighboring unit. She said she was forced to leave, and after pushing back, was re-located to a townhome under the same management.
To her surprise, she said, "This one had mold in it as well. I understand that the building could be old, but it's like, if they keep up with the maintenance repairs, and do the things how they said they should do. It shouldn't be happening that way."
Her story isn't unique. The News 3 Problem Solvers get a lot of emails about unkept apartments and unresponsive landlords.
To find out who has what rights in Virginia, Problem Solver Erin Miller met with attorney, Larry Lockwood Jr. with the Hunter Law Firm. Among many cases, he deals with landlord and tenant disputes in court.
"The laws, the way they're written, purposely put the burden on the landlord," he said.
The laws also give renters access to file what's called a tenant's assertion if they believe the landlord isn't complying with the terms of the lease.
"What you do is you start paying rent into the court instead of your landlord," said Lockwood. "Within 15 days, the court has to hear the matter, a preliminary hearing, to determine whether there's any merit to it. If you file a tenant's assertion, you must show you have given your landlord at least 30 days, with written notice, as to what the problem was."
If the home becomes "unlivable," Lockwood said the landlord must provide temporary accommodations.
According to the Virginia statute, unlivable conditions include a lack of light/electricity, inadequate sewage disposal facilities, and an infestation of rodents.
The last thing Lockwood said tenants should know is that "the landlord has to notify the tenant that they have the right to be at the move out inspection. It's a lot easier to prevent the landlord from taking some of your security deposit then to get it back.
Erin Miller shared this information with Lewis. She said she documented conditions in her apartment and filed two tenant's assertions. It went to court, and she said the judge terminated the lease.
"With my first tenant's assertion, they had given me the first two months of rent back and they told me that I had 30 days to relocate and to get all my stuff out of both places," she said.
Now she is trying to figure out what's next and make sure her health is okay.
"I really wanted to just get this out there, just in case anybody else was going through the same issue," she said. "I think it's very important for people to know their tenant rights. If you don't know them, I feel like you should look them up."
The big take-aways:
- File a tenant's assertion
- Make sure your landlord is notified in writing, which can be an email or text message (though Lockwood suggests certified mail
- Document exactly what the unit looks like before you move in so you can prove any changes over time
