Can Landlord Refuse to Give a Lock
My question involves landlord-tenant law in the State of: New York
I rent one floor of a two-family house. The LL is refusing to supply a handle and lock for my front door. She is also refusing to install a bell on the front door and refusing to fix the refrigerator which constantly leaks. Her reasons are as follows:
1. there is a side door we could use for access which has two very good locks on it.
2. she has already put "so much" money into painting rooms, finishing a wood floor, replacing a (disgusting!) hallway carpet and removing her junk from the apartment, that this is something we should take care of.
3. there is a bell on the side door which a previous tenant installed.
4. she has had to "do up" her front hall because of us, because how could she paint our hallway and then leave the front shabby?
5. She has no money left to fix anything else. (but has asked us to pay in cash...)
Does she really have a leg to stand on with this issue?
Thanks in advance, G.
Re: Can Landlord Refuse to Give a Lock
Is this an approved rental unit? Try having the local government agency that inspects rental housing review your premises - I don't know of any jurisdiction that does not require working locksets on all outside doors.
Re: Can Landlord Refuse to Give a Lock
Good question, Mr. Knowitall.
Who would I ask to find that out? Googling has led me into some strange and unhelpful places, and I find NY bureaucracy greatly confusing.
Re: Can Landlord Refuse to Give a Lock
Quote:
Quoting
Gnome
Good question, Mr. Knowitall.
Who would I ask to find that out? Googling has led me into some strange and unhelpful places, and I find NY bureaucracy greatly confusing.
I own a number of these types of properties in NYC, and I live in one myself with a layout almost as you described. My house has a front entrance for my unit, and a side entrance for the rental, but some nearby owners modified the layout where both units can be accessed from the front.
There is also a full basement where some owners even built an "illegal" 3rd rental unit.
First, the door bells. It is possible that it may not be a legal unit. There were some on my street where the owners built illegal units, then tenants talked the owners putting the bell buttons in the front. The buildings department came by to inspect and closed up some of those units and as one inspector told me, they made things simpler by having "three doorbells" in the front of a 2 family zoned area, advertising, "hey look, I have an illegal unit here".
The builder had put in illegal units, I used one of it myself, didn't rent it out, but what did me in was I installed an extra mailbox for my magazines, making it three mailboxes out front, so the inspectors assumed I was renting out an illegal unit. He told me they were trained to look for extra doorbells and mailboxes. It then cost me over $6,000 in fees to keep the finished unit as my office, most of it for filing paperwork because the basement was not built to be finished for habitation, according to the building plans.
I could tell you about front door issues with these layouts. If the owner want the side door used, I would use the side door. My front door has no access to the rental unit, but I constantly got my doorbell rung when I got new tenants, only to get out of bed sometimes to tell the visitors to use the side door. The neighbor down the street who changed his layout has two doorbells, and the upstairs guy gets his doorbell rung for the downstairs guy, and visa versa. I rang one of those bells by accident, got the upstairs guy out of bed, and he angrily told me it's the other bell, and then added he told his landlord not to have the two bells.
I have gone through the legal issues with my house, had meetings with architects and building department officials down here in NYC where I am, and I was told that all I have to do is to provide "one legal ingress/egress", and legally an alternate way of egress, and I am up to code, so there is no legal requirment that the "entrance has to be in the front". This came about when some tenants insisted that they have to have access through the front, and I'm not about to change the layout if what I got is perfectly legal, and from what I'm told, it is perfectly legal for the rental unit to have it's own side entrance, with it's own doorbell.
Oh, googling won't help here. You'll need to contact your local authorities on the interpretation of building codes, and in NYC where I am, that would be the "buildings department".
Re: Can Landlord Refuse to Give a Lock
Thanks, SFchin for your experiences with your house.
She allows us the use of the front door, being that I have a baby and need to get the stroller inside. She never once mentioned NOT using it, rather said that the side is accessible and she allows me to use the front out of the goodness of her heart.
However, the side door has an unlit hallway, (it's pitch dark in there, even in the day), is open to the basement, and has combination locks - one outside and one on the top entrance, both to which the code has been forgotten. Who is responsible for paying for lighting to be installed and the codes to the combination locks changed?
Her problem is that she refuses to put another dollar into the rental. She has only mentioned using the side door now that we brought up the issue of her installing and fixing the handle and lock on the front.
Right now, I have no way of knowing if and when someone is at my door. They ring her bell and she lets them in. The actual entrance to my apartment is left open at all times because the handle to the existing nib is broken. I have found people at my landing and delivery men in my house(!) without knowing they had entered.
I can understand the "one legal in/egress", but shouldn't I have the right to privacy and security at the other (legal) egress?
I will be contacting the buildings department to see what I can do from there.
G.
Re: Can Landlord Refuse to Give a Lock
I suggest asking the LL if you could buy the lock for the front door and whatever else is needed and ask if she would knock the price of what you paid off the rent.
For instance:
You pay $1000 cash for the rental of the apartment per month
You buy a doorknob and lock set for $60
You give the landlord $940 cash and a receipt for $60 for the lock set as rent for the month of August 11
If your in need of several hundred dollars in repairs you can also tell the landlord that you will do a few repairs every month until the things stated are corrected, so you don't have to give her $300 cash and a receipt for $700 for the rent.