QUESTION
Can I charge my landlord for food we've had to throw away and order due to neglect of our facilities?
Asked on Sep 28th, 2021 on Landlord and Tenant Law - Michigan
More details to this question:
Hello, I was wondering if I can I charge my landlord for food we've had to throw away and order due to neglect of our facilities? On August 25th my husband and I started putting in service orders for our fridge and they haven't come to replace it yet. Our fridge doesn't keep a cold temperature now and we've had to throw away so much food due to this. A half gallon of milk goes bad in two days, I have to put it on ice overnight to make sure my daughter has it in the morning. We've had to order out a few times because we can't keep food in our fridge for more than two days at a time. We cant afford to throw away perfectly good food, two days and our bacon grows a forest of mold, it's awful. Luckily our freezer works fine so we can keep stuff in there. They are aware of the problem, they've come to the house a few times to look at it, we've been told that they were ordering us a new one. Can we charge our landlord for the food we've thrown away and the cost of our eating out?
1 ANSWER
Assuming that you lease doesn'tlimit the type and/or amount of damages which you can recover for a breach of the lease, and that the landlord's failure to repair the problem in a timely fashion constitutes a breach of the lease, you can claim your extra expenses as damages from the breach. In the real world, however, the landlord is unlikely to agree that you are entitled to this money, and if you want it you're probably going to have to fight about it in court, and you will have your landlord angry at you. It would probably be better, if possible, to reach a compromise with your landlord.
Answered on Sep 28th, 2021 at 12:48 PM