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Can My Landlord Legally Do This?

Posted by Real Estate Investor on Jul 31 | Real Estate Investing Chatter

Our lawn mower is broken and our landlord has been harrassing us about the lawn (literally stopping by every other day to make threats after we told him things are tight and we’ll try our best). He threatened to hire a landscaping company to come in and take care of it, then send us the bill. Can he hire someone and force us to pay the bill when we never agreed to it by law?, more 

and Does a commercial lease have to be notarized in Arizona to be legal?  , more 

and What does the average American look for when buying a houses?  What are the most important things that the average American want in a home before they buy it. Average Americans are those making 30,000 to 100,000 a year., more 

Can I legally and/or rightfully withhold rent?  First off I live in a suburb of Buffalo, NY NOT “the city”. So my issue is Ive lived in an apartment with multiple code violations for 3 months now. My landlord is well aware of these violations and has been informed in writing and verbally by me and yet never fixes it. I’m fed up and want to leave. I called the town inspector and they issued him 5 pages of violations, I didn’t do this to get even I just want a decent place to live. Also when I looked at the apartment it was perfect, sometime between me looking at it and moving in it was damaged, I signed the lease not knowing the damage had been done, but it specifically states in the lease that the landlord states the apt was suitable for human living, the town said it was uninhabitable, so my big question is do I have to pay rent for august if he knowingly signed a lease with me knowing the apt was not in a condition required by law? Also NYS law says that I am not required to pay rent if infestations such as the bees in my walls and window are not taken care of so just based on that shouldn’t I not have to pay him?
just some of the said violations include
-NO smoke detectors
-broken windows
-unsecured screens
-exposed wires
-malfuntioning stove
-non functioning light switch
-leaking sink
-broken faucets
-bee infestation
and the list goes on and on…
and the violation letter stated it was uninhabitable, they haven’t made us leave because there are other issues they are still investigating such as this is possibly not even our land lords house and that we pay the electric for the whole house (landlord lives downstairs gets free electric), more 

and Paying rent when the house isn't ready?  My housemates and I signed a lease that stated the lease begins July 1, however, “the Landlord is not responsible if the Landlord cannot give the Tenant possession of the House at the start of this Lease.” He had given us keys the day before July 1st, but there was still construction going on in the house, ex: replacing carpet with tiles that was not done until about 2 weeks later, toilets were not installed, and the house was not cleaned. I understand that he made the property available, but it clearly was not available to live in. Regardless, he asked us for July rent and we gave it to him unwillingly.
The lease says, “rent will only be charged from the date on which possession of the property is made available to the Tenant.” Do we have any chance of arguing that he broke the contract in the sense that the property was not available because we could not live there yet? Or how about arguing for our month of rent back?
Any opinion would help, thank you.
We were able to move in upstairs, but not downstairs because the tiles were not put in yet. Also, we couldn’t live there yet because the bathrooms weren’t working., more 

Tags: repossessed, foreclosure, investing advice, homes