My partner and I are renting a home through a realty company in Georgia. It is a very old house, so to ease our concerns we attached hand-written special stipulations page to the lease agreement. This page was signed by ourselves and the realtor. It simply stated that before move-in, all appliances were to be in working condition such as faucets, stove, water heater, etc. We added this page because everything appeared old and some things damaged (example, our bathroom faucet is missing handles).
On the move-in checklist, we stated that there was mold on the windows/blinds, house exterior, cabinets in the kitchen and bathroom, and an overall musky smell throughout some parts of the house. There was moldy food left in the refrigerator, which we forget to take pictures of but still listed on the move-in checklist anyway. There was also a hole in our bedroom closet that actually created a small air draft, but that has since been patched.
A month later - our bathroom faucet is not fixed, the water heater works for about eight minutes, one of the stove burners doesn't work, and most importantly our smoke detector does not work, which we stated on the move-in checklist. We ended up cleaning most of the visible mold ourselves, but now we are concerned that there may be more in places that we cannot see.
We emailed our concerns to the realty company and requested that we be credited for the days that these issues have not been addressed. I just received an email back from them and they are denying ever being told about the things I have previously mentioned, other than the faucet which they argue that they have been making attempts with their maintenance team to fix it. Without directly stating it, they are denying my request for a credit.
This whole ordeal has caused me to lose trust in the company, and I feel that they are not reliable. We live in a dangerous area, and knowing that it might take a month for them to repair a potential broken lock on our front door really worries me.
My question is, given the circumstances do I have the right to break the lease agreement without penalty, perhaps even get my security deposit back?
Or at the least, would they be obligated to inspect my property for mold and credit me for all the days after move-in in which the agreed upon stipulations were not met?
TLDR - Renting a house, realtors agreed on paper to fix things before move-in. 1 month after move-in and things aren't fixed and there's a growing concern for mold. No trust in the company. Can we break the lease?
Submitted January 26, 2017 at 03:50AM by moldyfridgebacon http://ift.tt/2kutqch legaladvice
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