Under Ga Law Is The Landlord Or The Tenant Resposibe Gor Structural Repairs/ Replacents?

Can a Residential Lease Require the Tenant to Brand Repairs to the Property?

June 2022

The short answer is "No." Georgia police requires a landlord of residential property to keep the premises in repair. This is an absolute duty of the landlord and cannot be waived, delegated or transferred in the lease. So, a landlord cannot legally crave a residential tenant to assume any repair duties in the lease.

Typically though, the give-and-take does not end here. Creative landlords have distinguished the duty to maintain the premises from the duty to repair. In Georgia, a tenant is required to preserve a holding in equally proficient a status every bit when it was received. As a result, tenants must keep the property maintained during the term of the lease. The repair duty of the landlord refers to the upkeep or replacement of a component part of the property that is necessary to preserve the property in the aforementioned condition as it was at the fourth dimension of the lease. Repair would include returning a construction, organisation or apparatus to its original condition earlier harm or performing needed capital improvements to the property.

While a landlord can legally require a residential tenant to perform maintenance in the lease, the tenant cannot exist bound to make repairs even if the charter states otherwise. Whatever requirements of budget or replacement arguably beyond maintenance activities are the landlord's responsibility. Therefore, landlords often obligate tenants to perform sure duties in the lease that are described as maintenance obligations, not repairs. Permissible maintenance could include replacing light bulbs, replacing fume alarm batteries, changing HVAC filters, carpet cleaning or cutting the grass. On the other hand, the landlord's duties of repair would include repairing a broken smoke alarm, roof repair, or HVAC repair. Although some duties are more easily categorized as maintenance or as repair, other duties may fall into an arguable grayness area. For example, some leases may require tenants to pay a separate maintenance "trip accuse" for service visits, or may accuse a maintenance "deductible" which obligates the tenant to pay up to a set amount for service done on the property. These types of provisions are likely to exist unenforceable as an endeavor by the landlord to shift the absolute duty of repair to the tenant.

If the lease does not address maintenance or repair obligations at all, the landlord must repair every bit well as maintain the property. In addition, the landlord can charge dorsum to the tenant whatsoever repairs or expenses that result from the tenant'due south abuse or neglect of the property beyond normal wear and tear.

Agents, tenants and landlords alike -- if your adjacent residential lease places any questionable maintenance duties or costs on the tenant, ask your Weissman attorney for communication!

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