What do you do when your rental becomes uninhabitable? Hopefully your lease addresses these situations and often It isn't as simple as you might think. For example, my Lease has an act of god provision which gives the owner the option to release the tenant from the lease without future liability or make the repairs within thirty days, failing which the tenant can walk or stay and pay at their own risk. I've never had this happen until this year and wouldn't you know it, it happened twice. Neither case was covered by my act of god provision. The first case actually fell under my lease's indemnification clause.
In one situation A tenant left a can of spam on top of an active gas stove. That's the tenants negligence. In that case we called in the insurance company and luckily for the tenant the insurance policy covered lost rents. The tenants paid the deductible and any lost rents the insurer didn't cover and once the repairs where done the tenants resumed their lease. The owner got a brand new kitchen. One of the three tenants had renters insurance. They paid for her moving expenses out and back in, as well as her short term rental payments.
The second case fell under my leases maintenance clause. A major plumbing leak caused the tenant to vacate and the owner, obviously wanted to make repairs. Our maintenance section is almost two pages long, two little sentences say "...in the event a major property requires the tenant to vacate the owner may at his discretion terminate this lease and the tenant will vacate and hold owner harmless. This one got a little tricky because their wasn't a comparable property for the tenant to make alternate living arrangements for less then $200 per night! The tenant of course was demanding to be reimbursed for the cost. Ironically the tenant was threatening to withhold rent, which I explained paying rent is what entitles you to be reimbursed. In any event without those two sentences the landlord wouldn't have had the option to terminate the lease and if the repairs hadn't gone as timely he could have been stuck with $200 per night for much longer.
Again the owner made an insurance claim and again this owner had loss of rents coverage. He got his $3000 plumbing repair and most of his loss from the alternative living arrangements covered. The tenant was happy and so was the owner. It's nice to have a good comprehensive lease, and of course good insurance.
