Renters' Recourse When Natural Disaster Strikes

Hurricane Charley ripped an open-air skylight into your condo rental. Hurricane Frances sent a foot of water into your rental house. Hurricane Ivan blew out the staircase to your apartment and Hurricane Jeanne took down your balcony. Now what do you do?

When a natural disaster strikes, renters can face quite a predicament.

Sure, you can and should carry renter's insurance that covers damage to your furniture, clothing, electronics and other personal belongings in the event of windstorm, fire and theft. But because you have no ownership interest in the rental unit itself, you can't insure the structure. That's the responsibility of the building's owner, your landlord.

Should you stay and trust that repairs will be made before a host of other problems have a chance to move in with you? Do you leave and risk legal action for running out on your lease? Do you pay less rent or none at all, and will that spur your landlord to action or just the opposite? And if you dearly love your rental and have no desire to leave, what are your legal rights to stay put?

While no one set of rules covers all renters when nature turns nasty, there is a uniform legal definition called the warranty of habitability that holds that all rentals must provide the basics: electricity, water, heat, plumbing, weatherproofing and a safe and sanitary structure. Landlord-tenant laws vary from state to state and even county to county, but most state that if a rental unit fails to meet these basic habitability tests, you are under no obligation to remain.

"If the repair goes to the habitability of your apartment, you can leave immediately upon learning that it's not going to get repaired," says Janet Portman, attorney and co-author of "Every Tenant's Legal Guide."

"It's really not a matter of saying you expect the landlord to fix it; as far as the tenant is concerned, that's irrelevant. The fact is that he has no electricity, he has no plumbing. That makes his unit not livable under the law and he is free to leave."

If you decide to leave, what happens to your deposit? Portman says you should get it back. Deposits are typically specified to cover two things: unpaid back rent and necessary cleaning and repairs caused by the tenant.

Still here? OK. Assuming you still have four walls and a roof over your head and you want to stay, we enter more tenuous territory.

First step: Dig out your renter's policy and call your insurance agent. Many policies today will pay for your food and shelter until your unit can be made livable again, according to Don Griffin, vice president of commercial lines for the Property and Casualty Institute.

"If the property is damaged as a result of a covered peril, such as a fire, then we have what is called loss-of-use or additional-living expense," he says. "What that does is pay your additional expenses for temporarily relocating. If you have to live in a hotel and eat out all the time and take your clothes to a laundry, that would be covered under the additional-living expense."

Griffin says the provision no longer has a stay limit; instead, the dollar amount is typically capped at about 40 percent of your contents coverage.

The catch is, the damage to your unit would have to have been made by a disaster specifically named in your policy. Typically fires and hurricanes (windstorms) are covered; floods and earthquakes are not and would require a separate policy.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency offers assistance for some displaced renters. FEMA has a special Web page devoted to the agency's Individuals and Households Program, or you can call 1-800-621-FEMA to register for disaster assistance.

Before proceeding further, you should make contact with your landlord and describe the damage to your rental unit. To protect your options, it's also a good idea to notify him of the damage in writing. From that point, the landlord is allowed a "reasonable" time to return the unit to a habitable state.

What are your options when you want to stay but your landlord won't make the repairs? According to the legal site Nolo.com, depending on your state, you can:

• Pay less rent;
  
• Withhold the entire rent until the problem is fixed;
  
• Make the necessary repairs yourself;
  
• Hire someone to make the repairs and deduct the cost from next month's rent;
  
• Call the local building inspector, who can usually order the landlord to make repairs.