Are Landlords Responsible for Tenants’ Behavior?
Landlords pre-screen tenants to know whether or not they have prior criminal convictions, evictions, and poor credit records. Smart landlords take precautions to protect themselves from liability to third parties due to tenant behavior.
But in Georgia, a recent court decision stated that a landlord was not responsible for his tenant’s alleged drug dealing, and a small-claims court suit against him was dismissed.
The plaintiff, Lori Davis, accused landlord John Weigle, Jr. of renting a property in her neighborhood as a “known neighborhood drug house.” A judge in Richmond County, GA ruled that she failed to prove that the landlord owes her $5,000 due to his management of the rental property. He says he had no knowledge of his tenant dealing drugs.
Davis is described as an activist, pushing for a new city law to hold property owners responsible for Chronic Nuisance Properties. Current state law in Georgia says that landlords are not responsible to third parties for their tenants’ behavior—so she was ruled against.
Chambersburg, Pennsylvania’s mayor, Pet Lagiovane, is proposing an ordinance that will hold landlords responsible for tenant behavior. He says he fields telephone calls from residents who are forced to put up with problems from unruly tenants. The mayor maintains that landlords have a responsibility to the neighborhood, while landlords say they are not parents, they are business owners. A group of landlords banded together to oppose the ordinance, saying that the tenants—not the landlords—should suffer consequences when they break the law.
In York, PA, a landlord/tenant ordinance assigns points to violations like noise, disorderly conduct and domestic disputes. If a property earns a set number of points in a certain period of time, the city can shut down the property—and a landlord’s lack of knowledge is not considered a proper defense. The landlord group says the point system should be against individual tenants, not a property.
Does state law trump a local ordinance? It depends on the state and on the ordinance. As a landlord, you should know what your state law says about landlord responsibility concerning tenant behavior.