Need advice about a legal issue regarding an office I rented

May 25, 2017 9:31 PM

My friend rented an office in San Rafael, California with the understanding that the office would be air-conditioned. He has a medical condition that makes this necessary. They are not air-conditioning the office the way they promised. What legal recourse does he have? How can he find a suitable lawyer?

Here is his explanation of what happened.

I leased a small office for programming work, and for medical reasons I need the space to be no warmer than a normal office temperature range (68-72). The air conditioning to this office hasn't been running, and the temperature has been regularly hitting 79-80, making it unusable.

The lease specifies "Landlord shall furnish the Premises with: (1) [...] conditioned air and heat to the extent reasonably required for the comfortable occupancy by Tenant in its use of the Premises during the period from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on weekdays, except holidays [...]"

I probably need to find a decent lawyer who can provide advice and perhaps help draft a letter to the landlord, but I can't afford significant legal fees, and don't know how to find a lawyer that's good for this sort of thing.

I can also bring in a portable A/C unit that might solve the problem by venting hot air through the door into the hall, but this will violate the lease in several ways (there are provisions forbidding the operation of heating or A/C separate from the building's HVAC, drawing too much power, and presumably annoying the neighbors).

Any suggestions about ways to proceed or finding a lawyer would be helpful.

posted by Surprised By Bees to Law & Government (8 answers total)

It's only been a couple of weeks since you asked about renting this space on behalf of your friend. Has your friend actually approached the landlord (by email, ideally so there's a written record) in a non-threatening manner and said that the air conditioning isn't working? What was the response to that?

Getting a lawyer involved at this stage of the process seems premature unless there are significant details that have been omitted.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:31 PM on May 25, 2017 [4 favorites]

I agree with the question above. Has the landlord been properly notified? What was the response? There is no point at all in contacting a lawyer unless the landlord has been notified and given a chance to remedy. Leases often contain some language regarding adequate notification in case remedy is needed.
posted by frumiousb at 11:05 PM on May 25, 2017

I'm not a lawyer. My sister has a medical condition that makes air conditioning necessary, so I understand this issue a little bit. Your friend needs to start taking steps to work to remedy this and you're not at the lawyer stage yet.

First step: friendly letter "Hi I was led to believe this office would be air conditioned. I require this for my business. Can you let me know if you will be able to provide this and what the timeline would be on getting this going?"

It's possible the landlord doesn't even know this isn't happening. They will either fix, offer a timeline or you move to next step.

Second step: firm letter "Unfortunately this is a firm requirement for me for leased office space and I was led to believe I would be leasing air conditioned office space so I will have to break my lease"

The big deal with leases usually, as opposed to medical accommodations at a workplace (my sister's situation) is that the contract basically allows you to break the contract if one person is in violation. So your friend can break the lease (and maybe get some rent back, this is a legal thing to be determined) but they're not entitled necessarily to mandate that the landlord fix this the same way they could if the landlord was your friend's employer.

If you get to the second step and haven't gotten reasonable feedback from the landlord you could contact Legal Aid of Marin to see if they could get a referral for someone to offer advice on this matter.
posted by jessamyn at 8:26 AM on May 26, 2017 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks for all the responses. Here's his clarification:


It's been 10 days, I've emailed twice (plus a resend due to an email error).
First time was basically, "I think someone turned of the A/C for this office,
and it's too hot. Could they turn it on again?". The second was "It's been
a week and I haven't been able to use the office yet due to lack of A/C, and
I really need to get to work." I also suggested some alternatives.

I don't think I phrased the second email well, and the response was ambiguous,
so that's where I think a lawyer's advice would clarify my position and avoid
missteps. I suggested, based on the lease, that if this was more complicated
than "turning on the A/C", there are provisions in the lease for giving them
30 days (unpaid) to fix "damage that makes the office unusable", or the lease
can obviously be terminated by mutual consent (I was avoiding language
threatening to break the lease...bad choice?), or I could bring in an
interior portable A/C unit that would violate the power-usage terms of the
lease and vent hot air into the hallway, probably annoying other tenants.

The reponse was "I won't stop you if you do the third one." But if I do, have
I changed my position and accepted the conditions of the office, so I can't
break the lease on this basis if the issue is never properly addressed? The
portable A/C is likely to create problems that the landlord is specifically
allowed to monetarily penalize.
posted by Surprised By Bees at 2:10 PM on May 26, 2017

I was unclear from the initial question that the landlord had already been contacted. It seems your friend wants to contact a lawyer which is fine and probably a good idea. The landlord has also said or implied that bringing in an AC unit would be ok. It seems like if you could get the landlord to agree, in writing, to bypassing the monetary penalties than maybe this problem is solved? I am not seeing the AC as "damage that makes the office unusable" unless the AC unit is, in fact, damaged and that is the landlord's reason for not repairing it. I feel like we're only getting part of the story here possibly?
posted by jessamyn at 5:30 PM on May 26, 2017

Response by poster: He says the following.

The building manager has said in email "I won't stop you", but if I want a
written waiver of the all the lease terms that would forbid a portable A/C
unit, I probably would have to phrase the request more formally and get the
property owner to sign off (which probably brings this back to needing a
lawyer).

Also, the portable A/C solution isn't a solution, it's a hack. There can be
unexpected problems, immediately or later, with something like this. Even if
the landlord agrees, it's probably not wise to rely on it in the long term.

The lack of A/C isn't damage, but I was looking for the most agreeable way to
categorize the problem. Under the lease, the landlord has 30 days to do
repairs (with rent abated), but the absence of promised utilities is simply
a violation of the lease, so the only remedy looks like immediate termination.
From the utilities section:

"Landlord shall furnish Premises with: (1) electricity for lighting and the
operation of normal desk-top office machines, conditioned air and heat to the
extent reasonably required for the comfortable occupancy by Tenant in its use
of the Premises during the period of 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on weekdays ..."

[and so on, it excludes weekends/holidays, adds a few things, and requires
additional payment for anything beyond the utility services described].
posted by Surprised By Bees at 5:21 PM on May 27, 2017

Yeah that is my read too. If your friend has stated the problem and the landlord hasn't fixed the problem and your friend doesn't want to get hacky with it, I'd just break the lease and move on.
posted by jessamyn at 6:01 PM on May 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: He went ahead and got the air conditioner and installed it in the office, and so far this is been allowed.

Thanks for the answers everyone.
posted by Surprised By Bees at 12:39 PM on June 25, 2017