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29 Clearinghouse Rev. 536 (1995-1996)
Landlord Failure to Resolve Shared Meter Problem Breaches Tenant's Right to Quiet Enjoyment

handle is hein.journals/clear29 and id is 554 raw text is: Landlord Failure to Resolve Shared Meter Problem Breaches Tenant's Right to Quiet Enjoyment by Roger Colton and Janet Labella I. Introduction One common quandary facing low-i whether the right to seek remedies f A landlord breaches the covenant of quiet enjoyment by burdening one tenant with liability for the other tenants' utility usage when the tenant has no prior knowledge of that burden and did not consent to it. able bill, the potential disconnection reasonable quality of life, and no app The Maryland courts have recentl. a landlord's actions regarding the pro did not directly contract. In Legg v. Ca, where tenants share a common meter the utility bill, the landlord may be h amount of the unpaid bill.2 Moreover, covenant of quiet enjoyment by burc This column was prepared for tenants' utility usage when the tenant I the National Consumer Law not consent to it.3 Center by Roger Colton, a principal in Fisher, Sheehan & II. Background Colton, Public Finance and Defendant landlords had rented a General Economics, 34 apartments: an upstairs unit and a Warwick Rd., Belmont, MA ground-floor apartment on an oral, 02178, and Janet Labella, a staff attorney with the Legal Aid Bureau, Anne Arundel Legg v. Castruccio, 100 Md. App. 748 County Office, 172 West St., 2 Id. at 786. Annapolis, MD 21404. 3 Id. at 783. ncome tenants who are utility consumers is or a grievance concerning utility service lies against the landlord renting a particular property, the utility company that pro- vides natural gas or electric service to the rental property, or neither. The situation is often complicated by a landlord's atti- tude that it is not my bill and a utility company's position that the tenant's com- plaint is against your landlord and has nothing to do with us or whether we should get paid. In the meantime, the tenant is left facing a potentially unpay- of heating or electricity that is essential to any arent avenue through which to seek redress. y expanded the rights of a tenant to challenge vision of utility service for which the landlord struccio,1 a Maryland appellate court held that, and one tenant fails to pay his or her share of eld financially responsible for damages in the according to the court, a landlord breaches the dening one tenant with liability for the other ias no prior knowledge of that burden and did two-story building. The building had two downstairs unit. Plaintiff tenant rented the nonth-by-month basis. At the time plaintiffs (1994) (Clearinghouse No. 50,758). CLEARINGHOUSE REVIEW I AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 1995 536 LIM (ClItc,1-

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