When a house is rented, tenants and homemade have to fulfill a series of obligations. In the case of the latter, keep the house in good habitability, but that this is not fulfilled, does not mean that the tenant can take justice by his hand and stop paying the rent. Acting on your own can lead to important legal and economic consequences, and it is just what happened to a French tenant.
According to the court rulingIn 2007, the woman signed a rental contract for a floor that, as claimed years later, presented numerous problems such as dangerous gas and electricity facilities and a boiler that generated a health risk. Following these conditions, in 2012 he decided to stop paying the rent and went to court to claim compensation.
The homemade, meanwhile, responded by asking for the contract resolution and claiming the payment of unpaid monthly payments. During the process, the tenant was evicted several times, returned to the floor, and finally the property was sold in 2018.
Although the house was in poor condition, it has to pay all the money that should
The case reached the French Cassation Court, the equivalent of the Spanish Supreme Court that, although it accepted the floor was not in good habitability according to French regulations, considered that the tenant did not provide sufficient evidence that it was completely impossible to live in it. Therefore, he was not allowed to unilaterally suspend the payment of the rent, as the legislation in France provides when the lessor does not comply with his obligations regarding the maintenance of the same.
In addition, the court endorsed the compensation for occupation imposed during the time that the tenant remained in the house after the end of the contract.
For all these reasons, the tenant will have to pay her former landlord 32,650 euros for the months she was in the house without paying for rent plus the corresponding delay interest.