Renters' rights after a disaster

Hurricane Katrina ripped an open-air skylight into your condo rental, sent a foot of water into your rental house, blew out the staircase to your apartment or 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, who hasn't exactly been Mr. Responsive in the past.

So you're sitting on a soggy sofa sorting through your options. Should you stay and trust that repairs will be made before a host of other problems (mold, insects, another storm, etc.) 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?

Fix it or forget it
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 structurally 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."

When a rental unit is destroyed through no fault of the tenant, Portman says the lease simply ends because it has been rendered unenforceable. The law can't force you to live in an uninhabitable structure any more than it can force the owner to rebuild, much less in a timely manner.

Survey your damaged unit. If it violates the warranty of habitability, regardless of why, you can pack your soggy belongings and vamoose.

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. Since you didn't cause the disaster, you ought to get your move-in money back. Just how quickly you get the cash depends on your landlord, but you would be well within your rights to chase the property owner for it.

A room at the Ritz?
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.

While some leases and some states have adopted default rules that spell out the landlord-tenant process following natural disasters, most do not. That leaves it up to you to wind your way through your renter's policy, your lease provisions and your state's landlord-tenant statutes before making any rash moves.

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 personal lines for the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America.

"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. In other words, if you have $50,000 in coverage, your loss-of-use cap would be $20,000. Two caveats: The insurance company will expect you to move back in as soon as your unit is fixed, and no, it won't put you up at the Ritz-Carlton in the meantime. Check with your agent before checking in.