Repairs

Repairs is the legal as well as popular term to denote the repairs done to a house or tenement by a tenant or landlord during the currency of the lease. In England the burden of repairs is at common law thrown on the tenant, so that, unless the lease expressly say that the landlord is to do the repairs, the tenant will be bound to use the premises fairly and to keep house property wind and water tight. Usually the lease states who is to do the repairs. In the lease of farms the tenant is bound only to keep the house in repair, and not the out-buildings, though he is bound to keep the fences in repair. If the landlord is bound to do the repairs, and fails to do them, the tenant is not entitled to quit the premises on that account, though he will be entitled to sue the landlord for damage caused by the want of repairs. In Scotland the landlord is bound at common law to put the premises into tenantable repair at the commencement of the lease. The tenant is then bound to keep them in ordinary repair, but not to keep them in repair where some hurricane or extraordinary cause has done injury. In the United States the laws of the states vary; in several states it is enacted that a general promise to repair shall not bind the tenant to rebuild in case of destruction by fire.