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Who pays for central air repair?

Started by wishhouse
almost 17 years ago
Posts: 417
Member since: Jan 2008
Discussion about
A question for a friend of mine: She rents a townhouse in New Jersey. Recently, the central air stopped working. She called her landlord who had someone come and repair it. Now, the landlord wants her to pay for half of the repair. In her lease, it states that the renter is responsible for certain repairs, such as fixing locks, windows, etc and that she is responsible for changing the filters on the central air conditioning. It would seem to me that her responsibility for the ac is therefore limited and she shouldn't have to pay for this unrelated repair. What do you all think?
Response by alanhart
almost 17 years ago
Posts: 12397
Member since: Feb 2007

I agree with you ... provided that she kept up with filter replacement.

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Response by drdrd
almost 17 years ago
Posts: 1905
Member since: Apr 2007

The question here is, can a dirty filter substantially damage an air conditioning system? I don't know. If the answer is YES then your friend is lucky that the landlord isn't charging her for the full cost of the repair.

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Response by hotproperty
almost 17 years ago
Posts: 277
Member since: Nov 2008

drdrd-that is why the landlord should be responsible for changing air conditioning filters. You can't trust the tenant to do so.

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Response by aboutready
almost 17 years ago
Posts: 16354
Member since: Oct 2007

but is there any indication the tenant did not change the filter?

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Response by wishhouse
almost 17 years ago
Posts: 417
Member since: Jan 2008

The problem was with the computer for the system, totally unrelated to the filters.

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Response by wishhouse
almost 17 years ago
Posts: 417
Member since: Jan 2008

But also, she did keep up to date on the filter replacements

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