united-states rental-property landlord residential-lease pennsylvania
Can a landlord ask tenants if s/he can stop paying for an unused, not in lease, security system?
<p>Not sure if this is more of an etiquette or a legal question but...</p>
<p>Suppose that a landlord advertised a rental property in 2020 and mentioned in the ads that it was secured by an ADT security system. The tenants recently renewed for another 12 month lease and have been very happy. Through offhanded discussions with them, the landlord learned that they effectively do not utilize the security system. The inclusion of such system is not explicit (or implicit) anywhere in the lease.</p>
<p>Is the landlord within their legal rights to inquire about whether they use it, so that they may turn it off and stop paying for it if not? Is this rude?</p>

<p>There is certainly no legal problem in asking if the tenants would be agreeable with the landlord discontinuing the security service. Even if it were in the lease, a lease like pretty much any contract can be changed by mutual agreement of all parties (unless there is a law preventing such a change, which is rare and I do not think will apply in this case).</p>
<p>A more difficult question would be if the landlord would be within his or her rights to discontinue the service without asking the tenants first, since it is not in the lease. Since the property was advertised as coming with the service, it might be held that the continued service was reasonably expected by the tenants, and thus an implicit term of the lease. But since the landlord does not plan to take such unilateral action, that remains a purely theoretical issue.</p>
<p>The landlord could offer the tenants a small rent reduction, perhaps one quarter of the amout that was being paid to the security firm, but there is no legal requirement to do so.</p>
<p>As to whether asking for such a change would be &quot;rude&quot;, I don't think so, but that is a matter of opinion, and not really on-topic here.</p>
