united-states landlord tenant tenancy-rules
Any evidence of cases in the United States where tenant won quiet enjoyment suit?
<p>Are there any cases won on the grounds of quiet enjoyment where a tenant whose life was being disrupted by another tenant or the other tenants' guests? Or are there any cases regardless of circumstances in case law regarding quiet enjoyment that ended up in a favorable outcome for a tenant?</p>

<p>I have had my quiet enjoyment violated a couple of times as a tenant throughout my life and yet, unless they are violating a state law in general, I don't see why quiet enjoyment is even mentioned or exists as it does not exist as de jure nor de facto.</p>

<p>Also, if the agreement is between landlord-tenant, how does one prove the landlord is at fault for another tenant?</p>

<p>Could you make the argument that their change in visitor policy is the problem? For example, if the new policy says, hey as long as the visitor has a permit parking pass we consider them okay to be on premises indefinitely, whereas perhaps before the policy was a visitor must register and they must be there no more than 72 hours or 3-day visit.</p>

<p>The quiet enjoyment seems like more of a social contract, but when that social contract breaks down, either between landlord-tenant or tenant-tenant, if the circumstances are not illegal, nothing becomes of that breakdown.</p>

<p>So my past and present experience has shown me, its quiet enjoyment violation if and when a local, property or state law has also been violated, otherwise, its your problem and civil suits are fraught as someone once said.</p>

<p><a href="/questions/tagged/new-south-wales" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;new-south-wales&#39;" rel="tag">new-south-wales</a> <a href="/questions/tagged/australia" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;australia&#39;" rel="tag">australia</a></p>

<h2>Lots</h2>

<p>Commercial landlord-tenant disputes are heard at first instance in the NSW Administrative Disputes Tribunal. A <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinosrch.cgi?mask_path=au%2Fcases%2Fnsw%2FNSWADT&amp;method=auto&amp;query=Quiet%20enjoyment%20" rel="nofollow noreferrer">search</a> of their decisions gives more than 50 hits between 1999 and 2013.</p>

<p>Quoting from the first of these:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>whether the former lessee under a retail shop lease of premises in a shopping centre is entitled to damages from the former lessor, on the ground that renovation works in the centre carried out by a building contractor employed by the lessor disrupted the business of a real estate agency carried on in the premises, in ways amounting to a breach of the lessor’s covenant for ￼ quiet enjoyment </p>
</blockquote>

<p>Spoiler - the answer was “yes”.</p>

<p>Residential landlord-tenant disputes are heard in the NSW Consumer, Trader and Tenancy Tribunal but only after mandatory Alternative Dispute Resolution has failed. A <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinosrch.cgi?mask_path=au%2Fcases%2Fnsw%2FNSWCTTT;method=auto;query=Quiet%20enjoyment%20;results=100" rel="nofollow noreferrer">search</a> gets over 400 hits.</p>

<p>For example, <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/nsw/NSWCTTT/2002/84.html?context=1;query=Quiet%20enjoyment%20;mask_path=au/cases/nsw/NSWCTTT" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Ingram v Department of Housing (Tenancy) [2002] NSWCTTT 84</a> was a successful argument by a tenant that the landlord denied them quiet enjoyment. The facts of the case were that a neighbour who was a tenant of the same landlord interfered with their quiet enjoyment to the extent that required police intervention.</p>

<p>These cases give you some idea of the things you would need to prove: that your landlord was responsible (so a neighbour who is not under your landlord’s control wouldn’t. Similarly, a landlord can only influence a body corporate to the extent of their power within it) and the interference was egregious.</p>
