My landlord refuses to fix the apartment!
Your place a dump? Landlord won’t fix the heat, the door, the water? Is there mold on the walls? Can’t seem to get the landlord to evict the mice and cockroaches that have become your roommates? Those are all things you can file complaints to a health department or file a lawsuit over—but under the law you still have to pay your rent or you will most likely be evicted.
Now it is possible to demand your landlord fix something. But if you don’t do it right, a Judge will not care how bad your apartment was if you didn’t pay rent.
Under the Utah Fit Premises Act landlords are required to keep things safe and liveable.
Under the law to request your landlord fix a serious problem (no hot water, broken staircase, broken toilet etc…) and if they don’t you can either fix the problem yourself and deduct the cost from the next month’s rent, or you can get a refund on a certain amount of rent and then be allowed to move out.
The lawyers at Utah Legal Services have created a handy guide to help understand more about using this law to get problems fixed–to learn more click HERE.
You can also file health complaints with your county health department below. Note that not all county websites list this but you should be able to contact them and file a complaint.
Bear River Health Department–Serving Box Elder, Cache and Rich
Weber Morgan Health Department–Serving Weber and Morgan
Davis County Health Department
Tooele County Health Department
Salt Lake County Health Department
Summit County Health Department
Tri County Health–Serving Daggett, Duchesne and Uintah
Wasatch County Health Department–Click on “environmental health”
Central Utah Public Health Department–Serving Juab, Millard, Sanpete, Sevier, Piute & Wayne
South East Utah Health Department–Serving Carbon, Emery and Grand
Southwest Utah Public Health Department–Serving Beaver, Iron, Garfield, Washington, Kane