JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-LACKLAND, Texas –
Your
right to privacy in your residence
By
E. Stephanie Hebert, Legal Assistance Attorney
502
ISG/JA, JBSA-Lackland
Imagine
this scenario: You have just PCSd to Joint Base San Antonio. You sign a twelve-month
lease and move your family into the home. One month later, the property manager places a
“For Sale” sign in the front yard and a key box on your front door. He apologizes,
but tells you that your lease permits entry into the house at all reasonable
hours.You bring your lease to your installation Legal Assistance Office and ask,
“How can this be possible?”Y our attorney reads your lease and explains that paragraph
14 of the lease authorizes such entry. You further complain that the property
manager has been taking photographs in your bedroom. And just last night, the
property manager brought prospective buyers to look at the house during your family’s
dinner hour. “Can’t this behavior be stopped?” you ask. “Surely we have a right
to privacy – we just signed the lease!” you say. “Can the homeowner really sell
the house after we’ve just moved in?” you ask in an incredulous tone.
Leases
are written to protect the landlord, not the tenant. Notwithstanding, an
implied promise of “peaceful and quiet enjoyment” exists in every lease. If
you’ve signed a Texas Association of Realtors lease or a Texas Apartment
Association lease, however, you’ve agreed that your absolute rights to peace
and possession are conditioned upon your landlord’s right to enter your home under
certain circumstances. Other standardized leases contain similar entry provisions.
Is this fair to tenants? Of course not, but if you sign the lease without first
reading it, without first asking questions, or without first seeking legal
advice, you could literally be stuck with a revolving front door during the
entirety of your lease.
Your lease dictates exactly when a
landlord can enter your home, and how much (if any) notice he must give you
before entering. As a courtesy, a landlord should try to contact a tenant before
entering the property. But, depending on the language in the lease, they can
also enter at “reasonable times” and without notice to (a) make emergency and
non-emergency repairs, (b) show the property to other prospective tenants or
buyers, inspectors, fire marshals, lenders, appraisers or insurance agents, (c)
check on the condition of the property and take photographs of the condition,
(d) leave written notices, and (e) seize property if the tenant breaks the
lease.
Most
privacy issues arise during the last sixty days of the leasing period, during
which time the landlord or property manager may show the residence to
prospective tenants who will lease the residence when you move out. The easiest
way for such person to access your home is through the use of a key box, but
even TAR admits that the key box “involves risk such as unauthorized entry,
theft, property damage.”
So
how do you keep complete strangers out of your home during the last thirty or sixty
days of your lease?
Some
leases allow tenants to pay a certain amount of money (usually equivalent to one
month’s rent) in order to keep prospective tenants from entering the residence
during the last month or two. But if you didn’t negotiate that provision into
your lease, and you don’t have the additional funds to “buy” your privacy, what
are your options?
-
Re-read
your lease. Know exactly what the
landlord can and cannot do with regard to entry onto the property.
-
Try
to negotiate privacy provisions into the lease by agreement.
-
Install
security cameras inside and outside of the property. Even though this may be a costly approach, you’ll
be able to see who is coming and going.
-
Assuming
that the entry into your home has been previously scheduled, ensure that
someone you trust is present when a landlord or his agent is present.
-
If
you believe your landlord is entering your residence for the purpose of
harassment, discuss your options with an attorney.
The
best way to protect your privacy inside your home is to negotiate the privacy terms
before signing the lease. Cross out and initial any provision that allows
anyone to enter your residence without your permission. If the landlord will
not agree, don’t sign the lease. Move somewhere else. In the alternative, insist
upon the shortest possible time period that a landlord will have access to the
residence.
If
you have questions regarding a lease you’ve already signed, or are about to
sign, please call your installation legal office to schedule an appointment
with an installation Legal Assistance Attorney. At Joint Base San
Antonio-Lackland, call 671-3362; at JBSA-Randolph, call 652-6781; and at
JBSA-Fort Sam Houston, call 221-2282.