Maintenance & Repairs Clause
in Your Lease
What it actually means, what District of Columbia law says, what's specific to Washington - and exactly what to do. In plain English.
Quick Summary - What You Need to Know
- 14 DCMR § 301.1 deems every lease or rental agreement covering a habitation to include "an implied warranty that the owner will maintain the premises in compliance with this subtitle", so the repair duty arrives with the tenancy rather than with a negotiated paragraph.
- 14 DCMR § 304.1 makes "Any provision of any lease or agreement contrary to, or providing for a waiver of, the terms of this chapter" void and unenforceable.
- No section our District record read fixes a number of days. 14 DCMR § 105.4 requires each notice of violation to "Allow a reasonable time for the performance of any act required by the notice" instead.
- 14 DCMR § 1501.1 supplies the factors that choose that time "Where no specific time frame for the correction of the violation is contained in the law or regulation under which the violation has occurred", from the severity of the violation to the immediacy of any hazard and the weather.
- 14 DCMR § 302.2 renders a lease void where violations make the habitation unsafe or unsanitary, the tenant did not cause them, and they are not corrected within the time the notice allowed.
Understanding the Maintenance & Repairs Clause
In the District your repairs clause is not the document that decides the repair. 14 DCMR § 301.1 deems an implied warranty into every lease covering a habitation, that the owner will maintain the premises in compliance with the Housing Regulations, so the duty is there whether the paragraph you signed mentions it or not.
What the District does not supply is a day count: no section our District record read fixes one. The date you can actually count from is written onto a notice of violation: 14 DCMR § 105.4 requires each one to allow a reasonable time for the performance of any act it requires, and 14 DCMR § 1501.1 lists what is weighed in choosing that time where the rule being enforced names none of its own.
Read the current text of 14 DCMR § 301.1, § 105.4, § 1501.1 and § 302.2 in the District's own publication of its regulations before you rely on any of it in a dispute. What governs your repair is a regulation in Title 14 of the D.C. Municipal Regulations rather than a section of the D.C. Code, so a search of the Code will not show it to you.
What renters assume
That a jurisdiction whose housing law names no number of days leaves the timing entirely to your landlord, so a repair is finished whenever the building manager decides it is.
What is actually true
The time is set case by case rather than never. 14 DCMR § 105.4 requires each notice of violation to allow a reasonable time for the act it demands, 14 DCMR § 1501.1 lists what is weighed in choosing it, and under 14 DCMR § 302.2 a lease is rendered void where violations the tenant did not cause go uncorrected past the time the notice allowed.
Washington's row on that chart carries no bar, because our District record found no day count to put on one. Five of the sixteen rows sit that way. Reading down the chart, they are New York City, Denver, Atlanta, Philadelphia and Washington.
The other eleven rows do carry a figure. Los Angeles and Portland stand highest at 30 days. Four sit at 14, which are Chicago, Nashville, Boston and Las Vegas. Two cities show 10, Seattle and Phoenix, and two show 7, Austin and Miami.
An empty row is not an empty rule, and a bar has room for a number rather than for the machinery that produces one. In Washington the length of the wait is written onto the notice of violation itself under 14 DCMR § 105.4, 14 DCMR § 1501.1 is what sizes it to the problem in front of the inspector, and 14 DCMR § 302.2 is what makes missing it cost something.
Plain English Version
No section our District record read gives you a deadline to look up. What it gives you instead is the way one gets set: an inspection turns the condition into a notice of violation, that notice has to carry the reasonable time 14 DCMR § 105.4 requires, and that is the date with a consequence attached to it.
District of Columbia Law on Maintenance & Repairs Clause
- The duty is written into the lease by regulation, not by the parties: 14 DCMR § 301.1 provides that "There shall be deemed to be included in the terms of any lease or rental agreement covering a habitation an implied warranty that the owner will maintain the premises in compliance with this subtitle", and 14 DCMR § 304.1 makes "Any provision of any lease or agreement contrary to, or providing for a waiver of, the terms of this chapter" void and unenforceable.
- No section we read fixes a number of days. The deadline is written onto each violation notice instead: 14 DCMR § 105.4 requires that each notice of violation "Allow a reasonable time for the performance of any act required by the notice", alongside stating the nature of the violation and the sections being violated, and § 105.2 requires the notice to "direct the discontinuance of the illegal action or condition or the abatement of the violation."
- 14 DCMR § 1501.1 spells out how that reasonable time is chosen "Where no specific time frame for the correction of the violation is contained in the law or regulation under which the violation has occurred": the number of conditions to be corrected, the complexity or severity of the violation, whether it is centralized in a few dwelling units or dispersed through many, the immediacy of any hazard presented, the availability of a particular type of material or labor skill needed, weather conditions, and any other relevant factors.
- Missing the time set carries a lease consequence, not a fine alone. Under 14 DCMR § 302.2 a lease is rendered void where the habitation becomes unsafe or unsanitary due to violations, the violations "did not result from the intentional acts or negligence of the tenant or his or her invitees", and they "are not corrected within the time allowed for correction under a notice issued under this subtitle (or, if a notice has not been issued, within a reasonable time after the owner has knowledge or reasonably should have knowledge of the violations)." 14 DCMR § 305.1 then bars reletting after a judicial finding of breach or a voided lease until the owner obtains a certificate from the Director that the habitation complies.
14 DCMR § 301.1; 14 DCMR § 105.4; 14 DCMR § 1501.1; 14 DCMR § 302.2 - statutes change; verify the current text for your situation.
The District writes the repair duty into your lease for you. 14 DCMR § 301.1 provides that "There shall be deemed to be included in the terms of any lease or rental agreement covering a habitation an implied warranty that the owner will maintain the premises in compliance with this subtitle", which means the obligation does not depend on whether your lease says anything about repairs at all.
The same chapter closes the obvious way around it. 14 DCMR § 304.1 makes "Any provision of any lease or agreement contrary to, or providing for a waiver of, the terms of this chapter" void and unenforceable, so a paragraph moving the repair duty onto you is read against the regulation rather than the regulation being read against it.
The condition a habitation has to be in is spelled out rather than left to argument. 14 DCMR § 400.3 bars renting a habitation that is not "in a clean, safe, and sanitary condition, in repair, and free from rodents or vermin", and Subtitle A applies by 14 DCMR § 100.1 to "every premises or part of any premises occupied ... used, or held out for use as a place of abode for human beings".
What the District does not attach to any of that is a day count: no section our District record read fixes one. The time is written onto each notice of violation instead: 14 DCMR § 105.4 requires the notice to allow a reasonable time for the performance of any act it requires, alongside stating the nature of the violation and the sections being violated, and 14 DCMR § 105.2 requires it to "direct the discontinuance of the illegal action or condition or the abatement of the violation".
14 DCMR § 1501.1 is the section that turns a reasonable time into a real one. It applies "Where no specific time frame for the correction of the violation is contained in the law or regulation under which the violation has occurred", and it names what gets weighed: the number of conditions to be corrected, the complexity or severity of the violation, whether it is centralized in a few dwelling units or dispersed through many, the immediacy of any hazard presented, the availability of a particular type of material or labor skill needed, weather conditions, and any other relevant factors.
Missing the time that was set is not only a code problem. Under 14 DCMR § 302.2 a lease is rendered void where the habitation becomes unsafe or unsanitary because of violations, the violations "did not result from the intentional acts or negligence of the tenant or his or her invitees", and they "are not corrected within the time allowed for correction under a notice issued under this subtitle (or, if a notice has not been issued, within a reasonable time after the owner has knowledge or reasonably should have knowledge of the violations)".
The follow-on stops the same unit going to somebody else in the same condition. 14 DCMR § 305.1 bars reletting after a judicial finding of breach or a voided lease until the owner obtains a certificate from the Director that the habitation complies.
Treat all of this as text to read rather than a figure to quote. Read 14 DCMR § 301.1, § 105.4, § 1501.1 and § 302.2 in the District's own current publication of the regulations before you act on what a notice says.
District of Columbia Tenant Protections
The District gives you a duty that does not depend on your lease and a consequence that does not stop at a fine. 14 DCMR § 301.1 deems every lease or rental agreement covering a habitation to include an implied warranty that the owner will maintain the premises in compliance with the subtitle, and 14 DCMR § 304.1 makes any provision of a lease or agreement contrary to, or providing for a waiver of, the terms of that chapter void and unenforceable.
14 DCMR § 400.3 bars renting a habitation that is not in a clean, safe, and sanitary condition, in repair, and free from rodents or vermin, and Subtitle A reaches every premises occupied, used, or held out for use as a place of abode for human beings under 14 DCMR § 100.1. No section our District record read sets a number of days: 14 DCMR § 105.4 requires each notice of violation to allow a reasonable time for the performance of any act required by the notice and to state the nature of the violation and the sections being violated, 14 DCMR § 105.2 requires it to direct the discontinuance of the illegal action or condition or the abatement of the violation, and 14 DCMR § 1501.1 supplies the factors that choose that time where the law or regulation being enforced contains no specific time frame.
If the time passes, 14 DCMR § 302.2 renders the lease void where the habitation became unsafe or unsanitary through violations that did not result from the intentional acts or negligence of the tenant or the tenant's invitees, and 14 DCMR § 305.1 bars reletting after a judicial finding of breach or a voided lease until the owner obtains a certificate from the Director that the habitation complies.
Enforcement runs through the Department of Buildings, which D.C. Code § 42-3651.02(a)(1) names as the body that cites a violation of chapters 1 through 16 of Title 14 of the District of Columbia Municipal Regulations or Title 12, and that section is also the ground for a court to appoint a receiver over the building where a properly notified owner has failed timely to abate violations that pose a serious threat to the health, safety, or security of the tenants.
What's Specific to Washington
Figures are the state rule, or the stronger city ordinance where one exists. Verify the current law for your own situation before relying on it.
Washington is the District of Columbia, so the two layers this page keeps apart everywhere else are one layer here. The Council of the District of Columbia writes the Code and District agencies write the regulations under it, with no state legislature above the city and no county in between, so there is no separate municipal code to look up once you have read the Housing Regulations.
On this clause that single body of law puts the answer where a renter would not think to look. Our District record read Subchapter V-B of the Rental Housing Act, "Other Housing Provider Actions During Tenancies" (D.C. Code §§ 42-3505.51 through 42-3505.55), and found no maintenance or repair section among its five sections. The habitability standard sits in Title 14 of the D.C. Municipal Regulations instead, which is why every citation on this page is a DCMR section rather than a Code section.
Enforcement is an agency job with a court behind it. D.C. Code § 42-3651.02(a)(1) names the Department of Buildings as the body that cites "a violation of chapters 1 through 16 of Title 14 of the District of Columbia Municipal Regulations or Title 12", and where the owner was properly notified but "has failed timely to abate the violations" and the violation "poses a serious threat to the health, safety, or security of the tenants", that section is the ground for a court to appoint a receiver over the building.
One District office is worth naming for what it is not. The Office of the Tenant Advocate is not a repair-order office: the duties D.C. Code § 42-3531.07 gives it are education, representation in judicial and administrative proceedings, a tenant hotline, emergency relocation assistance, and organizing tenant participation in building-wide inspections, none of which set a repair deadline.
Here is the edge of what our District record read, so you can see where this page stops. In Title 14 of the D.C. Municipal Regulations it read chapter 1 (§§ 100 through 115) and chapter 3 (§§ 300 through 315) section by section, chapter 15 (§§ 1500 through 1503), and §§ 400, 501, 606, 700 and 701. It did not read every chapter of Title 14, and it did not read Title 12, the Construction Codes, where the Property Maintenance Code Supplement that § 105.1 also enforces sits. Nothing on this page is a statement about what those unread texts contain.
Good, and it is not what the duty rests on. 14 DCMR § 301.1 deems the implied warranty into the lease whether or not that paragraph exists.
Useful, because dates matter here. 14 DCMR § 302.2 reaches violations not corrected within a reasonable time after the owner "has knowledge or reasonably should have knowledge" of them where no notice has been issued.
Question it. 14 DCMR § 304.1 makes any lease provision contrary to, or providing for a waiver of, the terms of that chapter void and unenforceable.
Question it. 14 DCMR § 400.3 bars renting a habitation that is not "in a clean, safe, and sanitary condition, in repair, and free from rodents or vermin".
Sources
The law this guide relies on, and where to read it. Statutes change, so confirm the current text before you act on it.
- 14 DCMR § 301.1; 14 DCMR § 105.4; 14 DCMR § 1501.1; 14 DCMR § 302.2, read on dcregs.dc.gov.
Red Flags to Watch Out For
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A repair promise with no date on it
Open-ended wording invites indefinite waiting. The reasonable time 14 DCMR § 105.4 requires is one written onto a notice of violation, and 14 DCMR § 1501.1 names what decides its length.
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The repair duty written out of the lease
14 DCMR § 301.1 deems the implied warranty in, and 14 DCMR § 304.1 makes a provision contrary to, or waiving, that chapter void and unenforceable.
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Vermin made the tenant's problem
14 DCMR § 400.3 bars renting a habitation that is not "in a clean, safe, and sanitary condition, in repair, and free from rodents or vermin", and that is the owner's line to meet.
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Wording that discourages an inspection
The date with a consequence attached is the one on a notice of violation under 14 DCMR § 105.4, and D.C. Code § 42-3651.02(a)(1) puts the citing power in the Department of Buildings. Raise wording that treats an inspection as your fault.
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Rent described as unconditional
Read that against 14 DCMR § 302.2, which renders a lease void where violations the tenant did not cause leave the habitation unsafe or unsanitary and are not corrected within the time allowed.
Your Rights as a Washington Tenant
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A warranty you never had to negotiate
14 DCMR § 301.1 deems into every lease covering a habitation "an implied warranty that the owner will maintain the premises in compliance with this subtitle".
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A waiver that does not hold
14 DCMR § 304.1 makes "Any provision of any lease or agreement contrary to, or providing for a waiver of, the terms of this chapter" void and unenforceable.
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A time limit written onto the notice
14 DCMR § 105.4 requires each notice of violation to allow a reasonable time for the act it demands and to state the sections being violated, and 14 DCMR § 105.2 requires it to direct abatement of the violation.
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A lease that can be rendered void
14 DCMR § 302.2 voids the lease where uncorrected violations the tenant did not cause leave the habitation unsafe or unsanitary, and 14 DCMR § 305.1 then bars reletting until the owner holds the Director's certificate that the habitation complies.
What To Do - Step by Step
Date the condition before anything else
A dated set of photographs and a walk-through video establish what the unit looked like on a particular day. 14 DCMR § 302.2 can reach a condition from the point the owner "has knowledge or reasonably should have knowledge" of it, so the day your record starts is doing real work.
Tell the owner in writing
Put the unit, each defect and the date into a message you keep a copy of. That is the record behind the owner's knowledge of the violations that 14 DCMR § 302.2 asks about where no notice of violation has been issued yet.
Get the violation onto a notice
The date with a consequence attached is the one an inspector writes down. 14 DCMR § 105.4 requires each notice of violation to allow a reasonable time for the act it requires and to state the nature of the violation and the sections being violated.
Read the time the notice allows
14 DCMR § 1501.1 sets how that time is chosen where the law or regulation being enforced names none: the number of conditions, the complexity or severity, whether they are centralized or dispersed, the immediacy of any hazard, the availability of material or labor skill, the weather, and any other relevant factors.
Read the regulation, not a summary of the Code
Read 14 DCMR § 301.1, § 105.4, § 1501.1 and § 302.2 in the District's own current publication. These sit in Title 14 of the D.C. Municipal Regulations, so searching the D.C. Code will not surface them.
Take advice before you act on the notice
14 DCMR § 302.2 turns on findings about the condition, whose fault it was and what time a notice allowed, and D.C. Code § 42-3651.02(a)(1) routes the serious cases through the Department of Buildings to a court. Have District legal aid or a tenant lawyer go through the notice and the dates with you before you do anything on the strength of them.