A tenant who vacated the apartment about two and a half months after the rental period had already ended demanded a 20% reduction in the rent due to an ‘insect infestation’ that prevented him from making reasonable use of the apartment.
The court dismissed the tenant’s claim and ordered him to pay the landlord for failure to vacate the apartment on time. The law allows a tenant who believes that the apartment has a defect “causing a real disruption to normal use” to repair the defect and demand reimbursement of reasonable expenses. Here, there were no ‘serious defects in the apartment’ due to an insect infestation, among other things, because in practice the tenant behaved as if he wanted to continue living in the apartment for more than 4 years, while extending the rental agreement twice and under the same conditions, while also violating the rental agreement and delaying vacating the property. In addition, the tenant could have reduced the alleged ‘damage’ by means of pest control, but he did not do so. Consequently, the tenant’s claim for compensation was dismissed. On the other hand, the tenant was required to pay the landlord compensation, among other things, for delaying the vacating date.
Published in Legal Channel 426 13.11.2024 Afik & Co. https://he.afiklaw.com/
