Lease for Residential Use: Implied Warranty of Habitability

, , , and | June 24, 2024 | Property

At the 2024 Annual Meeting last month, Restatement of the Law Fourth, Property, Tentative Draft No. 5 (TD No. 5) was approved by ALI membership, subject to the discussion at the meeting and usual editorial prerogative. The below black letter is excerpted from this draft, which contains § 6.1. Lease for Residential Use—Implied Warranty of Habitability from Volume 4, Division III, Chapter 6. Interference with Lessee’s Right to Use: Residential Tenancies.

§ 6.1. Lease for Residential Use—Implied Warranty of Habitability

(a) When the parties to a lease intend that the subject property will be used as a human residence, the lease includes, as a matter of law, an implied warranty that the 9 condition of the property will be fit for human habitation.

(b) The warranty of fitness for human habitation includes the lessor’s obligation to keep safe and in repair the areas remaining under the lessor’s control that are maintained for the use and benefit of the lessee.

(c) If the property is unfit for human habitation and the lessor does not correct the deficient condition within a reasonable period of time after becoming aware of that condition, the lessor is in material breach of the lease.

The above text does not incorporate edits made subject to the discussion at the meeting and usual editorial prerogative.

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Maureen E. Brady

Associate Reporter, The Restatement of the Law Fourth, Property

Maureen (Molly) E. Brady is an assistant professor of law at Harvard Law School, where she teaches property law and related subjects. Her scholarship uses historical analyses of property institutions and land use doctrines to explore broader theoretical questions. Her current research projects involve the evolution of nuisance rules, the privatization of public space, and state constitutional takings law.

Sara C. Bronin

Associate Reporter, The Restatement of the Law Fourth, Property

Sara Bronin is a Professor at Cornell University and Associate Member of Cornell Law School. She is a Mexican-American architect and attorney whose interdisciplinary research focuses on how law and policy can foster more equitable, sustainable, well-designed, and connected places.

Thomas W. Merrill

Associate Reporter, The Restatement of the Law Fourth, Property

Thomas W. Merrill is the Charles Evans Hughes Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. He writes widely in the fields of property and administrative law. Professor Merrill served as the deputy solicitor general for the Department of Justice in the late 1980s. He previously worked for the firm Sidley, Austin, Brown & Wood in Chicago.

Henry E. Smith

Reporter, The Restatement of the Law Fourth, Property

Henry Smith is the Fessenden Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where he directs the Project on the Foundations of Private Law. Professor Smith has written primarily on the law and economics of property and intellectual property, with a focus on how property-related institutions lower information costs and constrain strategic behavior.

Pauline Toboulidis

The American Law Institute