Despite how hot it is, landlords in Tennessee are not required to keep the air conditioning running.
In our changing climate, that probably comes as a surprise.
However, unless it’s in the lease, nothing in Tennessee’s Landlord-Tenant Act gives renters the right to air conditioning.
“I think it’s unfair. It’s inhumane to me because without air we can’t live and breathe,” said Anita Brown.
I’d argue that if it’s a feature of the unit that was present when someone signed, then yes it should be required to work.
Of course contracts can’t cover every little thing, so it’s ridiculous to rely on them for that level of granularity. Do we need to mandate contracts have an Entry for every feature of every appliance, every piece of infrastructure, every piece of structure? No. These things were presented as being there and functioning. But we should be able to rely on things working as presented. We should have a legal right that that be true
Honestly we probably already do. Most judges, if you said “Look the thing was there when he showed me the unit. That makes it part of the offered deal”, would back you.
That’s what I would expect and would be consistent with my limited experience, but doesn’t appear to be borne out by the original story