SOUTHAVEN, Mississippi — There's nothing more stressful or scary than a tree falling on your house or losing your roof to a tornado.
If you rent your home and request to have it fixed by your landlord, attorney Kevin Snider's best advice is to submit it in writing.
"Whether it’s by email, even if it’s by text as long as you can save the text message," Snider said. "Have it in writing."
He explains that under the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, your landlord typically gets a set number of days to fix it depending on the damage.
"If it’s a repair or something that needs to be done to protect the essential services to the property it’s a 14-day notice to basically give the landlord the opportunity to do it," Snider said.
With a catastrophic storm, it likely will not be fixed immediately, but you will have other options if you take the correct steps.
"Obviously, it’s not going to be corrected in the next 14 days and you have options, as long as you give that written notice, to vacate the property, terminate the lease, get your security deposit back," Snider said.
If you give them a written notice and it's not fixed within 14 days, Snider explains you have some other options as well.
"You can either have the repairs done yourself and deduct it from your rent, you could recover damages potentially if you end having to go to court for having to stay there without those essential services, or you could obtain substitute housing during that period and deduct that potentially from your rent," Snider said.
He said in a severe weather situation your safety is the priority but send your request "in writing" as soon as possible.
"A phone call can be so easily disputed and I see it every single day like we didn’t get a call or we didn’t talk about that," Snider said. "That way there’s no confusion."