Who is responsible for apartment maintenance?

[gsd]

Who is responsible for apartment maintenance? Does it matter if it is a 3-month temporary or long-term agreement? Is it usually specified in the contract? Thanks in Advance

 

[Bajo_cero2]

Long Term the tenant. Short term the landlord.

 

[Quilombo]

Obligatory not a lawyer, but my understanding of the Ley de Propiedad Horizontal is that it's broken down as follows (more or less):

- Owner(s) are responsible for things in their units, including co-owned things like pipes, unless neglect from another unit or the consortium is responsible for damages occurring inside your unit (i.e. your neighbor above you doesn't fix a leaking sink and causes mold in your apt or the consortium replaces the electrical wiring between units and it causes a fire in your unit, etc.)
- Owners are responsible for maintaining the apartment as it was leased to any tenants in the sense that if a fridge/AC/gas wall heater was present and working during occupancy, and it becomes defective during lease (from regular use, not neglect/damage), the owner must fix it or reimburse the tenant for doing so. Things like light bulbs, cleaning the unit, etc. of course are the responsibility of the tenant, and any damage the tenant may do to the unit directly or other units via neglect would in turn be the tenants responsibility too
- Owners(s) also "own" a percentage of the communal areas that corresponds to their unit(s), i.e. if you have a 10 unit lowrise, and you own 1 unit, you are responsible for 10% of the communal areas maintenance and repair
- Owner(s) or their tenants are responsible for regular expenses, such as the utilities/cleaning/insurance/security (if you have it)/etc. In the case of tenants, this is either built in to the rent (often is the case for a short term, 3 month rental) or a separate line item you pay to the landlord or consortium directly once it is billed by the consortium
- Contrary to wishful thinking on the part of owners, extraordinary expenses are the responsibilities of owners, si o si, not tenants, i.e. if the water pump is totally fried the tenant is not responsible for this cost
- Tenants have the right to request audits of the consortium and expenses (at least in CABA) and can denounce the consortium to the City of Buenos Aires
- As stated previously, tenants have the right to opt in to paying to fix things themselves and billing the owner(s) for the repair, though I usually suggest you inform the owner(s) via WhatsApp or email, ask if they're gonna fix it, or if you can and you can simply deduct this off the rent (the entire kitchen sink/cabinet units rotted off the wall of a place I rented here and we WhatsApped the owner's representative and said we'll go to Easy and jusy buy a new one and do it ourselves if they let us take it off the rent instead of waiting for him to organize things and he was fine with it)

Hope this covers whatever you were thinking about, and the general rule for short term rentals is there is very little the tenant is responsible for beyond not trashing the place as it's basically like a long hotel stay.

 

[Rich One]

- Tenants have the right to request audits of the consortium and expenses (at least in CABA) and can denounce the consortium to the City of Buenos Aires...?

Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Only owners can request audits of the Expenses , as far as WE know and is in the regulations of the consortia....!

 

[Quilombo]

- Tenants have the right to request audits of the consortium and expenses (at least in CABA) and can denounce the consortium to the City of Buenos Aires...?

Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Only owners can request audits of the Expenses , as far as WE know and is in the regulations of the consortia....!

Double checked and that looks to be the case, I stand corrected.

 

[FrankPintor]

Double checked and that looks to be the case, I stand corrected.

Any idea which law would apply? Federal or provincial (I'm interested in PBA, not CABA), and would it also apply to a "Fideicomiso"?

 

[newtraderoute]

I have a situation in our building -5 apartments where the main pipe flooded our apartment. After that our bedroom floor needed to be replaced - I showed the administrator and he agreed it was bad but he decided not to contribute to the fix -purely discriminatory. Pisses me off but not sure I want to start a war. I have all the documentation including the most gross sewage.What say ye?

 

[Bajo_cero2]

Any idea which law would apply? Federal or provincial (I'm interested in PBA, not CABA), and would it also apply to a "Fideicomiso"?

It is a National law, the same everywhere.

 

[Quilombo]

Any idea which law would apply? Federal or provincial (I'm interested in PBA, not CABA), and would it also apply to a "Fideicomiso"?

I believe local (or provincial) laws can compliment federal ones, so in general, the Federal Law should apply in all provinces, and for Pronvincia specifically, there is Ley 14.701 which administers the responsibilities of the consortium in PBA. What rights tenants have in PBA vs. CABA I can't say, though they generally follow each other, with a few exceptions such as the owner(s) paying the real estate commission in CABA, where in PBA it is the tenant, though last I heard there is talk of making it like CABA, which it should be IMO since the realtors don't work for tenant anyways.

I have a situation in our building -5 apartments where the main pipe flooded our apartment. After that our bedroom floor needed to be replaced - I showed the administrator and he agreed it was bad but he decided not to contribute to the fix -purely discriminatory. Pisses me off but not sure I want to start a war. I have all the documentation including the most gross sewage.What say ye?

I don't envy your position: if you're a tenant, it's always worth making a stink about, if you're an owner, it's how much are you willing to piss off your neighbors vs. the diluted cost of the repairs?

Let's say the consortium is 100% at fault. They should have insurance, and a repair fund. Odds are if they do (people unfortunately have found out after a disaster that things have been faked) both are marginal, so the co-pay or non-covered expenses will be passed along to the owners, either as an extraordinary expense, or as a general raise in the monthly expenses paid. Let's say the damage was 1M pesos to your unit after everything covered by insurance as a deductible, or the adjuster rules there was neglect on the consortium's part so there isn't any coverage. If you live in a 5 unit building, you're looking at only eating 20% of the cost as opposed to 100%, but now each of your neighbors is out 200K. Is it the consortium's fault? Sure. Will your neighbors be pissed at you? I assume so, even if they feel bad for you they're still going to not want to pay. Could you go after the company/person responsible to compensate the consortium? Sure, but enjoy getting $10 bucks in 2027.

Again, I'm not a lawyer, but depending on the cost, and the relationship you have with your neighbors, you'll have to evaluate what the right move is. I think of these situations like cops paying out settlements in the US, the police never actually pays because the money comes from the city/county/state, not their pensions, so it's a win for the individual as opposed to broader justice for wrongdoing.

 

[Bajo_cero2]

I believe local (or provincial) laws can compliment federal ones, so in general, the Federal Law should apply in all provinces, and for Pronvincia specifically, there is Ley 14.701 which administers the responsibilities of the consortium in PBA. What rights tenants have in PBA vs. CABA I can't say, though they generally follow each other, with a few exceptions such as the owner(s) paying the real estate commission in CABA, where in PBA it is the tenant, though last I heard there is talk of making it like CABA, which it should be IMO since the realtors don't work for tenant anyways.


I don't envy your position: if you're a tenant, it's always worth making a stink about, if you're an owner, it's how much are you willing to piss off your neighbors vs. the diluted cost of the repairs?

Let's say the consortium is 100% at fault. They should have insurance, and a repair fund. Odds are if they do (people unfortunately have found out after a disaster that things have been faked) both are marginal, so the co-pay or non-covered expenses will be passed along to the owners, either as an extraordinary expense, or as a general raise in the monthly expenses paid. Let's say the damage was 1M pesos to your unit after everything covered by insurance as a deductible, or the adjuster rules there was neglect on the consortium's part so there isn't any coverage. If you live in a 5 unit building, you're looking at only eating 20% of the cost as opposed to 100%, but now each of your neighbors is out 200K. Is it the consortium's fault? Sure. Will your neighbors be pissed at you? I assume so, even if they feel bad for you they're still going to not want to pay. Could you go after the company/person responsible to compensate the consortium? Sure, but enjoy getting $10 bucks in 2027.

Again, I'm not a lawyer, but depending on the cost, and the relationship you have with your neighbors, you'll have to evaluate what the right move is. I think of these situations like cops paying out settlements in the US, the police never actually pays because the money comes from the city/county/state, not their pensions, so it's a win for the individual as opposed to broader justice for wrongdoing.

Federal and National are not the same. Federal is reserved to public federal agents, foreigners and conflict between states. National is ordinary law enacted by the Congress for the whole country.