questions & answers

Question: My lease is up very soon at my current residence and my landlord has informed me that the home owner is holding me responsible for a Queen Palm Tree that died this past year and expects me to purchase and replace the tree. This is a rather expensive tree...$750 to be exact. Well, I don't feel like I should have to buy a new palm tree and I'm wondering if I'm legally responsible and need to know if I am. The irrigation system has been nothing but trouble sense before I leased the property. I've had constantly complain about it and had to have numerous repairs made and finally replace the system

Answer: Generally speaking, a tenant such as you has no obligation to replace landscape items like trees unless some clause in your lease says that you are responsible for the care of trees and other landscaping and will replace anything that dies. If you were paying for the repairs to the irrigation system, I'm wondering if that was part of the lease and if you informed the landlord of the problems. But the answer to your question will be in the lease: if it says you are responsible you will need to pay for the tree, if in fact something you did caused it to die. If there's nothing about such things in the lease, you are not responsible. If there is such a lease clause, the owner would still need to show that the palm died because of your negligence, rather than due to some other cause.