Landlord and Tenant - Mobile Home Parks

questions & answers

Question: Does a landlord have to let you know if someone has died in the home before you rent it

Answer: Under the Arizona Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, landlords are required to “maintain fit premises,” that is, to ensure that the dwellings that they rent out to tenants are kept in a clean and safe (or “habitable”) condition (A.R.S. 33-1324). Landlords must ensure that all electrical, plumbing, sanitary, heating, ventilating, air-conditioning, and other facilities and appliances are in good working order. Landlords also may not lease a dwelling that is known to the landlord to have a current bedbug infestation (A.R.S. 33-1319). Landlords in Arizona are not under any obligation to disclose to potential tenants the mere fact that someone once died inside a dwelling. Under Arizona law, neither landlords nor home sellers are required to tell potential tenants or buyers that the dwelling is “the site of a natural death, suicide or homicide or any other crime classified as a felony” (A.R.S. 32-2156). (Arizona is different from other states in this respect. In California, for example, landlords and home sellers are required by law to disclose such things.) If, however, a potential tenant were to ask a landlord in advance, before signing a lease, if anyone had ever died inside the dwelling, and the landlord were to provide an untruthful response to that question, then the landlord might later be held by a court to have engaged in a deliberate misrepresentation (under the law of contract). Of course, if the fact that someone once died inside the dwelling were to turn out to have a negative impact on the physical “habitability” of the dwelling – for example, due to persistent odors that bother the tenant – then the landlord would be required to take measures to fix the problem in order to make the dwelling “fit” for residency.