Would you rather be a landlord or a tenant? The one in charge of the apartment or the one paying the rent?

Those who have been on both sides can attest that neither position is easy.

It’s not just the frustration over zero parking and the noise. When halachic questions are added to mix, the tenancy tango can get complicated.

Below are some halachic questions that have come up, with answers by Rabbi Ari Marburger.

Lease and Desist: Landlords and Tenants in Halachah

R. Silver

Tamar: I still remember our first night in this apartment. We were young, fresh newlyweds moving into a huge, stunning apartment (at least it felt like that at the time), and everything was perfect. My landlord, Chana, came down that afternoon with a plate of cookies and an “if you need anything, make sure to knock.” I’d heard from so many of my friends that their landlords barely looked their way, and I felt lucky that mine seemed so nice.

Then, in the middle of our cozy shanah rishonah supper, it started. Bang, bang, crash! My husband and I just looked at each other. Then it got worse. Bang, bang, bang! Bang! Bang! Faintly, I could hear the sound of music over the beats. After one particularly loud beat, the dishes on the table rattled.

“Someone’s probably practicing their dance for a play or something,” I told my husband reassuringly.

But it went on for the next two hours. And then it happened the next night, even louder. And the night after that.

Finally, at the end of the week, I bumped into Chana, and she gave me a megawatt smile. “How’s it going?”

I stammered a reply and finally said, “I keep hearing music each night upstairs—it sounds like a lot of fun!”

“Oh, I run exercise classes at night,” she said breezily. “Want to join?” Then she looked at me closely. “I’m sorry! Are we a little loud? I’ll try to turn the music down.”

If she did, I didn’t notice.

I got used to it, I guess—you can get used to anything—but it was annoying. The background noise was always there, disturbing the quiet. Once I had a baby, though, I decided to say something. It was awkward and uncomfortable, but Chana listened and nodded earnestly.

“Actually,” she shared. “Were putting carpet in soon. That should make it much better.”

I appreciated her efforts, but honestly, it didn’t help all that much. There was still a persistent bang, bang, bang.

Three months ago, we bought a house. We didn’t plan on moving out after only four years, but the perfect property on my sister’s block sort of fell into our laps. And honestly, while it wasn’t our main consideration, the thought of peaceful evenings was definitely a draw. Last week, a sweet chosson and kallah came to look at the apartment when I was home. The kallah gushed over everything, and then she looked at me. “How are the landlords? Are they nice? Do you have any issues?”

“Oh, they’re the sweetest,” I told her, because it’s true.

She kept pushing. “What about the noise? I’m really sensitive to it. How are the acoustics?”

I shifted my baby to my hip. “Well…the acoustics are okay, but she does give exercise classes each evening.”

“And it’s loud?”

I nodded.

When she left, something about the expression on her face told me she wouldn’t be taking the apartment.

I feel terrible, especially since Chana had told me they’re having a hard time finding new tenants, but what should I have done?

Rabbi Marburger: While lashon hara is a terrible sin, “lo sa’amod al dam rei’echa” doesn’t allow one to remain silent when a fellow Yid will suffer a loss, and alerting the prospective tenant to the issue was the correct course of action.

Whether a tenant can break the lease on account of the noise is a more subjective question. The Rambam writes that a flaw that people consider serious enough to return an item creates a mekach ta’us. Accordingly, if the noise is oppressive enough that a typical person would move out, the tenant can’t be held to the lease. While this can sometimes be hard to determine, a good baseline would be to see how the previous tenants dealt with the situation. If there were numerous tenants in the past, and they were okay, it’s more likely that the issue doesn’t rise to the level of mekach ta’us, while if there is a constant churn of people moving out, it probably is a mekach ta’us.

Miri: Just three weeks after we moved into our apartment, there was an electrical fire in the kitchen. Baruch Hashem, we weren’t home at the time, but my landlord heard the smoke alarm and called the fire department. Nothing else was damaged, but the kitchen needed some work.

“Well, the kitchen wasn’t stunning,” I told my husband wryly when I heard. “Maybe now it will look a bit better.”

The kitchen was old and great quality but very old-fashioned looking. The apartment was exactly what we needed in the right location for the right price, but I would be very happy with a new kitchen.

It got even better when my landlord, Mr. Goldberg, called me. “Dealing with the renovations is too much for me,” he said frankly. “I’m having hip surgery soon, and then my wife is having knee surgery. Can I ask you to take care of it? We had the kitchen appraised.”

I was happy to agree. I have a flair for these things, and I knew that Mr. and Mrs. Goldberg were older and not in the best of health.

When we received the money, I went to study the kitchen. The oven and cabinets right above it were completely ruined, and the rest of the cabinet doors were blackened.

“I’m going to replace all the cabinets,” I told my husband. “There’s enough money, and it makes no sense to just replace the doors. It won’t match, and who knows if the inside of the cabinets got ruined?

Like I said, I had a knack for these things, and I was very pleased that I was able to give the entire kitchen a new, fresh look and still have money left over. Plus, since I was replacing all the cabinets, I was able to get someone to come do it in two days, making it easier all around.

I was sure Mr. Goldberg would be thrilled, but then he called me, two days before we were set to move back in.

“What did you to my kitchen?” He was furious. “I gave you enough to replace the oven and ruined cabinets. Why did you replace the whole kitchen with a piece of junk?”

“You never specified what you wanted,” I tried to defend myself.

He hardly let me get a word in. “I told you to fix the damage. Most of the cabinets just needed to be painted, not replaced. You saw the quality of my kitchen. Any contractor would have told you. And instead, you just put this cheap Ikea stuff in instead.”

I bit my lip. What could I say? That he hadn’t been clear? That this was nicer?

Was I wrong for not checking with him?

Rabbi Marburger: If people communicated better, dayanim would have much simpler lives. An agent can’t overstep their mandate, so if she was authorized to replace cabinet doors and did more, the landlord would be correct. On the other hand, if she was told to use her judgment and she did, she would be correct, unless her decisions were negligent. In short, clear communication is critical, and making decisions that impact other peoples’ finances without a clear agreement is asking for trouble.

Shlomo: As my siblings and I crowded together in the hallway outside my father’s hospital room, we knew that his years of independence were over. Since my mother’s petirah, my father had been fading, losing the energy and exuberance he once had. We called often and went to visit every day, but it was clear to all of us that it was only a matter of time.

Ruchie, my younger sister, spoke first. “The doctor said it’s a minimum of three months of rehab after this surgery. But there’s no way he’s going home alone after this. He spent two hours on the floor until Shlomo came to visit and found him there.”

“It’s not a problem,” I said immediately. I had already discussed this with my wife. “He’ll come to us.”

Heads nodded, and my siblings looked grateful and relieved.

It really was the best solution. I’m the oldest, and it’s natural for me to take responsibility. My wife doesn’t work, and our youngest was ten—unlike my siblings whose houses were full of little kids. I also live in a very central location, which makes it easy for my siblings to come by. We would redo the basement and give my father the perfect private space.

The next day, I called Akiva, my tenant, and updated him on the situation. “So I would need you to move out in about three months. That should be enough time, right? Aren’t you already looking?” He had a houseful of kids, and they were completely outgrowing the space.

His voice sounded strained. “Three months? That’s soon…”

“Okay, we can do four,” I offered generously. I wanted to have time to redo the basement and make it handicap accessible, but my father could live upstairs for a few weeks.

He hung up, promising to try.

Three months and three weeks later, I reached out to him. I was confused about why I hadn’t heard anything about him moving .

“I was about to call you,” he said, flustered. “We’ve been frantically looking, but we haven’t found anything yet. Can we have another few weeks?”

“I don’t understand,” I said frankly. “I see tens of ads in the paper advertising apartments for rent. Have you been looking?”

“We’ve spent days on this,” Akiva said defensively. “But we haven’t found something that works.”

“I’m sorry,” I told him, not feeling very apologetic. “I can give you another two weeks, but then I need you to leave. I gave you plenty of time and there are lots of apartments on the market.”

Akiva: Our apartment is perfect for us.

That’s why we haven’t left yet, even though my kids are sleeping three to a room. It’s in the perfect location, right next to yeshivah, the babysitter, and my wife’s school.

We literally structured our life around our location. The life of a kollel couple is a delicate balance, and it takes a lot of work to make all the Jenga pieces fit. The babysitters live close enough that I can pick the kids up on the way home from first seder. My wife turned down a job in a school that offered more because it was too far, and she wouldn’t get home in time. She can walk to school, which she often does, since our very old, yeshivish car spends a lot of time at the mechanic.

We’ve looked out for other apartments and even talked about buying a house, but when everything in our life works out so perfectly, it’s hard to make the move.

When Mr. Karp told me unexpectedly that he needed the apartment, I was taken by surprise. We’re model tenants, never complaining, always paying our rent on time and keeping the yard clean. But the biggest shock was his time limit.

Three months? Did he know how hard it was to find an apartment? And so many apartments weren’t available immediately. How would we find something in that time? And no, I didn’t think giving us four months would help.

But we tried. We scoured the advertisers, spoke to friends, and followed up on every lead, but we came up with nothing. Any apartment in our neighborhood was way too small.

“I don’t see how we can move,” my wife said desperately. “It’s Chanukah time. Anything in our budget is on the other side of town. How exactly are we getting our kids into new babysitters now? And I can’t start a new job! But if we move, I’ll be spending an hour and half of my day sitting in traffic. And we’ll need a new car.”

She was right. The whole thing made no sense.

I kept pushing off calling Mr. Karp, hoping and davening that the perfect apartment would turn up. Finally, a week before the deadline, he called me.

I tried to explain, but he wasn’t listening. I nearly laughed aloud when he said there so many apartments available. Did he look at the prices? Did he realize there was nothing in this neighborhood? Did he understand that four months just wasn’t enough time?

Apparently not.

We’re not particular. We can handle a small and ugly place. But can he kick us out if we really have nowhere to go?

Rabbi Marburger: It depends on the terms of the lease. Typical leases become month-to-month after the expiration of the initial terms. If that’s the status, the landlord can evict the tenant if he needs the space for himself. There are rent control and anti-eviction statutes in Lakewood to prevent landlords from evicting tenants without appropriate cause—the halachic implications of these rules are beyond the scope of this article. Halachah does require notice in many cases to allow the tenant time to find an alternate location. The amount of time varies in halachah from 30 days to up to three years in unique situations. In practice, the tenant is given the amount of time it typically takes to find an apartment. The fact that this particular apartment is perfect for the tenant doesn’t strip the landlord of the right to use it for himself when he needs it.

Dovid: On the shortest Friday afternoon of the year, I got a frantic phone call from my tenant.

“There’s a huge flood here.” I could hear kids screaming in the background, drowning out Moshe’s stressed-out voice. “A pipe in the front closet burst, I think. It keeps flowing.”

I jumped into action, shutting the water main and calling the plumber down for an emergency call. Moshe assured me that he was planning on going away for Shabbos, so I didn’t have to worry in that regard. Not that it was easy for us to be without water, but what were we supposed to do?

On Motza’ei Shabbos, I got the verdict from the plumber. I’ll spare you the details but suffice it to say that the repairs were complicated and expensive.

“What caused it?”

“Well…” the plumber hesitated. “I saw a lot of wear and tear on the pipes. It’s hard to know, but putting hot oils and tissues down the drain can cause it. But the final blow was a toy that was flushed down.”

I thanked him and then hung up, trying to control my frustration. The apartment was seven years old. Moshe was our first tenant. When he first moved in, I made it so clear to him that tissues should never be used—it’s very damaging for the septic tank. And toys down the drain? And who knew what else?

Why should I have to pay for this? This wasn’t normal wear and tear; it was outright negligence.

I tried getting ahold of myself. Maybe he really was being careful? The plumber wasn’t positive that was the cause.

But Moshe confirmed my suspicions. “Listen, obviously my wife and I are very careful. But we do have little kids, and we can’t control every move they make. I can’t say they never overstuffed the toilet with tissues or flushed their toys away. That’s life.”

I didn’t agree. It’s their responsibility to prevent these things, and it didn’t seem to me like Moshe and his wife were as careful as they should be. Shouldn’t they have to pay for this?

Rabbi Marburger: This case is a perfect halachic storm. From a strictly halachic viewpoint, a person is (surprisingly, to most people) not liable for the damage his children cause. Additionally, the rules about shomrim don’t apply to real property. Lastly, actions that don’t immediately and directly cause a loss are often not actionable in beis din (although an obligation latzeis yedei Shamayim often exists). That being said, virtually every lease specifies that the tenant is responsible for any damage caused by him or his family above normal wear and tear. So if their lease has that clause, the tenant would be liable.