Under Florida law, the landlord duty to repair does not disappear just because the tenant knows the floor is broken. In Perez v. Belmont at Ryals Chase Condominium Association, Inc., No. 2D2023-0872 (Fla. 2d DCA Sept. 25, 2024), the Second District Court of Appeal reversed a summary judgment for a landlord and its property manager. Once a tenant reports a dangerous defect, the landlord must use reasonable care to fix it, whether or not the defect is open and obvious.
Facts
Geraldo Podesta Perez began renting a unit from Belmont at Ryals Chase Condominium Association, Inc. in June 2018. Webb Realty Consultants, Inc. managed the property. The lease made Belmont responsible for maintaining the “foundations, floors, structural components” and barred Perez from making repairs without the landlord’s written consent.
Over time, the floor tiles at the unit’s only entrance came loose. Perez’s wife complained twice, once to Webb’s owner and once to Belmont’s maintenance supervisor. Nobody fixed the tiles. On April 10, 2019, Perez fell on them and was injured.
Perez sued Belmont and Webb for negligence in Pasco County circuit court. The defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing the loose tiles were open and obvious and that Perez already knew about them. The trial court agreed. It ruled that the landlord’s continuing duty covered only conditions that were inherently dangerous and not readily apparent to the tenant, and it entered final summary judgment for the defendants. Perez appealed.
Issue: Does Tenant Knowledge End the Landlord Duty to Repair?
Does a tenant’s knowledge of a dangerous defect, or the fact that the defect is open and obvious, wipe out the landlord’s continuing duty to repair it, even after the tenant has reported the problem to the landlord?
Holding
No. In an opinion by Chief Judge Sleet, joined by Judges LaRose and Morris, the Second District held that once a tenant takes possession, the landlord duty to repair is a continuing duty to use reasonable care to fix dangerous defects after notice. The tenant’s knowledge does not discharge the landlord duty to repair. Neither does the fact that the defect is open and obvious. The “inherently unsafe” and “not readily apparent” limits apply, if at all, only to the landlord’s duty before the tenant moves in. The court reversed the final summary judgment and remanded for further proceedings.
Rationale
The court started with Mansur v. Eubanks, 401 So. 2d 1328 (Fla. 1981), where the Florida Supreme Court described two separate duties. Before the tenant moves in, the landlord must reasonably inspect the premises and make repairs, unless the tenant waives the defects. After the tenant moves in, the landlord has a continuing duty to exercise reasonable care to repair dangerous defective conditions upon notice. That second duty is now written into section 83.51(1), Florida Statutes, which requires a residential landlord to keep floors and other structural components in good repair.
Applying that rule, the court found the loose tiles were a dangerous condition because they sat at the only way in and out of the unit, which made an injury more likely. Perez’s wife gave notice twice, and that notice triggered the landlord duty to repair. The lease pointed the same way: it put the floors on the landlord and barred the tenant from fixing them.
The trial court had relied on Youngblood v. Pasadena at Pembroke Lakes South, Ltd., 882 So. 2d 1097 (Fla. 4th DCA 2004). The Second District called that reliance misplaced. The tenant in Youngblood never told the landlord about the loose towel rack that injured her. And Youngblood borrowed a limit from Menendez v. Palms West Condominium Ass’n, 736 So. 2d 58 (Fla. 1st DCA 1999), a case about the landlord’s duty before possession, and applied it to the duty after possession. In a footnote, the court declined to decide whether the Menendez limit is correct even before possession.
Finally, the court pointed out the circular logic in the landlords’ position. The tenant must give notice to trigger the landlord duty to repair. If that same knowledge then excused the landlord, the duty would never apply. Such a rule, the court said, “would completely insulate the landlord from liability.”
Practice Points on the Landlord Duty to Repair
- Notice is the trigger. Landlords and property managers should log every repair complaint, whether written, verbal, or through a maintenance portal, and track it to completion. A documented complaint is what puts the landlord duty to repair in play.
- “Open and obvious” does not defeat duty after notice. Once the tenant has reported the defect, defense counsel should not expect that argument alone to win summary judgment on duty. The tenant’s own care may still be argued as comparative negligence, but it does not erase the duty.
- Read the lease. Here, the lease assigned floor maintenance to the landlord and barred tenant repairs, which reinforced the statutory duty under section 83.51.
- Property managers are exposed too. Webb, the management company, was a defendant alongside the association, and the reversal revived the claim against both.
- Before and after possession are different questions. Youngblood and Menendez deal with defects the landlord should have found before move-in. After move-in, Mansur and section 83.51 control, and notice from the tenant triggers the landlord duty to repair.
Read the Opinion
If you are a landlord, property manager, or tenant dealing with the landlord duty to repair or an injury on rental property, contact Cox Law, PLLC. We serve clients throughout Florida. The full opinion is embedded below.
Official opinion on the Second District Court of Appeal website: Perez v. Belmont at Ryals Chase Condominium Ass’n, Inc., No. 2D2023-0872 (Fla. 2d DCA Sept. 25, 2024).
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