Can I Sue My Landlord for False Accusations
Updated March 2021
The ascent of social media has made it easier than always for tenants to broadcast their opinions about a landlord or holding management company – and information technology has made information technology harder than ever for landlords to scrub negative opinions or outright falsehoods connected to their names.
Should landlords sue for defamation over tenant complaints or is that just seen as an acceptable part of the real estate business now?
Non surprisingly, the number of defamation cases between landlords and tenants has increased along with the popularity of online review sites and social media channels.
Laws regarding defamation vary from state to state, but almost landlords will detect that suing is not going to exist the most productive option. Today, think more about what you lot can exercise when tenant complaints are taking concord – and when you should consider legal activity.
Tabular array Of Contents On What To Do Well-nigh Tenant Complaints
When tenant complaints outset actualization, information technology can crusade a fight or flying reaction in landlords who are unprepared for dealing with online commentary or social media. What should you lot practice when facing this type of state of affairs, when all you actually wanted to do was manage rental backdrop? Hither's what yous need to know and learn to address.
- When A Tenant Starts To Mutter …
- iv Steps To Take If Your Tenant Is Complaining About You Online
- Pace #1: Talk To Your Tenant Directly
- Footstep #2: Review The Lease Agreement
- Step #3: Accost The Upshot
- Step #4: Remember Non Everyone Will Similar You
- The Pros And Cons Of Public Opinion
- An Overview Of Defamation
- Should Landlords Consider Defamation Cases?
- Tenant Slandering Landlord Cases
- Horizon Group Management 5. Bonnen: "Mere Stance"
- Bently Reserve Fifty.P. 5. Papaliolios: "Factual Assertions"
- Futurity For Landlord-Tenant Defamation Suits
- Continue Your Focus On What's Important
When A Tenant Starts To Complain…
Whether yous manage a hire-stabilized rental unit or a few standalone family homes, it is possible for tenants to become upset about something and brainstorm to air their grievances online. Information technology's okay and expected for people to share their opinions online, but some tenants volition take it above and beyond just their personal opinions.
There is a difference between sharing frustrations with an audition online and trying to weaponize that audition to outcome changes. When a tenant begins to exercise the latter, it is important for you lot to have swift action to address your landlord-tenant relationship and any existing rifts to minimize the damage.
4 Steps To Have If Your Tenant Is Complaining About Y'all Online
A tenant is talking nearly your business online, and they're not maxim anything pleasant. In fact, they're exaggerating, telling stories yous don't hold with, and spreading other news that feels completely inaccurate. What exactly should yous do to handle this situation?
Let's interruption it down into three simple steps to help address this issue as cleanly and conspicuously equally possible.
Stride #one: Talk To Your Tenant Directly
The all-time thing you lot can do when you hear from your tenant, property manager, or another individual that your tenant is posting negative things most you lot online is to talk to them. It may feel awkward or uncomfortable, but it is of import to find out exactly what your tenant believes you are doing incorrect.
With this information in paw, you'll be better prepared to address the situation.
Step #2: Review The Lease Agreement
Once you lot accept determined what your tenant is upset virtually, yous can accept time to review the lease agreement you both signed. Accept you cleaved the charter agreement or is your tenant expecting y'all to bend the rules to what they believe is right? Take time to carefully review the terms with an unbiased view to determine where the difference in perspective comes from.
States require you to follow certain rules, and those rules can alter from time-to-time. Requite your tenant the benefit of the uncertainty and double-check that you accept done everything to code. There'due south always a chance that you take made an honest mistake, and you tin can easily rectify that mistake if you have.
Footstep #iii: Accost The Event
Regardless of whether you lot are correct or incorrect, go back to your tenant with the data gathered from local laws and the charter understanding to clarify your position. With luck, yous and your tenant volition be able to talk out the upshot and come up to an agreeable resolution.
One time yous have done and so, you tin can too politely request that your tenant share an update on the situation. Even if you lot are not completely amicable, tenants should be willing to concede that you were willing to hear them out and address their concerns as best you could given the rules and lease agreement.
If they will non update their online review, you can consider making a PR statement about your position equally a company. This is certainly not required, simply it may be an advisable choice if y'all are receiving a large corporeality of backlash for not addressing the tenant's concerns. While you don't need to share specifics, it can exist helpful to clarify that you are aware and working with the tenant.
Step 4: Remember: Non Everyone Will Like You
When dealing with this type of situation, it is important to remember that your goal is to remedy the situation with your tenant and any local institutions that you rely on for business organization. Your goal cannot be to make anybody like you.
It is a simple fact that not everyone in the world is going to like yous, and that's okay! The signal is that rational people will be able to run across that you have not done whatever malicious harm in your business and that you volition continue to run your business concern honestly.
As long every bit you tin can help to become that point beyond, everything will exist OK.
The Pros And Cons Of Public Opinion
When information technology comes to working with rental real manor, many landlords will say that you simply demand to go used to bad tenants asking surprising questions online. Just take a look at some of the pinnacle tenant searches on Google:
- How to get your landlord in trouble?
- Can I sue my landlord for false accusations?
- Can I sue my landlord for defamation of character?
While information technology'south illegal for a landlord to commit actual slander or defamation, many tenants are exaggerating when they ask these questions.
Every bit it becomes more than and more than common to talk nigh personal bug in online public forums, the attitude towards how things should be handled is changing equally well. Sites specifically for reviewing landlords have even been created, and these can be either a boon or a hindrance.
Remember: everything has pros and cons. Just as frustrating tenants might write some non-so-practiced things near you, understanding tenants will talk almost where you excel.
Do your best to be a off-white and honest landlord who communicates things openly and clearly with their tenants. In that location volition be disagreements from time to time. If yous are skilful to your tenants, notwithstanding, you will always have a solid business backbone to build off.
An Overview Of Defamation
Broadly speaking, "defamation" includes whatsoever fake written or oral statement that injures a 3rd political party's reputation. Defamation is typically cleaved down into 2 categories: libel, or written statements, and slander, or spoken statements.
To win a case for defamation against a tenant, a landlord or property manager must be able to show that:
- The tenant fabricated a fake argument of textile fact,
- The statement was "published," or made to some third party,
- The tenant knew or should have known the argument was untrue, and
- The landlord suffered some actual harm equally a result of the statement.
The key on which many defamation suits turn is the simulated argument of material fact. The statement at issue must exist both (a) stated every bit a fact and (b) false. If it is true, a defamation claim will non survive; too, if it is understood to be an opinion, sarcasm, or exaggeration, a defamation merits will non survive.
Should Landlords Consider Defamation Cases?
Most of the time, landlords won't sue for defamation because of tenant complaints online. The high cost of real estate chaser fees and the limitations of state laws makes it a risky selection. Plus, the corporeality of fourth dimension it takes to win a court case could be better spent on solidifying and building your business organization.
In some cases, however, landlords have suffered serious fiscal loss and emotional distress because of the deportment of a tenant. Yous can read more about actual cases of tenant slandering a landlord below.
Tenant Slandering Landlord
The following court cases are helpful in determining the rights of a landlord in situations where a tenant slanders the landlord.
Horizon Group Management v. Bonnen: "Mere Opinion"
Courts in many states have only recently begun fielding defamation cases based on cyberspace comments in whatever pregnant numbers.
One prominent early case was Horizon Grouping Management five. Bonnen, in which the landlord, Horizon, filed a defamation instance against quondam tenant Amanda Bonnen on the basis of a message Bonnen posted to her Twitter account in response to some other Twitter user.
The bulletin read, in office, "Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it'south ok."
You tin see a screenshot of the original Tweet below:
Horizon argued that the message, which could be read by whatsoever member of the public who happened across Bonnen's Twitter page, harmed the company'due south "reputation as a landlord in Chicago."
The courtroom, withal, disagreed and dismissed the complaint with prejudice, finding that the content of the bulletin couldn't reliably be categorized equally a false statement of fact – information technology could also exist read as an opinion or every bit a sarcastic comment.
Bently Reserve L.P. v. Papaliolios: "Factual Assertions"
Although the Bonnen courtroom dismissed the case before information technology for lack of "factual assertions," the court in Bently Reserve, L.P. v. Papaliolios took a different rails.
The landlord managed the Jones Building on San Francisco's Nob Hill, where Papaliolios was a tenant for several years. In 2012, Papaliolios left a review on the edifice'southward Yelp folio, stating, amid other things, that "the new owners' noise, intrusions, and other abhorrent behaviors (likely) contributed to the decease of iii tenants (Pat, Mary, & John) and the departure of eight more than…. They accept sought evictions of 6 of those long-term tenants, even though rent was paid-in-full, and those tenants bothered nobody."
Far from seeing these statements as opinion, sarcasm, or exaggeration, the court allowed the case to proceed, stating that "Papaliolios' review, in office, is susceptible to being read every bit containing factual assertions, not just mere opinion…."
Future For Landlord-Tenant Defamation Suits
The law of defamation equally it applies to cyberspace reviews is still developing, and it changes quickly. Withal, landlords can accept this role of the Papaliolios courtroom'southward stance to eye: "While many Cyberspace critiques are nothing more than ranting opinions that cannot exist taken seriously, Net commentary does not ipso facto get a free pass under defamation police force."
Keep Your Focus On What's Of import
When information technology comes to a tenant slandering a landlord online, you need to recall most what matters well-nigh. Being falsely defendant is never fun, and people joining in online can feel paramount to landlord harassment in some cases.
What y'all practice with the situation, however, will determine how things go along. Remember what you should do:
- Talk to the tenant directly, if possible, and equally shortly as possible
- Review the lease agreement and local laws to determine the best course of action
- Accost the tenants complains, even if you won't make any changes, directly
- Inquire the tenant to amend their statements online or brand your ain, if necessary
The key to surviving any negative online attending is to remember that your business exists in the material world, non just online. Fifty-fifty if you accept to deal with some negative energy online due to a frustrated tenant that you cannot aid any further, you even so accept a business organization to grow.
Focus on being the best landlord you can be, and you volition be able to go along in the rental business with ease. Rational tenants will go along to see yous for what yous are: an honest businessperson.
Moving frontwards, protect your business organization and reputation by making sure to choose the best possible tenants. Improve your tenant screening process with background checks, credit reports, and more from RentPrep.
Note: This article is provided for informational purposes only. No information provided in this commodity should be considered legal advice. If you have legal questions, please consult an attorney who is licensed to practice constabulary in your area. For legal communication online, cheque out RocketLawyerAdvice.com.
Source: https://rentprep.com/legal/landlords-sue-defamation-tenant-complains/
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