Renting a home: what the landlord owes and what you owe

It is the contract by which one person gives another the use of property in exchange for a price. The 2020 Civil Code regulates it with freedom of form: no deed or signed contract is needed for it to exist and bind — though having it in writing is what prevents half the disputes. The parties agree the price according to the property’s value, or a third party they designate determines it; if that person cannot or will not, the court determines it. Payment may be agreed in arrears or in advance, and absent stipulation it is understood to be in arrears. This guide covers the relationship between the parties; the eviction procedure, a lawsuit with its own rules, has its own guide.

It applies to any civil lease of property — housing included — between landlord and tenant. Any present or future property determinable without a new contract may be the object of a lease. There is nothing to register with an agency and nothing to qualify for: the obligations arise from the contract and the law. If the lease is agreed for more than six years over real property, the law requires it in writing; and to bind third parties, it must be recorded in the Property Registry.

• No special formality for the contract’s validity, except when the object is real property and you intend to record it in the Property Registry to bind third parties.Verified against the official source
• When a lease of real property is agreed for a term longer than six years, it must be in writing.Verified against the official source
• To modify an already perfected contract: observing the same formalities as the original execution.Verified against the official source

• The contract, if there is one: though the law does not require it for validity in most cases, it is your evidence of the price, agreed use and payment periods.
• Your written notices to the landlord about faults and conditions needing repair: the landlord’s duty to repair runs "after the tenant has notified them".
• Proof of rent and utility payments: the law expressly requires the tenant to hand the landlord proof of having paid the rent.

1. 1

   Step 1: Give written notice: the repair starts there

   The landlord must carry out necessary repairs within a reasonable time, but the clock starts when you notify the fault. That is why written notice — text, email, letter — is gold: it fixes the date. You also have the duty to notify them of any fault or condition needing repair, and of any usurpation, disturbance or attempt to impose an easement on the property.

2. 2

   Step 2: If the repair is urgent, you may make it at the landlord’s cost

   The Code lists among the tenant’s duties "to make, at the landlord’s cost, necessary repairs when these are urgent and have been notified to the landlord". That is: urgent plus notified. It is not a license to remodel — useful or luxury improvements are not reimbursed, though you may remove them if it does not damage the property — but the way out when something necessary cannot wait.

3. 3

   Step 3: Inspection: justified cause and seven days’ notice

   The tenant must allow the landlord to inspect the property "for justified causes and with seven (7) days’ prior notice". Both conditions count. A landlord who shows up unannounced, or wants in without reason, is outside what the law grants them; and a tenant refusing a duly noticed and justified inspection is in breach.

4. 4

   Step 4: Know the termination causes before they are used

   The landlord may terminate when the tenant abandons or stops using the property, or changes the agreed use; when they breach the duty to keep it; or when they fail to pay rent for two consecutive periods. The tenant may terminate when the landlord breaches the duty to keep the thing fit for the agreed use, when they breach the eviction or hidden-defect warranties, or when their improvements deprive you of partial use — in that last case you may opt, instead of terminating, for a proportional reduction during the deprivation. The parties may also agree to early termination.

5. 5

   Step 5: On leaving: return it as received, minus ordinary use

   The duty is to vacate or restore the property in the state you received it, barring deterioration from the passage of time and ordinary use. That "barring" is what prevents arguments about worn paint or aged fixtures. Document the condition on entry and exit — dated photos — because that is the evidence that decides.

No agency administers these rights: they arise from the contract and the Civil Code, and are enforced between the parties or in court. Recording the lease, when third-party effect is wanted, is done at the Property Registry. Eviction is a separate judicial procedure.

• Demanding a repair without having given notice: the landlord’s duty runs "after the tenant has notified them" of the fault.
• Deducting from the rent on your own: what the law contemplates is repairing at the landlord’s cost when urgent and notified, not unilateral offset.
• Believing there are no rights without a written contract: a lease requires no special formality for validity, except in the cases the law names.
• Agreeing to more than six years verbally: for real property, that term must be in writing.
• Letting them in without notice, or refusing a duly noticed inspection: the law requires justified cause and seven days, and both parties must respect it.
• Thinking one unpaid month grounds termination: the cause the Code sets is failing to pay two consecutive periods.
• Claiming the value of luxury improvements on leaving: they are not reimbursed, though you may remove them if it does not damage the property.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Poder Judicial de Puerto Rico

  Poder Judicial

  bvirtualogp.pr.gov