Does your apartment need repairs? Here are three sample letters you can send to your landlord to request fixes

Some of the most common complaints about New York City rental apartments—things like cracks in your walls, mold, or a lack of heat are a landlord's responsibility to fix, but communicating these problems fall on your shoulders. That can be a bit daunting if you're living in your first apartment and you don't know what to say. Or maybe you tried and your request was ignored. How do you go about asserting your rights in a way that signals you want problems in your rental addressed ASAP?

Landlords are legally required to keep apartments safe and sanitary under the warranty of habitability, but can be slow to make repairs—particularly the expensive kind, says Sateesh Nori, a lawyer and executive director of the tenant advocacy nonprofit JustFix.

“Heat tends to be something that requires updating boilers or providing new systems, and those are also expensive,” Nori says. “Landlords don’t want to spend that money, especially if it’s going to cut into their profits.”

NYC’s 311 line received nearly one million complaints about inadequate heat between 2017 and 2021, according to NYC Comptroller Brad Lander. Heat, mold and cracks are the three top complaints of Gotham’s renters, followed by broken windows, elevators, and trash disposal problems, Nori says. 

JustFix, a nonprofit founded in 2015, aims to address some of these problems. Just last year JustFix received 415 complaints from tenants mentioning cracks in their walls or ceilings, a lack of heat or mold through one of its apps that lets residents request repairs from their landlords. 

You can use their site to send a customized letter to your landlord to ask for repairs and do other research, like finding your building’s owner by address, investigating NYC’s biggest evictors, or ordering your apartment’s rent history. And you can check out Brick Underground’s guide on how to research your landlord.

Below are three of JustFix’s sample letters that you can customize to ask your landlord for repairs. (They have been changed slightly by Brick).

1. When you don’t have heat in your apartment

Your landlord is required to keep your apartment at 62 degrees at night and 68 degrees during the day—provided the daytime temperature drops below 55 degrees—from Oct. 1 to May 31, according to the city. But a handful of property owners still fail to do so.

A collection of 1,077 NYC buildings accounted for 30 percent of 311 heat complaints from 2017 to 2021, despite representing just 1.5 percent of the total number of buildings tenants complained about. Those properties are mostly concentrated in communities of color throughout the Northwest and South Bronx, Brooklyn and Northern Manhattan, according to the comptroller. 

Persistent heat problems can encourage tenants to resort to space heaters to stay warm, but those same heaters caused more than 100 fires in NYC from 2017 to 2021, according to the comptroller. Just last year, a malfunctioning space heater caused a fire in a Bronx apartment building that killed 17 people. At that same building, residents had complained about a lack of heat, a broken radiator and doors that would not close properly, Bloomberg reported. 

If your apartment is dangerously cold, here’s how you can ask your landlord to turn up the heat.

Dear LANDLORD NAME, 

I need the following repairs in my home referenced below and/or in the common areas of the building: 

REPAIRS REQUIRED 

Home-wide 

• No heat 
• No hot water 

AVAILABLE ACCESS DATES 

Below are dates that I am available to be at my home to let in a repair worker. Please contact me (using the information provided at the top of this letter) in order to make arrangements with me at least 24 hours in advance. 

• Thursday, July 13, 2023 
• Friday, July 14, 2023 
• Saturday, July 15, 2023 

REQUIREMENTS 

I request that you provide the name and contact information for any repair worker assigned to my home at least 24 hours prior to their arrival. 

Please be advised that the lack of Heat and/or Hot Water constitutes an emergency under the NYC Housing Maintenance Code, Title 27, Chapter 2. Failure to address these repairs will result in an escalation of this issue, and I may exercise my right to file an Emergency HP Action through the NYC Housing Court system. 

CIVIL PENALTIES 

Pursuant to NYC Admin Code § 27-2115 an order of civil penalties for all existing violations for which the time to correct has expired is as follows: 

“C” Violation 

$50 per day per violation (if 1-5 units) 

$50-$150 one-time penalty per violation plus $125 per day (5 or more units) 

“B” Violation: 

$25-$100 one-time penalty per violation plus $10 per day 

“A” Violation” 

$10-$50 one-time penalty per violation 

According to the NYC Admin Code § 27-2115, a civil penalty is also issued where a person willfully makes a false certification of correction of a violation per violation falsely certified. 

Please contact me as soon as possible to arrange a time to have these repairs made at (123)-456-7890. 

Regards, 

TENANT NAME

2. When there’s mold in your kitchen

It’s not just the smoggy New York skies that can cause respiratory problems. Mold can be an “invisible killer,” resulting in health problems for those with underlying conditions, Nori says. 

“It's a growing thing so it can get worse over time, and that can come and go as it rains or if there's a leak,” Nori says. “It's one of those things that’s really, really serious.”

Most molds will appear as fuzzy, slimy, or discolored patches that grow in size as the mold spreads and often emit a musty odor, according to the New York State Department of Health. Those more sensitive to mold can get symptoms like a stuffy nose, wheezing, itchy skin, or even shortness of breath in severe cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

As long as you didn’t cause the damage to your apartment, like mold, it’s your landlord’s responsibility to address it, according to the New York Attorney General’s Office. 

You can call 311 to file a complaint or use JustFix’s app to contact your landlord. Below is an example of a letter where the tenant already reached out to 311. 

Dear LANDLORD NAME, 

I need the following repairs in my home referenced below: 

REPAIRS REQUIRED 

Bedrooms 

• Water damage 

Kitchen 

• Mold on walls 

AVAILABLE ACCESS DATES 

Below are dates that I am available to be at my home to let in a repair worker. Please contact me (using the information provided at the top of this letter) in order to make arrangements with me at least 24 hours in advance. 

• Date 1 
• Date 2
• Date 3

REQUIREMENTS 

I request that you provide the name and contact information for any repair worker assigned to my home at least 24 hours prior to their arrival. 

PREVIOUS ATTEMPTS FOR RELIEF 

I have already contacted 311 on several occasions, but the issue has not been resolved. In the meantime, I have recorded evidence of the violations should legal action be necessary. 

CIVIL PENALTIES 

Pursuant to NYC Admin Code § 27-2115 an order of civil penalties for all existing violations for which the time to correct has expired is as follows: 

“C” Violation 

$50 per day per violation (if 1-5 units) 

$50-$150 one-time penalty per violation plus $125 per day (5 or more units) 

“B” Violation: 

$25-$100 one-time penalty per violation plus $10 per day 

“A” Violation” 

$10-$50 one-time penalty per violation 

According to the NYC Admin Code § 27-2115, a civil penalty is also issued where a person willfully makes a false certification of correction of a violation per violation falsely certified. 

Please contact me as soon as possible to arrange a time to have these repairs made at (123)-456-7890. 

Regards, 

TENANT NAME

3. When there are cracks in your walls

Cracks in an apartment’s walls aren’t just cosmetic, they can cause evacuations. In one 2017 case, a stories-tall crack forced 25 households to evacuate an East 96th Street apartment building in Manhattan. 

But cracks are a fairly common complaint, particularly for tenants of rent stabilized buildings where a landlord might have less of a financial incentive to make repairs, Nori said.

“In rent regulated buildings, because landlords aren't going to be able to increase the rents, they see a narrow and limited motivation to repair building-wide things,” Nori says. “It's like an old car. If it's not going to go up in value, you just drive it until it breaks down.”

JustFix received 228 complaints mentioning cracks in an apartment’s walls, floors, or ceiling in 2022, according to the organization. Cracks, along with peeling paint or plaster, are also covered under the “warranty of habitability,” and your landlord has a responsibility to address problems.

Below is an example of a letter where a tenant found cracked walls in their bedroom.

Dear LANDLORD NAME, 

I need the following repairs in my home referenced below: 

REPAIRS REQUIRED 

Bedrooms 

• Cracked walls 

AVAILABLE ACCESS DATES 

Below are dates that I am available to be at my home to let in a repair worker. Please contact me (using the information provided at the top of this letter) in order to make arrangements with me at least 24 hours in advance. 

• Date 1
• Date 2
• Date 3 

REQUIREMENTS 

I request that you provide the name and contact information for any repair worker assigned to my home at least 24 hours prior to their arrival. 

CIVIL PENALTIES 

Pursuant to NYC Admin Code § 27-2115 an order of civil penalties for all existing violations for which the time to correct has expired is as follows: 

“C” Violation 

$50 per day per violation (if 1-5 units) 

$50-$150 one-time penalty per violation plus $125 per day (5 or more units) 

“B” Violation: 

$25-$100 one-time penalty per violation plus $10 per day 

“A” Violation” 

$10-$50 one-time penalty per violation 

According to the NYC Admin Code § 27-2115, a civil penalty is also issued where a person willfully makes a false certification of correction of a violation per violation falsely certified. 

Please contact me as soon as possible to arrange a time to have these repairs made at (123)-456-7890. 

Regards, 

TENANT NAME

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