Imagine you try to leave your house one day and find that your front doorknob, which has always been sticky, finally gives up the ghost and you can't open your front door at all. Naturally, you contact your landlord about this and are told something along the lines of:
Per the lease, the tenant is responsible for all minor repairs. I can send out a locksmith but will bill you for it.
The relevant section would be:
Maintenance: The Tenant agrees to properly maintain the home and complete, at his own expense, all daily maintenance EXCLUDING furnace/AC, water heater, appliance replacement and major repairs. The tenant is responsible for the cleaning of all clogged drain lines. If the home is located within a community governed by a Homeowners Association, Tenant does hereby agree to abide by the rules and bylaws of said Association (Exceeding $200 maintenance threshold contact owner/landlord)
So I suppose it depends on what "daily maintenance" means. Does this even matter though? Is KY one of those states where real estate law establish the responsibilities of the Landlord, including maintaining basic habitability standards, with provisions that a lease cannot push such responsibilities off to the tenant? A front door that cannot be opened is a definite safety hazard, and presumably a violation of building codes, so it seems like something that falls squarely under the responsibility of a landlord (presuming it wasn't clearly the fault of the tenant). So:
- Does the above lease provision make the tenant responsible for a broken front door?
- Does KY real estate law require a landlord to fix a broken front door, regardless of lease?