questions & answers

Question: I am a student and my father and I own a house in Tempe. We are both on the Deed and hold title as Joint Tenancy with Right of Survivorship. I rented a room to a tenant and she and I were the only parties who signed the lease agreement. However, when she moved out, my father signed the move-out letter because she had secured a Restrainer Order against me (I had secured one against her too) so we were to have no contact of any kind with one another. She alleges that the Move Out Letter is invalid since my dad wrote it, signed it and emailed it to her oppose to myself. Is that true?

Answer: If the tenant acknowledges that she received the letter – and presumably understood its meaning – then this very likely makes it a valid form of written notice whether or not it contained your signature. Under the Arizona Residential Landlord and Tenant Act (A.R.S. Title 33 Chapter 10), tenants, like landlords, are required to act in “good faith” when exercising their rights and discharging their duties. So as long as (1) the content of the letter itself was clear and appropriate and (2) the tenant was aware of the reason why notice was delivered in the way that it was, then, in principle, it should be valid. (Questions of validity are always determined on a case-by-case basis.)