questions & answers

Question: My daughter and I leased an apartment 2 weeks ago. The police served an arrest warrant on my daughter's friend who was visiting our apartment yesterday by forcing entry into the apartment and also conducting a search of the entire apartment. The police told me this was in reference to an ongoing criminal case against this person. I am concerned that we will be evicted even though we had no idea that her friend had a warrant for his arrest and do not have any idea why it was served at our place of residence. Should I speak with the management to proactively avoid any type of repercussions?

Answer: The Arizona Residential Landlord and Tenant Act states that “the tenant shall be held responsible for the actions of the tenant’s guests that violate the lease agreement or rules or regulations of the landlord if the tenant could reasonably be expected to be aware that such actions might occur and did not attempt to prevent those actions to the best of the tenant’s ability” (A.R.S. 33-1368(F)). What this means is that tenants are required to do their best to ensure that their guests do not break the rules, but tenants themselves are only responsible if they should have known in advance that their guests might break the rules but did nothing to try to prevent that from happening. Landlords often try to have tenants evicted despite what A.R.S. 33-1368(F) says. A tenant in this sort of situation, who knows that their landlord is aware of what happened and may try to have them evicted as a result, may want to consider speaking with their landlord. Any tenant who would like legal advice may find links to free and low-cost legal services on this website (at http://www.azlawhelp.org/accessToJustice).