Everyday Law in Everyday Terms You Can Understand

There are a lot of problems that stem from the landlord-tenant relationship and many of these problems could be resolved very quickly if there was a clearer understanding of the law in this area. This category will seek to explain those laws as clearly as possible and they will cover many topics from lease and rental agreements to the handling of deposits to repairs/maintenance and even to dispute resolution. It’s going to be a pretty large category with lots of good information so we hope you find this very valuable and useful.

If you have a noisy neighbor and you live in an apartment complex with a landlord or management company, you can lean on them to quiet down your neighbor. Sometimes it’s faster for you to just ask them politely and sometimes it’s easier to have the landlord handle it because those are “official” channels and you may be more comfortable with doing that.

In your lease you should have a clause called “Quiet Enjoyment,” of which has two parts that apply to you. The first part is that you have to be quiet in the first place, that’s the piece that the landlord should enforce for you. The second part is that you should be able to enjoy your apartment and live there in peace, that’s the part you’re trying to reclaim! So, even if you don’t have something as specific as “Quiet Enjoyment,” you should have something about noise.

You should contact your landlord every single time you have a complaint because eventually the landlord will have to evict that person. It’s important you do this so they can establish a frequency and so that they can use it as a way to confirm that the neighbor complied. Just because you said it once doesn’t mean that the landlord has completed their job, just keep contacting your landlord and your, the squeaky wheel, will get your results.

With all the primaries, caucuses, and Presidential election happening this year, this issue may affect many of you.  Being able to balance your work and family commitments is hard as it is.  Taking time off during the day is nearly impossible.  As such, many states require employers to allow employees to take time off to vote.  However, there are some restrictions in some states.  You may need to prove that you actually did go vote.  You may not get paid for this time.  You may need to show that you wouldn’t have had enough time to go if not for the time off.  Your best bet is to just skip out and go vote.  Be a good American citizen and tell your boss that you weren’t feeling well.

Well, I don’t know about your specific situation, but yes, your employer can (and probably does) read your emails.  Don’t stop writing that personal email to your illicit lover just yet, because more than likely, your boss has better things to do than read all your emails.  Most companies employ software that scans network traffic, including your emails.  This software can detect what traffic is email and then scans for words/phrases that may be sensitive (e.g. intellectual property), bad (e.g. cuss words), or threatening (e.g. I’m going to bomb the Adderson office next Wednesday).  These emails are flagged and only these emails really get read by humans to determine what to do next.  My personal mantra is to not write anything on work email that I wouldn’t want posted on the front page of the New York Times.

If your neighbors are noisy and they haven’t been cooperative when you ask them to turn it down, consider researching your local noise ordinances. Practically every single neighborhood and community will have a noise ordinance and the police have absolutely no problems enforcing them. Generally the rules establish certain “quiet periods” that require people to maintain low decibel levels during certain periods of time, generally when people are sleeping. The best place to check your noise ordinance is to refer to your city attorney’s office (or check the internet). Once you figure out what the laws are, confirm that they are actually breaking them and then call the police.

This category will talk about many issues that are encountered everyday in the workplace, including, harassment, privacy, safety, discrimination, job security, and more.  Many times employees will encounter situations where legal advice is necessary.  Luckily, there are many laws that protect the employee.  However, while there are hard-and-fast laws protecting the employee, there are often underlying/hidden repercussions of exercising your rights.  It’s best to know your rights and then make the decision that best suits your situation.

Unfortunately, nothing. Unless the view was granted by law or some other rule in your neighborhood, such as a homeowner’s association, you have no recourse to prevent it. The reason for this pretty clear, it would be unreasonable for the city or state to have to enforce this and determine what is considered a view and what isn’t. The only thing they can do is prevent the building if it’s clear that the structure has no value to the owner and was put up just to block the view.

View Ordinances

If you are lucky enough to live in an area with view ordinances, then you might be in luck if your view is obstructed by trees. If you live near the ocean or some other great view, view ordinances might protect your view from growing trees and the owner of the trees have to trim them to restore the original view. Unfortunately, this doesn’t apply to new buildings or structures.

Who is responsible for paying for the trimming? It depends. The tree owner has to pay if the trees were planted after the law was passed. The view-obstructed homeowner has to pay if they were planted before the law was passed. There are exceptions to this rule and they should be spelled out in the ordinance (such as how city trees are exempt).

Zoning Laws

If you can’t go to a view ordinance, consider checking out the zoning regulations for residential (or commercial, depends on who is block you) buildings because it may require that buildings be under a certain height, be set back from the street a certain distance, or occupy less than a certain percentage of the property footprint.

Yesterday I warned that anyone who deliberately harmed a tree was on the hook for two or three times the value of the tree, payable to the owner of the tree (the property onto which the trunk breaks ground). This is also true if the neighbor accidentally kills the tree, either by putting something on it or cutting the roots or anything else, and can be enforced by the courts. The basic rule is that anyone who cuts down, removes or damages a tree without permission will owe the tree’s owner money.

There are three methods the police usually use to determine whether an individual is too impaired to be operating a vehicle (vehicles include bicycles). They are as follows, in order of usage by the police:

• Observation – Most of the time, this is what initiates the police’s action.  If they observe a driver swerving in and out of their lane or speeding, this is sufficient to pull the driver over.  Once the officer pulls the driver over, the officer can make a better assessment of why the driver was driving in that manner.  If the driver has blood-shot eyes and reeked of gin, there’s no chance, the officer will continue with the next method.
• Sobriety Tests – The officer will make the driver perform some mental and physical tasks; ones that require intense concentration and/or physically balance/dexterity.  They including asking the driver to recite the alphabet backwards (freakin’ hard) or balancing on one foot for 30 seconds or asking the driver to follow a pen with his/her eyes.  If you can’t recite, can’t balance, or can’t follow (smoothly and naturally), the driver is in deep doo-doo.
• Blood-Alcohol Level (BAC) Test – There are multiple ways to perform this test.  It can be done by testing urine, breath, or blood.  Testing by breath (Breathalyzer) is usually done on-site.

In the end, most arrests will result in some sort of BAC test.  That is the quantitative evidence that will seal the deal.

First off, deliberately harming a tree is something you should never ever consider on strictly moral grounds. However, if you do, the legal recourse is severe. In nearly every state, if you deliberately harm your neighbor’s tree then you are liable to at least two or three times the amount of actual financial loss. That’s right, if you kill a $200 tree, you’re on the hook for two or three times that. (As background information, the impetus for these laws was to prevent loggers from cutting down and stealing trees)

If your neighbor cut down your tree, sue them.