Can a landlord legally lock up your thermostat and limit your hot water?

After a Reddit user posted a photo of his thermostat being “locked up” by his landlord during the winter, readers had one burning question: Is this even legal?!While landlords hold many of the cards when it comes to your rental property, there are lines that they shouldn’t cross, according to legal and real estate experts who spoke to Realtor.com.Here are renters rights:Landlords are required to provide essential services, including adequate heat and hot water, as part of their duty to ensure the premises remain habitable.

That being said, the legality of this scenario in the U.S.varies depending on location.A photo of the tenant’s alleged locked-up thermostat was uploaded by Reddit user Nebualaxy on Feb.

2.As of this reporting, the photo has received 12,000 upvotes.Clearly, a nerve was touched.The thermostat was sealed in a transparent lockbox with a keyed lock, preventing the tenant from modifying the temperature.Nebualaxy wrote: “Landlord locked the thermostat in the middle of winter to ‘prevent’ the boiler losing pressure.

It still drops pressure leaving us without heating or hot water every few days.”This photo was uploaded from the U.K., where this does indeed happen to be illegal.“Under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 in the U.K., landlords must keep heating and hot water systems in good repair and working order,” says Aleks Grigoriev, a real estate expert from Sell House Fast DC.But what if this happened in the U.S.?Landlord Sergio Aguinaga, founder of Michigan Houses for Cash in Lincoln Park, MI, says, “Where I live in Detroit, I have to provide heat and hot water for my tenants.So locking a thermostat is against the law.”“Deliberately disabling access to essential services such as heat and hot water may violate a landlord’s duty to provide a habitable living environment,” says attorney Chad D.

Cummings, of Cummings & Cummings Law in Florida and Texas. “While the precise legality depends on the ...