Tenant with holding rent in FL

My husband and I moved in May 8th to a condo. The landlord lives in Italy and I have only dealt with the property manager. We paid 3 months upfront and during the first week of move in, we were without power for 3 days and our refrigerator would not stay cold (with power back on). We discussed deducting money from rent with 2 different people from the management company and sent an e-mail to the landlord. They accepted the deduction and no one has spoken anything about it.

Our refrigerator still was not working and was completely off for two weeks in July. We lived out of coolers! The refrigerator is brand new and under warranty but the property manager and the repairmen could not fix it for 2 weeks. For August's rent, we deducted two weeks. My husband wrote an e-mail to the landlord about this deduction and copied everyone at the management office about it July 24th. We sent the check with a statement of what we were deducting and they received it on Tuesday the 4th. Now it is Thursday the 6th, and we were informed the management company is changing names and there is a new place to send the rent check. My husband called to see if we need to write a new check (our rent is due on the 8th) and thats when the property manager told him that we have to be authorized by the landlord to deduct rent. They, so far, make no attempt to contact us about anything.


The landlord has been informed through out the whole process and never once has he responded to myself or my husbands e-mails.

Should we pay the full amount today and then request for a deduction in September for the 2 weeks so it will be 'authorized?'?

Is this legal? When the landlord does not contact the tenant about rent issues, is it wrong for the tenant to deduct rent provided all the services and the repairs on the refrigerator are provided?

[sunlover]

There are laws on when and how you can deduct monies from rent. You need to talk with a Tenant/Landlord Attorney on the legalities (if any) for rent deductions. Some states do not allow this. If you just go ahead and do so you could face evcition

You cannot deduct 2 weeks of rent (half the rent) because one appliance didn't work during that period. You are entitled to a rent credit, but certainly not half of your rent. Your unit was not uninhabitable for those 2 weeks without a fridge. You lived there for that period. You have to pay rent for the period. What you are entitled to is either the dollar amount of food that spoiled from the lack of refrigeration during that time, plus some extra money for your trouble or, had you rented a fridge for this period, the price of the two weeks of rent for it from the rental center. You cannot just not pay rent for those weeks based on one appliance's failure.

Pay the rent due, then negotiate a rent credit with the LL or manager for the period when you had no use of this appliance. Take it off next month's rent.

Thank you very much!