Repair and maintenance of property

(1) Notwithstanding any agreement in writing to the contrary, the landlord and the tenant shall keep the premises in as good a condition as at the commencement of the tenancy, except for normal wear and tear, and shall respectively be responsible to repair and maintain the said premises as specified in the Second Schedule or as agreed to in the tenancy agreement. (2) In case of common facilities shared among the tenants or with the landlord, the respective responsibilities of the tenant and landlord to repair and maintain those facilities shall be such as may be specified in the tenancy agreement. (3) If the tenant fails or refuses to carry out the repairs referred to in sub-section (1) or sub-section (2), the landlord may carry out the repairs or remove the additional structure erected by tenant without consent of landlord and deduct the amount incurred for such repairs or removal as the case may be, from the security deposit and the amount so deducted shall be paid by the tenant within a period of one month of issue of notice by the landlord in that regard: Provided that if the cost for such repairs exceed the security deposit, the tenant shall be liable to pay the excess cost including the security deposit so deducted to the landlord within a period of one month of the issue of notice by the landlord in that regard. (4) In case the landlord refuses to carry out the repairs referred to in sub-section (1) or sub-section (2), the tenant may carry out such repairs and deduct the expenditure incurred towards the same from the rent to be paid for the succeeding months: Provided that in no case the deduction from rent in any one month shall exceed fifty per cent of the agreed rent for a month. (5) Where the premises is uninhabitable without the repairs and the landlord refuses to carry out the required repairs, after being called upon by the tenant in writing to do so, the tenant may abandon the premises after giving the landlord fifteen days notice in writing. (6) Where the premises let out on rent becomes uninhabitable for the tenant due to an event of force majeure or the tenant is unable to reside due to occurrence of such event, the landlord shall not charge rent from the tenant until the said premises is restored by the landlord, subject to the provisions of this section, to be inhabitable: Provided that where the rented premises becomes uninhabitable as specified in sub-section (5) or this sub-section and the landlord... fails to carry out the required repairs to make it inhabitable or the said premises could not be made inhabitable, then, the security deposit and advance rent shall be refunded by the landlord to the tenant within a period of fifteen days of the expiry of the notice period, after making due deduction of liability of the tenant, if any. Explanation.–– For the purposes of this section, “force majeure” means a situation of war, flood, drought, fire, cyclone, earthquake or any other calamity caused by nature affecting the habitation of the tenant in the premises let out on rent.