As temperatures heat up, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes is reminding tenants of their rights under state law if the air conditioner in their rental unit needs repairs.
“In the case of an outage, landlords and management companies must take swift action to ensure residents have safe and habitable living conditions in accordance with the law,” Mayes said in a statement issued Tuesday. “Landlords should be on notice that I will not hesitate to enforce these critical protections for Arizonans because adequate air conditioning is a matter of life and death in Arizona’s summer heat.”
There were 602 heat-related deaths in Maricopa County in 2024, according to Maricopa County Public Health. Of those, 23% occurred indoors. In most indoor heat death cases, air conditioning was present, but not functioning.
The state’s Landlord Tenant Act requires landlords to keep appliances like air conditioners in working order to keep a space safe to occupy. Some cities have even more specific requirements. In Phoenix, for example, landlords are required by a city ordinance to provide a cooling system in good working order. It must cool the space to at least 82 degrees if it’s an air conditioner, or 86 degrees if it’s an evaporative cooler.
Mayes recommends renters notify their landlord in writing if a repair is needed. If temperatures outside are above 100 degrees, the landlord should respond within five days.
“They have up to five days to fix the issue, which may mean providing a new air conditioning unit, calling in a repair team, or otherwise bringing your indoor temperature down to legally acceptable limits,” the statement said.
If the repair is not made within the required window, Mayes says tenants may be able to terminate the lease, sue for damages or arrange the repair themselves and deduct the cost from their rent, depending on the circumstances.
Mayes said tenants may also file a consumer complaint through her office in cases where landlords fail to make necessary repairs.
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