Maintenance of Premises — Responsibilities

Few tenancy disputes are as routine — or as bitterly fought — as the question of who must pay to keep the premises in working order. The Uttar Pradesh Regulation of Urban Premises Tenancy Act, 2021 (in force from 11 January 2021, replacing the U.P. Urban Buildings Act, 1972) answers this with an unusually precise architecture: a statutory default in Section 15, a itemised division of labour in the Second Schedule, and a self-help remedy that lets each side cure the other's default without first running to court. This note maps that scheme, the remedies that police it, and the older Transfer of Property Act baseline against which the reform must be read.

The statutory scheme: Section 15 and the contract-override

Section 15(1) of the Act is the anchor. It provides that, 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 premises as specified in the Second Schedule or as agreed to in the tenancy agreement. Two design choices stand out. First, the duty to preserve the baseline condition is mandatory and cannot be contracted out of. Second, the allocation of who does what is a default that the parties may rewrite — the Schedule fills the gap only where the written tenancy agreement is silent. The Act therefore favours freedom of contract on allocation while ring-fencing the irreducible obligation that neither party may let the premises deteriorate beyond fair wear and tear. This mirrors the broader balance struck across the statute's catalogue of rights and duties of landlord and tenant.

The Second Schedule: drawing the line between Part A and Part B

The Second Schedule operationalises Section 15 by splitting maintenance into two lists. Part A — Responsibilities of the Landlord covers the structural and capital-intensive work: structural repairs (except those necessitated by damage caused by the tenant), whitewashing of walls and painting of doors and windows, changing and plumbing of pipes when necessary, and internal and external electrical wiring and related maintenance when necessary. Part B — Periodic Repairs to be Got Done by the Tenant covers wear-and-tear items: changing of tap washers and taps, drain cleaning, water-closet, wash-basin, bath-tub and geyser repairs, circuit-breaker, switch and socket repairs, repair and replacement of electrical equipment (except major wiring), kitchen-fixture repairs, replacement of knobs and locks, fly-nets and glass panels, and maintenance of gardens or open spaces used by the tenant. The logic is intuitive: the owner funds repairs that protect the long-term value of the asset, while the occupier funds the consumable upkeep generated by daily use. The carve-out in Part A — structural repairs except those caused by the tenant — preserves accountability where the tenant's own conduct breaks the structure. A practical point of friction is classification: whether a given defect is a Part A structural repair or a Part B periodic repair often determines who pays, and the Schedule's drafting deliberately resolves the common cases by name (a leaking tap washer is the tenant's; a burst supply pipe requiring re-plumbing is the landlord's). Where an item is genuinely ambiguous, the Section 15(1) default points back to the agreement, so a well-advised party will reproduce or refine the Schedule in the contract rather than leave the question to a later inquiry. Note too that Section 15(2) deals separately with common facilities shared among tenants or with the landlord — lifts, staircases, shared water tanks — leaving their repair allocation entirely to the tenancy agreement, because the Schedule is built around a single demised unit rather than shared building services.

The tenant's affirmative duty: Section 16

Section 16 imposes a positive standard of care on the tenant during the subsistence of the tenancy. The tenant shall not intentionally or negligently damage the premises or permit such damage; shall inform the landlord in writing of any damage; and shall take reasonable care of the premises and its contents, including fittings and fixtures, keeping it reasonably habitable having regard to its condition at the commencement of tenancy and the normal incidence of living. This codifies what the general law of leases had long implied. Under Section 108(m) of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882, the lessee is bound to keep, and on termination to restore, the property in as good a condition as when he took possession, subject to reasonable wear and tear and irresistible force, and to give notice of any defect. Section 16 carries that duty into the new regime in plainer language, and the written-notice-of-damage requirement dovetails with the landlord's repair obligations under Part A — the landlord cannot be faulted for failing to repair a defect of which he was never told.

When the tenant defaults: landlord cures and recovers from the deposit

Section 15(3) supplies the landlord's self-help remedy. If the tenant fails or refuses to carry out repairs for which it is responsible under sub-section (1) or (2), the landlord may carry out those repairs and deduct the amount incurred from the security deposit; the deducted amount must then be paid back by the tenant within one month of the landlord's notice. The proviso adds teeth: if the cost of repairs exceeds the security deposit, the tenant must pay the excess — including the deposit so consumed — within one month of notice. This neatly interlocks with the statutory cap on the security deposit: the deposit is the first port of call for the landlord's repair claims, but it is not a ceiling on the tenant's underlying liability for damage it caused. The one-month repayment window, triggered by written notice, gives the mechanism a defined timeline rather than leaving recovery to open-ended litigation.

When the landlord defaults: repair-and-deduct and the 50% rent cap

The symmetry is completed by Section 15(4). Where the landlord refuses to carry out the repairs it is bound to make, the tenant may carry them out and deduct the expenditure from the rent payable for the succeeding months — but the proviso caps the deduction at fifty per cent of the agreed monthly rent in any one month. This is the statutory descendant of Section 108(f) of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882, under which a lessee, after notice and the lessor's neglect to repair within a reasonable time, may make the repairs himself and deduct the expense with interest from the rent or otherwise recover it. The Act's innovation is the 50% monthly ceiling, which protects the landlord's cash-flow against a single large set-off while still allowing the tenant a real, court-free remedy spread across months. The repair-and-deduct device thus runs in both directions — deposit for the landlord, rent for the tenant — keeping minor maintenance disputes out of the Rent Authority entirely.

Uninhabitable premises: abandonment and force majeure

Section 15 also addresses the extreme case where repair failure renders the premises unfit to live in. Under Section 15(5), where the premises is uninhabitable without repairs and the landlord refuses to carry them out after being called upon in writing, the tenant may abandon the premises after giving the landlord fifteen days' notice in writing. Section 15(6) deals with force majeure: where the let premises becomes uninhabitable due to a force majeure event, or the tenant is unable to reside because of such an event, the landlord shall not charge rent until the premises is restored to a habitable condition. A common proviso to both situations protects the tenant's money — where the premises becomes uninhabitable under sub-section (5) or (6) and the landlord fails to make it habitable, the security deposit and advance rent must be refunded within fifteen days of expiry of the notice period, after due deduction of the tenant's liabilities, if any. These provisions import a statutory implied warranty of habitability into UP tenancy law, giving the tenant both an exit and a refund where the landlord's inaction makes the bargain worthless.

Essential supply or service: the Section 20 prohibition

Maintenance has a hard floor that no contract can lower: Section 20(1) provides that no landlord or property manager shall, by himself or through any other person, withhold any essential supply or service in the premises occupied by the tenant. The Explanation defines essential services broadly — supply of water, electricity, piped cooking gas, lights in passages, lifts, staircase, conservancy, parking, communication links and sanitary services. This codifies a principle Indian courts had already entrenched. In Dilip v. Satish, 2022 LiveLaw (SC) 570 (also reported as 2022 SCC OnLine SC 810), the Supreme Court held that electricity is a basic amenity of which a person cannot be deprived, and that it cannot be declined to a tenant merely because the landlord refuses to issue a no-objection certificate — the supply authority need only verify that the applicant is in occupation. The Karnataka High Court in Noble Plastic Industry v. Karnataka Power Transmission Corpn. Ltd., 2000 SCC OnLine Kar 432, held that so long as the tenant occupies the premises and there are no electricity arrears, disconnection by the landlord is impermissible. Section 20 converts this case-law into a clear statutory bar, removing the temptation to use utility cut-offs as a self-help eviction tool.

Enforcing the essential-supply bar before the Rent Authority

Section 20 backs the prohibition with a fast remedy. On a tenant's application alleging breach of sub-section (1), the Rent Authority, after examining the matter, may pass an interim order directing immediate restoration of the essential supply on service of the order, pending inquiry (Section 20(2)). The Authority must complete the inquiry within one month of the application (Section 20(3)). On a finding of breach, it may, after a hearing, award compensation not exceeding two months' rent against the person responsible for the withholding, to compensate the loss (Section 20(4)); conversely, it may levy a penalty not exceeding twice the monthly rent on the tenant if the application was frivolous or vexatious (Section 20(5)). The two-sided penalty structure is deliberate: it gives genuine victims an interim restoration order within days and a monetary award within a month, while deterring tenants from weaponising the provision through baseless complaints. High Courts have reinforced the substantive principle — see Sudharshan Kumar Sharma v. State (NCT of Delhi), 2022 SCC OnLine Del 3720, treating electricity as an essential service that cannot be withdrawn without lawful justification. Three procedural features deserve attention. First, the interim restoration order operates the moment it is served, so the tenant need not wait for the full inquiry to regain water or power — the remedy is designed to neutralise the cut-off before it can coerce a vacatur. Second, the compensation is capped at two months' rent and is compensatory rather than punitive, calibrated to the loss a typical short disruption inflicts. Third, the frivolous-complaint penalty signals that the Authority is expected to test the genuineness of the allegation, not rubber-stamp it, which protects landlords against tactical applications filed to delay legitimate recovery proceedings. Read together, Section 20's five sub-sections form a self-contained, time-boxed code for the single most common pressure tactic in tenancy disputes.

The constitutional and habitability overlay

The maintenance provisions do not operate in a vacuum; they sit atop a constitutional baseline. The Madras High Court in Cosmo Towers Owners' Assn. v. Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board, 2009 SCC OnLine Mad 957, held that disconnection of water supply offends the right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution, which has long been read to include access to basic amenities. Section 20 of the UP Act and the habitability protections of Section 15(5)–(6) can thus be understood as statutory expressions of the same constitutional value: a tenant in lawful occupation is entitled to a dwelling that is fit to live in and connected to the essential services that make habitation possible. For the exam candidate, the lesson is that the Act's maintenance scheme is not merely contractual housekeeping — it is the point at which private tenancy law meets the fundamental-rights guarantee, and the Rent Authority is the front-line forum for vindicating it.

How the new scheme differs from the old law

It is worth situating Section 15 against what came before. Under the Transfer of Property Act, 1882, repair allocation turned on Sections 108(f) and 108(m), which gave the lessee a repair-and-deduct remedy but left the substantive split largely to the contract and to the vague standard of "repairs which the lessor is bound to make." The repealed U.P. Urban Buildings Act, 1972, focused heavily on rent control and eviction, with maintenance handled obliquely. The 2021 Act, drawing on the Centre's Model Tenancy Act, 2021, supplies what both lacked: an itemised, published Schedule, a capped and bidirectional repair-and-deduct mechanism, a habitability exit, and a dedicated essential-supply remedy with statutory timelines. The result is a far more predictable framework — one that reduces the interpretive work courts previously had to do under Section 108. To see why the legislature opted for codified clarity over judicial gap-filling, read the note on the object and modern tenancy reform on the hub at UP Urban Premises Tenancy Act notes.

Practical takeaways and drafting points

Three points bear emphasis for practice and examination. First, allocation is contractual but the duty to preserve condition is not — a tenancy agreement may reassign Schedule items between the parties, but cannot license either side to let the premises decay beyond normal wear and tear. Second, the repair-and-deduct remedies are notice-driven and time-bound: the landlord's recovery from deposit triggers a one-month repayment clock, while the tenant's deduction is capped at 50% of monthly rent — both should be documented in writing to survive a later Rent Authority inquiry. Third, the essential-supply bar in Section 20 is absolute and cannot be used as leverage for rent arrears; a landlord facing default must pursue the eviction and recovery machinery of the Act rather than cutting off water or electricity, on pain of an interim restoration order and compensation of up to two months' rent. A well-drafted agreement will reproduce the Schedule, specify how shared-facility costs are split under Section 15(2), and record the procedure for notice of damage under Section 16(b).