Real Estate Detective Work or AC UNIT Went OUT...What do I do?

So this morning, one of my sellers called telling me that AC unit in the condo that she is renting for the summer went out a few days ago and nobody came out to fix it after numerous phone calls. "What do I do? I don't want to pay rent for the unit with no AC working. It's summer... It's hot in Florida" she said. The voice mail of the property management lady says that she is out of the office with no specific date of when she will be back.  My friend doesn't know the address of the property management company. Don't you just love that when it happens to you?

"Well," I told her "I am not an attorney to give you legal advise, but anything that has to do with the law usually has to be done in writing, so you will most likely have to notify your landlord in writing about this issue. Let me look up this stuff online through http://www.planetrealtor.com/ and I'll call you back."

Here is what I found from Planet Realtor website when it comes to Landlord/Tenant Law:

Q: Suppose a tenant and landlord entered into a residential lease that requires the landlord to maintain the air conditioning unit. The tenant reports that the unit isn't working but the landlord refuses to fix it. Is there a Florida law regarding the length of time that a landlord has in which to make repairs to appliances such as an air conditioner? 

A: No. However, the parties may address this issue in detail in their lease. If the lease merely obligates the landlord to repair the air conditioning unit, the tenant may still have some relief. He or she will have to comply with Section 83.56(1), Florida Statutes, which advises, in part, that "if the landlord materially fails to comply with ... material provisions of the rental agreement within seven days after delivery of written notice by the tenant specifying the noncompliance and indicating the intention of the tenant to terminate the rental agreement by reason thereof, the tenant may terminate the rental agreement." 

Then, I called my friend back and told her that yes, she has to notify her landlord in writing about the issue, and if no response is presented within seven days, she could break the leasing agreement.

Well that's great!... Except she doesn't have the property management company's address to send certified letter about that AC. I told her no worries. Here is what you do:

1. Check the lease agreement to see if there is specific time requirement about the repairs on the appliances. If there are none, follow Florida Law. Mail the certified letter.
2. To find the address of the landlord either of the following things should help:
• Go to http://www.whitepages.com/ and search for the landlord's name, phone number, name of the property management company if that doesn't work go to plan B.
• Plan B: In the search engine browser type bla-bla county property appraiser, which will lead to that county's public records site, where you can search by name or property address tax information. The tax information contains legal owner's name and address. Once you know their name you can go back to http://www.whitepages.com/ to get their phone number to notify the legal owner of the current situation that you are facing.

She did exactly that and got all the information she needs to start the process.

The point of this story is to illustrate that sometimes being in real estate involves a bit of a detective work. Second, if you don't get the answers that you want or don't get the answers at all, switch the information source and get the answers that you can do something about. Like Tony Robbins said, " It is not that we don't know the right answers, it is just that we don't ask the right questions."