All guides — page 5
Everything on the site, grouped by section. Use the search box or the section index to narrow it down.
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Renting & City Housing
Rent Control and Rent Stabilization: How the Systems Differ
Three different systems get called rent control. This explainer separates old-style hard ceilings, board-set stabilization with renewal rights, and newer statewide anti-gouging caps.
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Renting & City Housing
Renting With a Housing Voucher and Source-of-Income Rules
Whether a landlord may refuse a housing voucher depends on state and local law, not federal law. Here is how a voucher tenancy works and where the legal lines fall.
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Renting & City Housing
Roommates, Co-Tenants, and Who Owes the Rent
When several people sign one lease, each usually owes the entire rent rather than a share. This explainer covers co-tenants, subtenants, exits, deposits and roommate disputes.
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Renting & City Housing
Storage of a Tenant's Belongings After a Move-Out
Property left behind is usually not the landlord's to keep or throw away. State statutes set the notice, the storage period, the cost recovery, and the sale procedure.
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Renting & City Housing
Subletting and Assignment: Getting Permission Properly
Subletting keeps you on the lease and liable; assignment transfers the rest of the term. This how-to covers consent standards, the written request, refusals and the paperwork.
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Renting & City Housing
Tenant Organizing and Retaliation Protections
Complaining to a code office or forming a tenant group is protected activity in most states, and an adverse action that follows too closely can be presumed retaliatory.
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Neighbors & Community
Block Parties, Street Closures, and Neighborhood Events
A block party normally needs a temporary street closure permit issued by the city, with neighbor consent, an approved traffic plan, and conditions on noise, food, and drink.
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Neighbors & Community
Community Gardens and Vacant Lot Use
A community garden needs a documented right to occupy the land, a zoning use that permits it, tested soil, a water source, and insurance before the first bed goes in.
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Neighbors & Community
Drainage, Runoff, and Water Damage Between Properties
Surface water disputes are decided by one of three state doctrines. Nearly all of them turn on whether someone artificially changed the flow rather than on where water naturally goes.
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Neighbors & Community
Fences, Boundary Walls, and Who Pays
Boundary fence cost sharing comes from state partition fence statutes in some states and from local ordinance in others, with height and purpose limits layered on top.
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Neighbors & Community
Home-Based Businesses in Residential Neighborhoods
Residential zoning usually permits a home occupation that stays subordinate to living there, with limits on visits, signage, nonresident employees, and outdoor storage.
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Neighbors & Community
Light Trespass, Security Cameras, and Neighbor Privacy
Cameras pointed at public space are usually lawful; aiming at a neighbor's private areas is not. Audio recording and glare from floodlights follow different rules again.