A sample letter to your landlord requesting repairs

LawHelpNY, a legal-aid resource, provides something deceptively valuable: a free, fill-in-the-blank letter for asking your landlord to make repairs. The template prompts you to include the essentials — your name, the date, the property address, your signature, a clear description of each problem, and any earlier requests — in a polite tone, with the crucial instruction to keep a copy for your records.

The reason a written request matters is that it starts the clock and creates evidence. Most tenant remedies — withholding rent, repair-and-deduct, going to court — depend on having first notified the landlord in a way you can prove. The weak link is usually the description of the problem itself: “the fridge isn’t working” is far less useful than a precise account of the fault. OwnWise strengthens exactly that part — describe the symptom and it pins down the likely failure, whether it’s an urgent health-or-safety issue, and what a fair repair should cost, so your letter documents a specific, credible problem rather than a vague complaint.

Use the template to create the paper trail; use OwnWise to make sure the problem it describes is precise enough to act on.