Quiet enjoyment

The covenant of quiet enjoyment is a legal doctrine — implied in every residential lease in nearly every state — that gives the tenant the right to use and enjoy the rental free from unreasonable interference. "Quiet" doesn’t literally mean silent; it means undisturbed in the legal sense.

The covenant is breached when the landlord (or another party for whom the landlord is responsible) substantially interferes with the tenant’s use of the property. Examples: a landlord entering without proper notice; the landlord cutting off utilities; the landlord moving belongings out of the unit; harassment; persistent failure to fix conditions that make the unit unusable. Some jurisdictions extend the covenant to interference by other tenants the landlord could have prevented (chronic noise from a neighbor the landlord refuses to address, for instance).

The covenant is connected to but distinct from the warranty of habitability. Habitability is about safety and livability — heat, water, structure. Quiet enjoyment is about interference and use. A unit can be habitable but still subject to a quiet-enjoyment claim (a landlord harassing the tenant over rent payments that are current, for instance), and vice versa.

Remedies for breach typically mirror habitability remedies: rent withholding, damages, or in extreme cases constructive eviction (treating the lease as terminated and moving out). A persistent quiet-enjoyment problem with documentation is one of the cleaner ways to break a lease without further obligation.