There is a specific process when it comes to witholding rent that must be followed in order for it to work in your favor; otherwise it’ll simply count as non-payment of rent and more or less wind up shooting yourselves in the foot, giving the landlord everything they need to legally evict you and whoever else refrains from paying.

 

Generally you will need some documentation to show that this is not your first resort for the problem, demonstrating that you have attempted to communicate with the landlord about these issues multiple times and that they haven’t held up their end of things.

It needs to be communicated in advance that you will be withholding rent along with the specific reasons for your grievances, as well as the resolutions you are seeking, so that there is a course of action specified within a certain timeframe that they could take to prevent the withholding from being necessary.

 

Then, if they still don’t fix the issues, and you have ample documentation to prove they’ve not been holding up their end of the lease, call inspectional to back you up and confirm what’s going wrong on record. If that’s still not enough to light a fire under the LL’s ass, you can put the rent money in escrow, showing you have the funds and intend to pay once the problems are fixed.

 

Do note, I am not a legal expert, nor are most others here, and I’d strongly recommend speaking to one if you plan on going through with actually withholding rent, since that’s pretty much the nuclear option when it comes to your relationship with the landlord, and could very easily backfire if you don’t get all the details just right.