Special commission to study landlord and tenant law begins - but can we expect justice?
There are at least three landlords on the commission, and only one renter.
A special legislative Commission to Study the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act had its first meeting on Thursday at the State House.
The 11-member commission is charged with studying the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act and recommending updates or clarifications to the law as needed. The commission is slated to report back to the House no later than May 5, 2025.
The panel was established by a House resolution (2024-H 8368) introduced by Representative David Morales (Democrat, District 7, Providence), who will also serve on the commission. Oddly, despite the custom that the sponsor of the resolution chairs the commission, Rhode Island Superior Court Justice Christopher Smith was voted into that position and no vice-chair was voted on.
The commission was created to address recent disputes between landlords and tenants involving issues like housing discrimination, maintenance dilemmas, late payments, termination of tenancy, and security deposits. It will also review existing law to determine if any clarifications are needed to modernize the legal language governing the rights and obligations of landlords and tenants.
In addition to Representative Morales and Justice Christopher Smith, the commission members are Represenative Mary Ann Shallcross Smith (Democrat, District 46, Lincoln, Pawtucket) and David Place (Republican District 47, Burrillville, Glocester)'; retired Rhode Island Supreme Court Justice Francis X. Flaherty; cochair of Reclaim Rhode Island Daniel Denvir; Gregory Weiss from the Rhode Island Association of Realtors; Executive Director of the Warwick Housing Authority Julie Finn; Eviction Attorney Steven Conti; Providence City Solicitor Jeff Dana; and RentProv Realty Partner Shannon Elizabeth Weinstein.
Representative Shallcross Smith did not attend the meeting.
Those present introduced themselves and some discussed what they are interested in trying to accomplish:
Justice Smith: I sit on the Rhode Island Superior Court and while not a native of Rhode Island, this is where I consider home with my children. Although I sit on the Superior Court bench, I joined this commission as an individual. I am not, nor have I had the authority to represent and or speak on behalf of the courts. I'm here to provide my independent knowledge of presiding over cases in the district court and [express] other ideas in this complex area.
Areas that I'd like to see discussed and clarified are specifically: We recently passed a sealing bill to remove evictions from people's records. I'd like to see automatic seaings for defective complaints where the court lacks jurisdiction to hear [the case] at the outset. It shouldn't count against a tenant to have a case refiled again later. I'd like to see some more sealing protections for minors and a clarification between no-fault termination of tenancy versus noncompliance termination of tenancy, and the ability for tenants to pay rent without having the landlords reject it because they can't submit a waiver.
Representative Morales: I thank Speaker Shekarchi for being able to collaborate [with me] in terms of being able to establish this commission considering the essential issues that our tenants and landlords across the state are currently experiencing. A lot of these issues are based on what I've observed in my conversations with landlords and tenants, based on lived experience, and most importantly based on some of the testimony that we have heard [in committee].
As a member of the Municipal Government and Housing Committee, I've been able to hear firsthand from tenants and landlords [about] issues related to housing discrimination, code enforcement and the model of governance around code enforcement, the content of lease agreements such as hidden fees and or junk fees, eviction filings, and the leading causes for evictions - termination of tenancies and the governance and enforcement of our existing laws - because over the last several years we have made strides to level the playing field for both landlords and tenants, but there have been moments, unfortunately, where some of these laws have not been fully enforced.
For that reason, I look forward to being able to welcome all the different stakeholders that are involved, organizations like the Center for Justice, Rhode Island Legal Services, municipal officials from inspections and standards, property management company officials, tenant organizers, and of course some of our state agencies that would be responsible for administering some of the policy proposals and recommendations that we hope to establish as a commission, and that includes the Human Rights Commission, the Division of Business Regulation, and the Department of Housing.
I want to also note that given the volume of issues that we seek to address, I'm hoping that this commission can be active between now and going into May as we seek to have a report of policy recommendations. I would recommend that this commission focus on trying to meet twice a month. That way we can maximize the number of stakeholders and members of the general public that can come and share their thoughts and perspectives.
Representative Place: I am one of the three members of the House appointed to this commission. I serve as the Minority Leader's Appointment, and I serve as the Minority Whip. I have been introduced to these issues based on my role on the House Judiciary Committee and I've heard hours of testimony from both sides - both the landlords and the tenants, and I understand that it's very important to people, both in terms of the property rights of the landlords and in terms of the ability to have consistency in where a person lives from day-to-day.
You asked what areas to work on. The first thing that has consistently come to my mind [while] hearing the testimony is that a way to fix this is looking at contractual law, the leases between a tenant and the landlord. It's a contract and getting that contract right and allowing both sides to enforce their legal rights through those contracts is, in my mind, the biggest issue that we're seeing right now.
The second thing is I hope this commission realizes is that there are other industries in this state that in the past have had similar commissions and I don't want the General Assembly to get into the state of mind where we [think] we] can regulate ourselves out of this problem - because we tried that with the nursing home industry and we are in the process of eliminating the mom and pop operations that provided that service. From the testimony I've heard on the House Health and Human Services Committee ... the consistencies are scary and we need to be cautious that we don't move so far with regulations and laws that we put our mom-and-pop operators out of business. Because if we do that, we'll be left with one thing: corporate giants and corporate giants don't have emotions. They have lawyers and those lawyers get paid to do one thing and that's to litigate. The group that can save this are the mom-and-pop operators, the immigrants that saved to buy their first three-family tenant building as an investment property. Those are the people that can solve this problem. That's my three cents.
Daniel Denvir: I'm a co-chair of Reclaim Rhode Island, a housing justice and tenant rights group here in Rhode Island. We do a lot of different things around housing and tenant rights. We organize the tenants of some of the worst landlords in the state, landlords that you've probably read about in the Providence Journal or Boston Globe - Pioneer Investments and Elmwood Realty. We organize low-income tenants to fight back against atrocious conditions, the lead poisoning of children, and arbitrary rent hikes and evictions. We also advocate for housing policies, both in terms of tenant rights but also in terms of the housing market, like the public developer, which has been authorized as part of this fall's housing bond (which we're really excited about.)
As we see it, it's a three-pronged crisis for tenants in Rhode Island. There's a cost crisis. Rent has skyrocketed in the Providence Metro area - higher and faster, I believe, than any other metro in the country. Costs are out of control, rent is out of control. There's a conditions crisis. Lead is the number one issue because it irreparably harms children and we encounter lead poisoned children constantly in our work - but there are also all kinds of other conditions and issues that need to be addressed.
Then [there is the] security of tenancy, the fact that tenants face arbitrary evictions - and especially for poor tenants, single moms holding down two full-time jobs trying to protect their kids from lead poisoning and then suddenly kicked out because they complain. That happens all the time. Things we'd like to look at on this commission as Reclaim Rhode Island on this commission - measures to control rent, protections against arbitrary eviction, and measures to protect the tenant's right to organize tenants' unions against the rampant retaliation that tenants always face when they take that step.
Solicitor Dana: In addition to the near decade of experience I have working for the city, I bring to the commission several years, working as an attorney for Rhode Island Legal Services where my focus was on tenants' rights and consumer rights. I'm honored to be part of this commission to work on a task that, as folks have already mentioned, is very difficult but also of incredible importance to the State of Rhode Island. We are fortunate that there are so many individuals and organizations within the state that focus on this topic and related issues in housing [who] I'm sure will be able to work with us as a commission and help us produce something worthwhile and helpful.
Gregory Weiss: I'm a realtor, property manager, and a landlord [with] about 17 years of experience. I'm here hoping I can bring some of that real-world experience and share that point of view to improve landlord/tenant relations and many of the obstacles we've heard about [and] maybe do it in a fair way. Maybe there are ways we can help landlords come into compliance - especially with the lead issues that we heard about. I'm not a believer in rent control, but I hear the stories about people arbitrarily getting removed from their apartment and that's something I think we could hear more about.
Shannon Weinstein: I'm from RentProv Realty. I've been a realtor, property manager, and landlord for 18 years. I'm happy to be working with everyone here. A lot of the points raised so far are valid and I think we should be looking into them. As far as the lead law goes, as Greg said, I agree that something has to be done to help landlords get into compliance and to get the word out as there is a lot of misunderstanding as to what's expected right now. Other states are doing things to help people come into compliance and I think that's something worth looking at. Aside from that, I'd like to see the landlord-tenant relationship improve. We'd like to arrive at a place where both landlords and tenants can work together to move forward and understand the expectations on both sides. Misinformation and misunderstandings have led to increased hostility that affects both sides of the equation. We would like to aim at the root cause of these problems and study any proposal that would address the root cause of the problem, such as increasing housing inventory and making it easier to find a home when problems do arise. As Greg said, I do not believe that rent control is the answer, but I think there are other things that we could do to attack the root cause that is causing the complaint of needing rent control.
Attorney Conti: I've lived in Rhode Island all my life and an attorney for about 35 years. Right now I exclusively do landlord-tenant law. Most of you know I'm pretty fair across the board when I try to negotiate something. What I try to do when I get to court is I don't try to push either side either way. I try to get a fair outcome. Most landlords just want their money. They don't necessarily want the person out. But my intent in being here is to clean [the legislation] up a little bit. The problem we have as attorneys is that every time you go in front of a judge you get a different decision. There's no uniformity. It's more subjective than objective as it should be. If we clean up the statutes a bit and make them more specific, then we can get more of a uniform law.
I also advise all my clients to get written rental agreements, so when we get to court, there's no argument about who's paying the utilities, how much the rent is, and when it's due, so it makes things run a bit smoother on both sides.
Also, I assume on this board, when we get the new resolutions or people try to submit new landlord-tenant acts, we would review them and hopefully word them to a point that it's good for both sides because some of these that came through last year, they were so lopsided that I can see why they failed because I don't think they had much input from people on my side of the street, whether it be mom-and-pop landlords or - I'm also a landlord myself and I've been doing this forever. So again, just clean it up, and be fair on both sides. That's what I'm going to try to do with my position here.
Director Finn: I'm the Executive Director of the Public Housing Authority. I've been with the authority for 20 years. I'm a lifelong Rhode Islander, and I hope I can bring something to the table.
Justice Flaherty: I'm a retired judge from the Rhode Island Supreme Court and former Mayor of Warwick... On the Supreme Court, we didn't get a lot of landlord-tenant cases. I can't say I'm well-founded in that law. I do know that it's a problem [because I] read the paper, follow the legislature, and watch some of it on television.
You're dealing with one of the necessities of life. It's heat, food, and shelter. I look forward to serving. I've been around in government since the mid-seventies. Legislative commissions are usually where ideas go to die. You sent it into a commission and nothing ever happens again. With the current Speaker, there's been some good legislation that has come out of commissions, so when the Apeaker asked me to serve, I was glad to do it. This is a very important issue and whatever I can lend by either legal expertise or history of government in Rhode Island ... I look forward to serving with every one of you.
Author’s note: In my experience, the makeup of these commissions - in terms of who is sitting on them - generally determines the outcomes. With three members, Weiss, Weinstein, and Conti firmly on the side of landlords, and only two that can be confidently thought to sincerely represent the interests of renters (as opposed to maintaining a faux neutrality], the outcome is weighted towards mild reform at best, and at worst at tightening of the law in favor of landlords. Note also that there are at least three landlords on the commission, and only one renter: Representative Morales. There are only two people of color on the committee: Morales and Judge Smith. There was talk about low-income, single, working moms, but they were not in the room. On balance, I would be surprised if Conti, Weiss, and Weinstein fail to get everything they want.
Here’s the video:
I find it odd that they don't have a small landlord on there, someone who is an owner occupant with 1 or 2 units. Those large landlords don't represent all of us.
Thanks, Steve. Very helpful assessment. It does seem that renters are very outnumbered. Not surprising!