Tenant advocates offer changes to the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act at State House Commission

"I got self-help evicted by one landlord who never fixed anything and ended up renting from an even worse landlord who never fixes anything," said Tenant Organizer James Field.

The Special Legislative Commission to Study and Provide Recommendations to update and clarify the “Residential Landlord and Tenant Act” met last Thursday, November 14th, at the Rhode Island State House. The Commission has been a slow starter, and in many ways, this was the first meeting of real substance. 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 to the House no later than May 5, 2025.

At this meeting, panelists were invited to present the experiences of tenants and landlords. Below, I’ve transcribed the testimony of those advocating for tenants. You can watch the full video here, which includes all the testimony and the commission members’ questions and comments.

James Field, Tenant Organizer, Reclaim RI

I’m a lifelong Rhode Islander and a lifelong renter. I’m an organizer with Reclaim Rhode Island and the Rhode Island Tenants Union, a new statewide organization of tenants fighting for dignity and stability in our homes. I’m glad to be before you today, as your collective mission to update our State’s Landlord Tenant Act is critical.

Consumer Affairs ranks Rhode Island as the third worst state in the nation for renters. Considering that our housing stock is very old, the vacancy rate is low, and our Landlord Tenant Act hasn’t fundamentally been changed since I was born, very low vacancy rates mean tenants have nowhere else to go, and landlords know it. Meanwhile, landlords in Rhode Island hold significant power and discretion to evict tenants and terminate tenancies, even those who consistently pay rent and adhere to their lease agreements. All of this, combined with a very old housing stock, means poor and working-class Rhode Islanders are afraid of evictions and, with nowhere else to go, end up paying ever-increasing market rents for unhealthy and unsafe apartments.

The status quo of our outdated law is intolerable and unjust. I know this firsthand. About two and a half years ago, I was forced out of a two-bedroom house I rented in Warwick with my parents. Nothing had been updated From when we moved in to when we left. The windows were old single-pane windows covered in lead paint. Our heating bill was astronomical since there was no insulation and there were rodents from the first night we slept there. As a result, I had to make constant phone calls to get the lawn mowed, remove the rodents, have adequate heat, or replace the lead paint-covered windows. Despite these efforts, only the lawn was addressed, forcing us to live in deplorable conditions.

Then, my aging mother was forced out of her job and had no other option but to retire early, and despite my dad and I working full-time, my mom losing her job left us unable to pay the full rent. Even after explaining the situation to our landlord and many efforts to take on another job, we were immediately told that we could leave on our own or he would evict us. If that was not enough, a member of the landlord’s family came by a few days later and was very aggressive and confrontational towards my mother about paying or leaving. This caused my mother to have a mental breakdown and sent her into a spiral. She ended up in Bradley Senior Psychiatric Ward for an anguishing four-week stay. During that time, my father and I were forced to find a new apartment as my mother did not feel safe going back to that apartment after the hostile incident my family experienced.

Let’s be clear: that was a self-help eviction. If we had mediation or fair litigation of our case, we would’ve been able to catch up on our rent and get abatements for the bad conditions we had been forced to live with. Instead, we had very little time, which led me to find a three-bedroom in West Warwick. We were living paycheck to paycheck, and it was the cheapest place I could find at the time at $1650 a month. While I didn’t know it when we moved in, I soon learned that my new landlord, Pioneer Investments, was being sued by the Attorney General for failing to comply with lead safety laws and for lead poisoning numerous children.

That’s right. I got self-help evicted by one landlord who never fixed anything and ended up renting from an even worse landlord who never fixes anything, one whose face was plastered all over the news because he’s being prosecuted by the highest law enforcement in our State for failing to maintain his units and still collecting market rent from my family and hundreds of others across Rhode Island.

That is the definition of a slumlord - a landlord who maximizes the profit of substandard and uninhabitable apartments despite the valid concerns of their tenants.

To illustrate the conditions in my home, an original pipe in the bathroom is disconnected but still actively leaks. We clean it constantly and are told nothing can be done about it. The subfloor in the kitchen is concrete and not level, so the LVT placed over it cracks and breaks at every dip in the floor. This has become a hazard for my elderly parents, who have already tripped multiple times. Even though it’s dangerous, I haven’t complained because I’m afraid my rent will go up or I will get evicted. I’m not alone in these experiences. I’ve been organizing with Reclaim and the Rhode Island Tenants Union for the last year. I could keep you here for the rest of the evening telling you horror stories.

I’ve heard from ordinary Rhode Islanders around the State. I recently spoke with a woman who worked as a nurse until an autoimmune disease disabled her. She lived in her car for three years until she got a voucher and moved into her apartment. Her bedroom window leaks every time it rains, causing serious mold problems. Her apartment is infested with mice. She stopped keeping anything on her counters and in certain cabinets and still finds droppings on them. The mold and droppings have caused breathing problems and multiple trips to the hospital and doctors. She even told me she felt safer when she was homeless, living in her car. She’s not crazy to think that mold and other housing conditions worsened her health problems. A 2022 study in the Lancet analyzed 11,000 asthma-related ER visits in New Haven and found that not only were poor housing conditions correlated with those ER visits, but those ER visits could reliably predict whether a building would fail a housing inspection. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35907420/

Let that sink in. The housing crisis is a public health crisis, and that woman couldn’t even get code officials to do an inspection, much less get the landlord to address the serious concerns.

An elderly and disabled gentleman fell behind on his rent after his wife passed away, with whom he split rent. He was not able to get into income-based housing before he was evicted. He was relegated to living in his car and paying for storage for his stuff with no outlook of having a home. If he’d had a little help getting through a rough patch, he could have paid his rent with his disability check and avoided homelessness. However, the landlord raises the rent by 10% or more every year, meaning his existence on a fixed income puts a target on his back.

One night, we knocked on the door and asked the woman who opened it about her experience in the apartment. She immediately started weeping hysterically. She said her landlord told her he would evict her if she were seen engaging with tenant organizers. His message was so intimidating that it made her feel unsafe, to the point that she was crying in the doorway of her own home, and he wasn’t even around.

I know that housing insecurity has mental health consequences. I watched my mother be hospitalized because of it. I believe that dignified and stable housing is a human right because everyone must thrive. In Rhode Island, landlord profits take priority over basic human rights as well as public health.

I want to focus on five important protections that this commission should recommend adopting to improve the dire situation of Rhode Island renters.

The first is just cause eviction. Rhode Island should adopt a just cause eviction standard. Eviction is a violent and harmful process affecting a person’s entire life, from their job and education to the custody of their children. No one should be evicted from their home without a good reason, such as not paying their rent or violating a valid lease. Rhode Island should have no place for arbitrary, discriminatory, or retaliatory evictions. Landlords arbitrarily evict tenants, such as after a disagreement with a tenant or just to put a new countertop in to double the rent. Rhode Islanders should not be forced into homelessness for the sake of landlord profits. Retaliation for asking for repairs or organizing is rampant, even though our Landlord Tenant Act already bans it. Landlords do it all the time, mostly with impunity. The slumlord playbook is to collect rent for substandard or uninhabitable apartments and kick out anyone who complains or fights back. In Rhode Island today, you can get away with it. Let’s be clear: the only reason for eviction should not be paying rent or egregious lease violations.

The second is mandatory, pre-filing mediation. Adopting a just cause eviction standard will help end the injustices of arbitrary, discriminatory, and retaliatory evictions. However, most evictions are for non-payment, especially since Rhode Island has seen some of the highest rent increases in the country in recent years. Rhode Island can and should mitigate non-payment evictions, a leading cause of homelessness, by requiring mediation before landlords can file non-payment for evictions. Poor and working-class Rhode Islanders are one job loss or illness away from falling behind on rent. We are already paying our landlords a third to a half of our paychecks, and many of us skimp on food and medicine to pull it off every month. The illegal self-help eviction my family endured happened because my mom lost her job, and two working-class incomes weren’t enough to pay the rent. While the models for pre-filing mediation vary, I believe that if my family had access to pre-filing mediation, we could have navigated the crisis of my mom’s job loss and continued to pay rent. If that elderly disabled gentleman I met at the doors in Warwick had been able to access pre-filing mediation, he could have avoided homelessness. The same goes for hundreds of other families across the State who are being sacrificed for landlords’ profits. This mediation must address substandard conditions as well.

The third is proactive rent withholding for substandard conditions. Substandard and downright uninhabitable housing conditions are an epidemic for poor and working-class Rhode Island renters. There is virtually no incentive for landlords in the more affordable segment of the market to improve the quality of homes, let alone comply with State minimum housing requirements. Tenants pay rent in return for getting a fit, inhabitable dwelling. Tenants should be able to withhold rent when landlords fail to deliver a fit, inhabitable apartment. Without a robust, proactive code enforcement system, tenants placing their rents into an escrow account is virtually the only way to force landlords to comply with the law. Code enforcement is slow and risky for tenants, and in many municipalities, it is barely accessible.

Remember the woman who cried in her doorway because her landlord threatened her with retaliation for talking with tenant organizers? She’s not likely to call code enforcement, even if her apartment makes her sick. Code enforcement officers have told members of our tenant union that they don’t even come out when the landlord is a known, intractable slumlord. There’s no point. Other members have been denied service. In one case, when her apartment was massively flooded twice in one week by a faulty heating system, she had been reporting to that same agency for months. Eventually, she had to call the fire department to get the water exploding into her apartment shut off. I am afraid to call code enforcement despite obvious violations and safety hazards because it could mean my family is losing our place. As you know, my landlord is currently being prosecuted by the highest law enforcement agency in our State. As I mentioned, he’s still collecting market rent for substandard and, in some cases, uninhabitable apartments.

The fourth is automatic eviction record sealing. Rhode Island has moved in the right direction when we allowed one eviction record to be sealed every five years. Even though that process has been slow and tenants have been wrongfully turned away from petitioning, an eviction record is a huge barrier to housing. It forces people into homelessness and slum housing. Many tenants will self-evict to avoid it, even if they have a strong defense. I was self-evicted after my last landlord threatened my mother. Self-help Eviction is illegal, but some landlords always get away with it. Hundreds of tenants in Rhode Island have eviction records even though there are evictions that never should have been filed in the first place, and they lost their jobs but then caught up on rent or have been paying rent for an uninhabitable apartment. Eviction records should be automatically sealed with no limit when a judgment is satisfied, when a case is dismissed, when retaliation is found to have occurred, and when substandard conditions are found to have existed. Eviction records are more often than not a cruel tool weaponized against poor and working-class tenants who are struggling to get by. We can and should end much of that injustice by automatically sealing most eviction records.

Lastly, tenants are consumers and should be entitled to consumer protection laws. Tenants throughout the State pay rent in exchange for a safe, warm, and dry place to live, and landlords rent out these units. Therefore, renting out a dwelling unit in exchange for rent is a business. For my family and every tenant I know, you pay for a place to live, expecting a habitable unit. When that does not happen, what protections do tenants have when they pay a businessman, the landlord, for a service that is never delivered? Tenants are consumers in this real estate market and should be identified and protected as consumers of rental units. We have consumer protection laws - from deceptive trade practices to price gouging when we buy food services and used cars. Why is the place we live any different? When a tenant rents these units, habitability should be guaranteed at the time of the move-in and throughout their tenancy. When such is not met, tenants paying for a rental unit should be entitled to consumer protections within our State’s consumer protection laws to ensure that consumers of rental units are not taken advantage of or harmed in their lives. The lives of their family are not put at risk. Thank you for your attention.

Steve Flores, Director of Litigation and Director of the Housing Law Center, Rhode Island Legal Services

I’m the director of litigation for Rhode Island Legal Services and the director of the Housing Law Center. Katie Barrington, our housing navigator, and I are appearing today pursuant to your written invitation. We are not here to make policy recommendations, but we hope our experience and perspective in helping low-income Rhode Island tenants will aid the committee and its investigation.

By way of a brief personal background, I came to Rhode Island six and a half years ago in 2018. In 2017, the last full year before I got here, housing was about 20% of what Rhode Island Legal Services did. Today, it is just over 50% of what we do. I think the drivers of that are twofold.

First, over my time with RILS, we’ve experienced an unrelenting, increasing demand for our housing services. Second, last year, thanks to the McKee administration, RILS received a large grant to scale up our eviction defense services. RILS is the lead recipient of the grant, and we’ve partnered with other organizations, such as the Center for Justice.

I’m going to hit you with a little data. I won’t linger on it, but during grant year one of that work, RILS and CFJ helped 4,498 families stay safely housed. In doing that, we helped more than 10,600 low-income Rhode Islanders. If you add up the households, 30% of the folks we helped were children. More than 70% of the folks helped were single women. To me, this is worth underlining.

Approximately 70% of the people we helped had incomes lower than 30% of the AMI [Average Median Income] for where they lived. Why is that important? These are the most vulnerable folks. When you think of this work, please think of it as homelessness prevention because that is, quite often, exactly what it is.

We’ve always known that the work helped keep families together, but thanks to a growing body of research, we’ve learned plenty of other benefits. In 2017, the Philadelphia Bar Association commissioned a study. They used a financial firm, Stout Risius Ross, LLC, and commissioned a study to see the return on their eviction prevention investment. Stout is a financial advisory firm. They’re an M&A firm [Mergers and Acquisitions]. They’re accountants, they’re damages experts. These are not housing activists.

Stout did their analysis. They put on their green visors and crunched the numbers. This is what they found for Philadelphia: For every $1 invested in eviction defense, there was a savings of more than $12 in other areas. What other areas? Emergency services, services, truancy, employment disruption, interactions with law enforcement, and so on. Studies have been done in Detroit and Baltimore since 2017, and have had similar findings. This is an investment worth making.

Locally, we’ve seen rents rise way faster than incomes, making it very hard for any of our clients to find replacement housing if they have to leave due to an eviction or other reason. On a national scale, we’ve seen that more than 20 states, cities, or towns have instituted some form of a right to counsel. That tells me that a growing body of research validates the fact that eviction defense is an investment worth making.

Some things haven’t changed all that much. Every week, my team and I see eviction cases that should have never been filed because they’re legally defective, and at least we’re there to catch them because we have a broader reach now. But even when we catch these cases, it’s still a problem for our tenants because I think we all know by now that having an eviction on your record seriously impedes future housing. Of course, I’m aware of the recent eviction seal law, but I think if my clients were here, they’d argue pretty persuasively that they shouldn’t have to use their one sealing opportunity every five years to seal a case that should have never been brought in the first place.

There’s one other point I want to make. One of the things that we’ve been able to do because of this expansion is to create the housing navigator position. Ms. Barrington will talk in more detail about what she does, but as lawyers, we focus on the case, we can work out the agreement, and we may get the case dismissed. There are things that we can do that are very effective, but unless the underlying cause of housing instability is addressed, we know from experience there’s a pretty good chance the client will find themselves back in eviction court, whether it be in six months or one year, sooner or later - unless you address that underlying cause. That’s the housing navigator’s job. She works to address the underlying cause of housing instability. She’s been in the job for a year and a half.

We’re starting to see some pretty incredible data. When you look at the clients who have worked with Ms. Barrington and compare them to the ones who have not worked with Ms. Barrington, we see that the ones who have worked with her are 400% less likely to find themselves back in eviction court. 400% less likely. This combination of eviction defense and housing stability work is effective, but its future is uncertain. Our existing funding source for the scale-up through the McKee administration is set to expire sometime in the middle of next year. This work should be scaled up, and I suggest to the committee, based on my experience, that many landlords and their attorneys would agree with us because, right now, we get more referrals from landlord attorneys than we ever have.

Katie Barrington, Housing Navigator, Rhode Island Legal Services

I’m the housing navigator for Rhode Island Legal Services. I came from Crossroads, Rhode Island, during the rent relief program based at the courthouse here in Providence. I created a positive relationship with tenants, landlords, landlord attorneys, opposing attorneys, and Judge Smith during this time. When Rhode Island Legal Services shared this position, I knew this would be the best opportunity for me to help Rhode Island’s most vulnerable individuals and families. For anyone who’s ever had to navigate the social service field, it’s difficult to ask families what happened versus what is wrong with you. For instance, a mother of a young child was facing an eviction for an alleged unauthorized guest. This mother was working the third shift, and her babysitter came over at night to look after her. Child management believed she was an unauthorized guest and was breaching her lease.

We explored resources in the area, including Rhode Island’s Bright Star’s quality childcare program, to search for childcare and possibly move her to the first shift. When childcare was secured, the mom was able to move to the first shift, and the requests were fulfilled and satisfied.

Next, I want to tell you about a mother of two school-aged children who allegedly was non-compliant with her lease. After arguing and creating a disturbance on the property, particularly at the bus stop putting her children on the bus, we searched for resources that were available for her. We connected with the school’s Title One coordinator and explored before and after-school programs and summer school. The children were enrolled right away, which limited contact with the tenants on the property. In addition to that, we connected her with wraparound services and assisted the mom with her goals, like going back to work.

Her CNA license had expired, and the local cap agency secured that license so she could return to work. Her car was repaired, and she could return to work. Her agreement was kept, and management was satisfied as well. I’m still in contact with these families, and they have contacted me about any signs of housing instability. Once their case is closed with the attorney, I’m available to them no matter what. I have 196 people on my caseload right now with whom I am in contact often. This program works. I have many, many successful stories. I’m even more convinced that this works, especially for landlords.

Samuel Cramer, housing attorney at the Rhode Island Center for Justice

I am a housing attorney at the Rhode Island Center for Justice. I’ve been working there since 2020. That means I’ve spent a lot of time talking to tenants about their rights, their obligations, disputes they may be embroiled in, or how to avoid those disputes. Throughout my time working there, I have personally spoken to hundreds of tenants, as Mr. Flores mentioned earlier, between our office and Rhode Island Legal Services. We’ve spoken to thousands of tenants throughout the State.

When people think about our work, they’re often called to think about evictions and being in court - when things come to a head. I can tell you that many of the hundreds of conversations I’ve had don’t involve an eviction at all. Many of them are phone conversations that I have with tenants or meetings in person to discuss something that’s going on, what they can do about it, and their rights. Throughout those conversations, certain pitfalls in the Residential Landlord Tenant Act, as it’s constructed, have come to light in areas where the law could be clearer and where people’s rights are somehow insufficient to meet the moment.

We have plenty of ideas about what we could do to change the law and change the way landlord/tenant matters are handled here in Rhode Island. I can’t begin to discuss them all in 10 minutes. We’d be happy to share those ideas at the commission’s invitation. Still, I’ve highlighted a few that I think are salient to the tenant population that we’ve talked to and present some common sense solutions and clarifications that would benefit landlords and tenants alike.

Mr. Flores mentioned earlier that many of the people we speak to are from the lower economic strata in our society. That means they have a lot less flexibility than other people. Current State of Rhode Island law allows them to be asked to move on 30 days’ notice. That’s no time at all. I don’t know how many of you have children, but many of our clients do. I have a child, and a week disappears in no time flat. With all the various responsibilities that you have in your life - work and family - when you’re economically restricted, that time is incredibly valuable.

As I’m sure all of you are aware, last year, the General Assembly passed a law that would change the notice requirement for a rent increase from 30 days or 60 days in the case that somebody was over 62 to 60 days and to 120 days for somebody who’s over the age of 62. That change was made with these particular constraints in mind because, let’s face it, when you’re given a notice of rent increase, you understand that you’re at an inflection point. You’re either going to be able to stay and pay the rent that’s asked for, or things will come to a head. The law has understood this for a long time. There’s a line of Supreme Court cases going back almost a hundred years that understand that, especially when somebody is renting month to month and is vulnerable to a rent increase, sending that notice is like terminating their tenancy. You’re ending the agreement as it currently exists and inviting somebody to accept a new agreement.

What happens when the tenant doesn’t agree to those terms? In that case, the landlord doesn’t have any recourse - unless there’s been a termination of tenancy sent as well, and that’s why, the way the act was previously constructed, those notice requirements were the same. It was 30 days for a termination of tenancy and 30 days for a rent increase, and that harmonized those two ideas. We’ve created a little bit of dissonance by increasing the notice for a rental increase but not for a termination of tenancy. It’s long been best practice for a landlord to send a notice of rent increase and a notice of termination of tenancy if they’re going to send a notice of rent increase. This makes sense. You’re informing a tenant that we’re ending this tenancy, and you can begin a new one at this increased rental amount, or I’ll give myself whatever rights I have in court.

By changing the termination of the tenancy notice period to match that of the rent increase notice period, we would be harmonizing the law and making sure that those notice periods are equivalent to each other. This would alleviate a lot of confusion. It would simplify the process for landlords. It would ensure that tenants know the game’s rules and what to expect. It would streamline the process and, importantly, provide time for tenants to make up their minds and figure out what they want to do.

Now, we can go further than that, right? This is for termination of tenancy for no cause whatsoever. That’s the current State of Rhode Island law. You can be sent a letter that says you need to leave, and that’s that. No reason, no justification, just a letter that says, "Sorry, we’re done. You got to go." Several states have decided to do something a little different, understanding that a system of no-fault eviction creates arbitrary displacement and often on short notice for affected people. These states have implemented just cause laws - essentially a standard that would be in place... If a landlord wants to end a tenancy, they must have a good reason to do it.

This would be a valuable change here in Rhode Island. The arbitrary displacement of people for no reason breaks up communities. Property is moving quickly, housing prices are going up, things are selling. It’s forcing people to leave places they’ve lived in, sometimes for decades.

About a year ago, I represented a gentleman who had lived in a home for 70 years. He was asked to leave in about 35 days. He couldn’t do it. It was impossible, and there was no articulated reason for it whatsoever. The landlord just wanted to move on. It was extremely difficult for him to do that, and he had to leave Federal Hill, his home. It’s where he grew up. It’s what he knew. He was this guy from the neighborhood. Unfortunately, that couldn’t be the case because he had no protection.

It’s important to remember that when we’re talking about just cause standards, they already exist for many tenants in Rhode Island. If any of you are familiar with the Housing Choice Voucher Program, these are people whose rent is subsidized through Section Eight.

They have a portable voucher. They’re renting in the private market, and many of the rules would apply. Still, the federal regulations governing those tenancies require a landlord to provide a reason for terminating the tenancy. HUD regulations in the tenancy addendum provide a list of reasons. The tenants and the landlord are aware of them. If there’s a proper reason to terminate the tenancy, it’s very easy for the landlord to include that in the notice required by the regulation and get on with their business. Anybody living in federally subsidized housing, project-based Section Eight Public Housing, enjoys a similar for-cause standard - primarily because they’re always on a lease for a term.

There are procedures in place if somebody is not complying with the lease or if the billing is going to wind down, which does happen from time to time. There are perfectly valid reasons to terminate those tenancies, and in those circumstances, notice can be given, and action can be taken if need be. Importantly, those protections exist for a lot of people who are otherwise similarly situated to people out there in the private market.

This is one of the things that drives me batty when I think about it. You’ve got a wait list for a housing choice voucher that takes years. You’re otherwise eligible. You’re just sitting there waiting, and somebody who’s similarly situated to you in all ways except that their name came up on the list first enjoys the protections that you, as a tenant, do not. It’s an accident of fate, and it means that different people have different protections under the law for no good reason other than that we have a wait list that hasn’t recalled their names yet. It doesn’t seem particularly fair to me.

Another thing that comes up when we talk with tenants, and I think this is a really common sense change that could be made, and 16 states have already done this, is to create a statutory obligation to provide receipts when a tenant pays cash. This is maddening for everybody who practices landlord/tenant law, particularly for tenants. There’s no obligation right now for a landlord to provide a receipt if a tenant is paying in cash; believe me, we meet tenants who pay in cash. I always advise that they don’t because it’s incredibly hard to trace and because they are not obligated to be given a receipt. This creates all sorts of confusion. As soon as there’s any dispute about whether or not rent’s been paid, you suddenly have two people who say, well, take my word for it. It was paid. Take my word for it: it wasn’t paid. It’s a mess, and when things get to court, it creates an even bigger issue. It can create problems with eviction filings and messy problems of proof for the judiciary if they’re called upon to solve those problems by finding facts in a hearing. That’s often just a big waste of time, and it’s a conflict that could very easily be avoided if people were required to provide a receipt when a tenant pays cash.

That’s what many other states in the country have already done. Many of those laws also call for a landlord to provide a receipt upon request if any other form of payment is being made, like a check, Zelle, or cash app. There are many ways to transfer money between people, most of which are readily traceable. We don’t find that people are confused about whether they’ve made payments or are paying through something like Zelle. Still, if they were to request a receipt, many of these laws would say the landlord would be obligated to provide one within some reasonable period, usually a week or two.

Again, this would alleviate a lot of confusion and ensure everybody knew exactly where they stood. More importantly, if an obligation like that is to be implemented, it must have some teeth, right? Most of these laws have some civil fine if a landlord is found not to have provided these receipts. Some states go so far as to create evidentiary presumptions in an eviction hearing if a receipt is not provided. It’s an interesting question. Do you think if there’s no receipt for rent because the rent hasn’t been paid, how can it be a defense for the non-payment? It creates a logical loop. I was thinking about this. My boss brought it up with me, but it’s an issue. A landlord simply provides a receipt for zero rent, right? They’d a record, and then they’d have something to ensure a record of the payment or the lack thereof.

Along with this, a change that we think would be useful would be a requirement to provide a copy of the rental ledger along with the five-day demand for rent. Again, this is where many tenants we speak with are very confused. Implementing and following through from a landlord’s perspective would be very easy. A non-payment action could become much more complicated depending on the facts, but at first, it’s just a math problem, right? If a landlord sends a five-day demand notice requesting rent from a tenant, presumably, they’re promising that demand on some ledger, some accounting they have in their possession, right? Is that a hundred percent always the case? Probably not. In most cases, I would think so, and it would be simple enough to provide a copy of that ledger and the accounting with the five-day demand.

This creates some important transparency. Tenants can look at the demand notice, see how this demand is being calculated, see what the landlord thinks is due, and engage in a conversation with their landlord. To the extent there are discrepancies in people’s - we see this come up - it is sometimes confusing when tenants are paying partially or paying cash and not getting receipts. It’s confusing when tenants rent from an institutional landlord, and there are a number of fees or extras that are part of their rental ledger that aren’t usually calculated as rent or maybe calculated as rent and included in the demand. Being transparent about that math would make it clear to the tenant what’s requested and why.

As a practitioner, it would be helpful for me to identify these problems, if there are problems, early, and many of the landlord’s attorneys that I’ve spoken also to appreciate having that transparency - seeing from their clients how they’ve kept up with their demand so that they’re not spending time filing cases that will ultimately be dismissed because the demand is incorrect, because the ledger was wrong, or not provided in the first instance.

This would be very simple for all the parties involved to enact and comply with.

On the topic of rent, one of the things that we advise people on regularly is whether or not they have the right to withhold rent. I can’t tell you how many times we speak to somebody when a nonpayment action has been filed because they decided they wanted to withhold 500 bucks because of some problem with the apartment. Currently, there’s no statutory right to do that. It has to be resolved in an eviction matter down the line. This gets people in trouble, preventing or creating a lot of filings. It could otherwise have been avoided if they had had better advice. We are often in a position to advise tenants that though they may have issues with their apartment right now, the law is very clear that your obligation now is to pay the rent. You need to take judicial action if you want anything to change. The Model Residential Landlord Tenant Act addresses this issue and creates an interesting way to address it. There is a notice requirement. Suppose the landlord is failing to provide some essential service. In that case, if there’s some problem with the apartment that hasn’t been adequately addressed, the tenant must notify the landlord of this issue, and the landlord must fix it. These obligations already exist. They’re nothing new. Everybody running a rental property knows they are obligated to keep the property in good repair. Sometimes, people fail in that obligation, and when they do, a tenant could put them on notice. Depending on the severity of the issue, the landlord would have a certain number of days to bring the apartment into compliance, and if they don’t, then the law clearly states that the tenant has the right to withhold the rent and put it in an escrow account. This is designed to create a little pressure and leverage to get things done.

If the matter ends in court, there are clear instructions to the judges overseeing these actions. They have options about what they can do with the escrow money. They can release funds to the landlord to make repairs. They can order funds released from that escrow account to make the necessary repairs. They can return funds to the tenant if they make repairs. They can decrease rent and order the tenant to keep paying into escrow on an abated level, and finally, they can order the payment to the landlord of any money not otherwise owed to the tenant.

This would create valuable judicial guidelines regarding proper rent abatement in problem situations, provide tenants with options to use the slim economic leverage they have to get repairs made and eliminate some of the uncertainty surrounding nonpayment when the housing provider hasn’t fulfilled their obligations to the letter of the law.

The last change I’d like to speak about today is a change to the repair and deduct provision. That was a change last year. It was raised to $500 from $25. That number hadn’t been changed in a while. You can’t get anything done for $25. You can’t even buy a doorknob for $25 or more; we see that $500 won’t get you very far. Many states have a repair and deduct provision, and the Model Act also pegs the repair and deduct provision to an amount equal to one month’s rent. I think this makes a lot of sense for a few reasons. One is that as costs increase, rent will increase, and the amount you can repair and deduct can increase.

There’s no need then to go back and revise the law to keep up with inflation year in and year out. It would raise the issue of people doing something in their apartment to a more reasonable level. How many of you call contractors into your home to get anything done? The law is very clear. You can’t, as a tenant, do your plumbing. If you’re going to do this repair and deducting, you need to have the work done in a professional, workmanlike manner. I don’t think you can get a plumber to come into your house and fix a leak under the sink for 500 bucks, but if it’s pegged to one month’s rent, you might be able to avail yourself of that provision. A lot of things like this that could very easily cost a little bit more than $500 but less than market rate rent, things like small leaks, windows that aren’t weather-tight, appliances that aren’t working properly, the little things that may be overlooked or put on the back burner by a landlord, but that are nonetheless important to the day-to-day living of the tenant who may want to cook dinner or not have an electric bill that’s out of control.

Like I said, we have other ideas. I’d be happy to present them later at the commission’s invitation.