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Anyone who's a renter has at least one landlord-related horror story. It could be that your house doesn't meet the normal safety regulations, that your landlord just jacked up the rent 15 percent or that they're starting to play dumb when it comes to returning your security deposit. Whatever the case, navigating the District's tenant/landlord laws and regulations -- no matter how weighted towards tenants they might be -- can sometimes be confusing and frustrating.
Sure, hiring a lawyer is always an option, but who has that sort of money? And yes, we all have lawyer friends, but seeking legal advice from a person just because they have "J.D." thrown on their business card and are willing to do it for free won't always guarantee you good guidance. And no, Google isn't really that helpful when it comes to most tenant/landlord queries -- the best I found was a Q&A from the Post.
Thankfully, there's a free legal resource out there -- the D.C. Landlord Tenant Resource Center. Operating out of the D.C. Superior Court's Building B (510 Fourth Street, NW, Room 115), the resource center offers legal information to tenants and landlords working through disputes. They don't offer legal advice -- they're not going to write a brief for you or tell you how to get as much money out of your landlord as possible -- but they will help clarify questions regarding leases, regulations, etc. (Don't go if you're already represented by a lawyer; they'll take you but won't be able to offer you much.) The center is open from 9:15 a.m. until noon on weekdays; they only offer guidance in person.
There's also the D.C. Office of the Tenant Advocate, an independent agency that helps renters navigate two key rental laws -- the Rental Housing Act of 1985 and the Rental Housing Conversion and Sale Act of 1980. They'll be hosting a Tenant Summit on September 27, 2008. OTA handles more serious claims, such as rent control, evictions and conversions, so maybe they're not the ones to approach if your landlord refuses to replace that faulty smoke detector.
And if you're looking for an organization to help you in your crusade against a particularly evil landlord, the D.C. Tenants Advocacy Coalition (TENAC) is for you. They'll be hosting a forum tonight for candidates in the upcoming local elections from 6:30-9:30 p.m. at the Foundry United Methodist Church (16th and P Ptreets NW).
If any DCist readers have a notable story -- good or bad -- about a rental dispute, leave it in comments.
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As an attorney that represents both tenants and small landlords, the other act the tenant should be aware of is the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA) which give the tenants certain rights if the landlord is trying to sell the building. Not as much as a problem now, but during the height of the market, landlords would try selling the building without going through the formalities which would deprive the tenants of benefits, some financial, of their tenancy. If your building is being sold, you really should find an attorney to help you.
Look to the Miramar ... worst place ever. Cafritz is riding the wave on that puppy, believe you me.
Look to the Miramar ... worst place ever. Cafritz is riding the wave on that puppy, believe you me.
Also, there's the Housing Regulation Administration that deals with rent control units and sales and conversion. http://dhcd.dc.gov/dhcd/cwp/view,a,1243,q,641672,dhcdNav_GID,1574,dhcdNav,%7C32177%7C.asp
(sorry I don't know how to create the link...)
There are also a ton of advocacy organizations doing tenant organizing around tenant purchase/anti-displacement.
This didn't happen in DC, but is still a fun story. Two graduate students and an unemployed 20-something--all women--in a one-bathroom apartment in Boston. Landlord decides he has to renovate the bathroom. In February. While we're living in the apartment. We say no. He says yes. We say, wait until our lease ends in August. He says no. We say, you don't give us a bathroom, we don't give you money. He says fine. So for THREE WEEKS, in Boston, in February, we have a toilet only at night (not so helpful for our unemployed roommate) and no shower at all. (Thank goodness for friends and the gym.)
Our upstairs neighbors refused the bathroom renovation and in return the landlord took away their parking spot.
Our consolation is that at the end of the year when we all moved out (the three of us and our upstairs neighbors), the landlord tried to raise the rent $500, and he was without tenants for quite some time.
I used to have a landlord who just wouldn't fix things. Not out of malice, mind you; she just never got around to calling repairmen. As a consequence, I would fix just about everything myself, and deduct the cost from my rent. On the plus side, I would just "forget" to pay my rent every six months or so, and she never once commented on it.
DC Law Students in Court is far better than the Landlord-Tenant Resource center for getting accurate answers to questions. Unfortunately, they are closed until September. However, if you can get them, they will give you good advice, even if they cannot represent you.
The tenant survival guide is a good tenant resource:
http://ota.dc.gov/ota/lib/ota/Tenant_Survival_Guide.pdf
Wow, Hillman hasn't commented on this one yet?
I'm sure all of us who have rented have one or two stories of incompetent, obnoxious, or absentee landlords ... my own involves an incident where a roofseal broke during a rainstorm and dumped a couple hundred gallons of water into the master bedroom of our apartment. That said, I'm sure that anyone who has ever been a landlord has numerous stories of nonpayment, malfeasance, destruction, criminality and just plain bizarre behavior to relate. Given the demographic profile of DCist readers, it's a safe bet that there are more renters than landlords in the commentariat, but setting this up as an "us vs. them" situation with landlords always in the role of "them" seems unnecessarily antagonistic.
cue Hillman in 3, 2, 1...
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Delete the *s (needed so the code will show up) and now you know how
Never mind, tough to post the link code and make it show up. But the link will show you how to do it. DCist should have this code posted for easy reference
Any advice on this situation BESIDES "move" ?
I live in a flimsy old rowhouse (bad noise insulation) with another 1br upstairs from mine. The two large men who live up there are constantly stomping around, thump thump thump, dropping things (or perhaps falling over?) and generally causing my ceiling and walls to shake at every hour of the day and night. For the 8 months I've been there, complaining to them and my landlord (who lives in the building), they've said "ok! we'll stop! we're not doing anything! no more problems!" yet the problems persist. It's driving me nuts and I don't want to feel like I have roommates when I pay so much damn money to live alone.
Question is: what happens when requests to the offending tenant have no effect, and the landlord does not effectively mediate the problem or put an end to it?? Who can I go to?
My landlord is fantastic, as is his friend - my former landlord. unfortunately, we all get screwed by the condo association. See that building off Army Navy by 395N with the boarded windows?
Well, we can't see you. Thanks, over-budget-and-behind-schedule renovation project!
I know DCist readers are mostly pro-renters but I would like you guys to check out this piece on the consumerist website about the bad side of renters:
http://consumerist.com/5036774/how-serial-evictees-game-a-system-meant-to-protect-renters-from-abuse
#5 -- Your story made me cringe...I am a landlord and offered to replace my tenants only bathroom bc it was disgusting, so this week they have no shower and wont have a toilet for one day (while the tile mastic hardens. . . I gave them the option of saying no, but they wanted it. Im not refunding rent for this week either but they are getting a 15,000 bathroom in place of the ghetto tub they had, and I have no intention of raising rent. BUt your post could have been written by one of my tenants, the story is so close. Call your landlord if you're pissed; most of us want the path of least resistance.
I had a landlady that refused to return my security deposit, even though the apt was in better shape when I returned it. She simply said she would always keep the security deposit from tenants in order to make repairs. I said that's not what the lease says, nor is it what DC law says. She said that was her practice and then stopped returning my calls. She finally called me back when I sued her in Small Claims Court and she was served with the papers. Then she had her douchebag son-in-law call me from a US Attorney's office to say how I was taking advantage of his sickly, old mother-in-law. When I pointed out that she wasn't returning my security deposit or my calls, he said "Oh, she forgot to mention that part of the story." Then I asked him if it was appropriate for him to be calling me and identifying himself as being from the US Attorney's office. He apologized for bothering me and hung up.
Another landlord was fantastic. He never raised the rent on us in more than 4 years. He always responded promptly to emails about repairs. And he was quite sad when we finally moved out b/c we were ideal tenants.
Now I own and don't have to worry about answering to nobody. Except the wife. And the condo board.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know from what I've tried to research, the same tenant laws in DC that protect residents of apartment complexes, do not protect those of privately-owned-and-rented homes. So if you have a moron for a landlord, you're just SOL.
"Now I own and don't have to worry about answering to nobody. Except the wife."
Answering to your better half is always harder for me than a boss or anyone else. Usually my wife is always right but I tend to be hardheaded and continue a fight for the heck of it. In the end I end of apologizing and then going to bed sexless.
I always work under the assumption that I won't get my security deposit back-- that way I don't set myself up for disappointment, and if I do end up getting some money back it's a pleasant surprise.
Hey, Thanks RJ! I've been meaning to jump kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
Does anyone know if there's a website where you can post information about bad landlords? (I'm thinking something like apartmentratings.com but for landlords who own buildings too small to be listed there.) I sympathize with the person who has thumpers upstairs -- I had a similar experience and wound up moving to a top-floor apartment (which has other issues, of course, I can't seem to find a place that doesn't!) I wound up having to pay alot to break my lease and move, but as a friend of mine put it: "at what price mental health?"
Can someone get Hillman to post a "So Your Tenant is a Jerk" story, please? Because statistically there are a lot more a**hole tenants than there are landlords. I hink we all have lived with at least one, not counting ourselves.
My fave was the guy who would always help himself to beer but never contribute. So one day we filled up one of those pony bottles of Miller High Life with urine, screwed the cap back on, and put it in the fridge. He stopped swiping beers after that.
The best part was that it took him more than one swig before he figured out what he was drinking.
That's perfect.
I have never had luck, and my neighbors have never had luck, going to the office of tenant advocate. shocker: it is a DC government office. I have had neighbors with luck at latino economic something..I think LECD? 588-5102 and I have had luck with Housing Counseling Center 667-7006 and Empower DC 234-9119. all area code 202 of course. Tenants get screwed in the District--government lets landlords get away with murder. But you can fight back! just have good assistance....