Anti-Retaliation Update Advances

Tenants who report unsafe living conditions to the city could soon have another layer of protection from retaliatory evictions — by way of a prospective update to the landlord license program.

That update, proposed by Livable City Initiative (LCI) Director Liam Brennan and Assistant Corporation Counsel Sinclair Williams, would enable the city to revoke the residential business license of a landlord who tries to kick out, hike rent for, or harass a tenant as payback for filing a housing complaint with the city.

It would also bolster the consequences of renting a building without a license by turning a one-time fine of $2,000 per rental unit into a daily, accruing $2,000 fine.

Brennan and Williams presented the ordinance amendment to the Board of Alders Legislation Committee on Tuesday evening. 

The ordinance amendment is part of an array of planned housing and blight code adjustments presented on Tuesday night — alongside proposals to raise maximum blight fines, streamline notification to landlords, and reforms to hotel and rooming house licenses. The committee eventually voted unanimously to advance all three proposals with a favorable recommendation to the full Board of Alders.

It’s also part of a longer-term effort to add teeth to the city’s previously sparsely-enforced landlord license program, which requires property owners renting out at least two units in a given building (or for an owner-occupied house, at least three units) to register for a license and comply with annual LCI inspections.

Brennan said in an interview that the retaliation protection is aimed at addressing a common concern among tenants that if they report unsafe housing conditions to LCI, or request a check on rent hikes from the Fair Rent Commission, their landlords could simply decide to evict them or deny them a renewed lease.

“I do think it is a real problem,” he said. ​“We don’t want landlords to be using their powers to stop people from making complaints. We don’t want to disincentivize complaints because [landlords] can choose not to renew your lease.”

The proposed update mirrors a power of the Fair Rent Commission, a commission comprised of both landlords and tenants that hears tenant complaints of both unfair rent increases and retaliatory actions. Brennan’s proposal would create another avenue for complaints in that second category by empowering LCI to potentially revoke the license of a landlord deemed to have retaliated against a tenant.

“Retaliation,” as defined in the proposed ordinance, could include filing an eviction, denying a lease renewal, raising rent, limiting access to previously available ​“services,” or harassment, provided that those actions are responding to a tenant’s fair rent or LCI complaint.

It would be up to LCI to investigate whether such actions by a landlord were truly caused by the tenant’s complaint.

If a landlord took one of those actions within six months of a tenant’s housing code or fair rent complaint, it would be up to the landlord to prove that the action was not retaliatory. After that six-month window, the burden of proof for substantiating retaliation would fall on the tenant, according to Brennan.

“We’d just have to look at the facts of a specific case,” Brennan said. ​“I think we would probably proceed conservatively.”

Landlords would be able to appeal any license revocations to a hearing officer, and potentially escalate their case to court.

“It’s good to hear that there will be multiple eyes on that,” said Amity/Westville Alder Richard Furlow.

Asked about the possibility that tenants might file complaints against their landlords in order to start that six-month window of additional protection from evictions, Brennan said that LCI would still look into the particularities of a complaint before revoking a license.

“There is no question that it is aggressive,” Brennan said of the provision, ​“but there is also no question that the balance of power” between landlords and tenants ​“sits aggressively one way, and we are trying to deal with a lot of [landlords] trying to evade health and safety requirements.”

“It’s all about protecting tenants from just losing homes willy nilly on the whims of the landlords,” he added— and ultimately about ​“protecting health and safety.” 

The fines for renting out non-exempt buildings without a license, meanwhile, would increase under the ordinance amendment to $2,000 per day, as opposed to a one-time $2,000 fine. The idea, Brennan explained to alders at Tuesday’s meeting, is that currently, some landlords are able to ignore the licensing requirement and simply write-off the cost of the fine. ​“This is just the cost of doing business,” he said.

Westville Alder Adam Marchand questioned the potential downstream ramifications of revoking a landlord’s license.

“In general, I’m inclined to think that we need more accountability” for landlords, he said. ​“What if the property owner decides, ​‘I’m not going to be in this business anymore’” — and moves to evict all of their tenants as a result?

Brennan argued that the financial cost of losing tenants’ rent would far outpace the burden of paying accruing fines, especially since the license requirement doesn’t apply to owner-occupied buildings with fewer than four rental units.

Eventually, alders voted to advance these changes and others — including an adjustment to the city’s blight code that would no longer require LCI to wait for a landlord’s signature on a certified mail receipt to proceed with imposing blight violation fines. Upon Marchand’s suggestion, the alders did amend that proposal to continue requiring landlords to be notified of blight violations by physical mail, while allowing LCI to use email in addition to that letter.