Just A Landlord

Wisconsin’s Act 143 Landlord Omnibus bill has been of great concern to owners that have read the content as well those who have read the Legislative Council memo on the bill.

AASEW Attorney Heiner Geise had researched this a bit and came to the conclusion it is not quite as bad as originally thought.  He received an opinion consistent with his view from the Leg Council.

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The following is a pretty good overview of the new law from Margit Kelley, Staff Attorney at the WISCONSIN LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL   The Legislative Council is a nonpartisan research agency of the Wisconsin Legislature.

Read their full analysis

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The Wisconsin Landlord Tenant Law Omnibus bill was signed into law by Governor Scott Walker around 4 PM March 21st, 2012.  You must be in compliance with the provisions for tenancies  entered into beginning April 1st.

One thing the bill does is add a new prohibited lease provision:

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The enrolled version of the bill (a copy with all the amendments  incorporated and as signed by the Governor)  was released late yesterday.

As you look at the part of your lease that addresses criminal activity I am thinking that adding “… unless the tenant could not reasonably have prevented the crime”  should keep your lease valid, but have not reviewed this in depth with our attorneys.

Now go modify your leases to take advantage of the benefits and to avoid running afoul of the other changes.  That is what we will be working on for the next ten days before a new lease is required.

Question:  If there is a  material falsification of information provided by a tenant on the  rental application, what are your options? (Granted a good screening process should have caught it).

Once you accept a tenant you must allow them to move in, even if they  materially falsified the app. This is covered under the ATCP 134:

ATCP 134.09(6) (6) FAILURE TO DELIVER POSSESSION. No landlord shall fail to deliver  possession of the dwelling unit to the tenant at the time agreed upon  in the rental agreement, except where the landlord is unable to  deliver possession because of circumstances beyond the landlord’s  control.

An interesting question would be if they lied about who they were,  i.e. gave a false name, could you refuse to let anyone but the person named on the lease to move in?

Preventing this? Hard. If you ran a credit report, that should have show other names used. A pre-acceptance home visit may have exposed the inconsistencies and extra adult.

This one bit us in the butt a few years ago. We were evicting a woman because her two adult daughters had moved in with her and were  performing prostitution in the basement of the building. We had an applicant for a different address who we accepted. One of my managers saw the woman we accepted in the waiting room and asked what she was doing her as she was the prostitute daughter of the tenant we were  evicting from Walker street.

We refused to allow the woman to take the other unit and gave her back all of her money. She got an attorney and they won the  argument in court. We were required to give her  $500 in addition to her earnest money, which we had already given back.