Feb 08

You are permitted to forbid smoking in your units and in fact HUD has forbidden smoking in public housing since February 2017, mandatory since July 2018. HUD specifically forbids marijuana, as even though some states purport to have legalized its use, it is still federally illegal.

The Public Health Law Center has a great Q&A on this that states

Q: Can tenants smoke marijuana in multi-unit apartment buildings if they live in states where the use of medical or recreational marijuana is legal?

A: There is no absolute right to smoke medical or recreational marijuana in any state, especially when smoking impacts others. Secondhand smoke, whether from combustible or aerosolized tobacco or marijuana products, spreads throughout multi-unit dwellings. A recent U.S. study reports that even in multi-unit buildings where smoke-free policies were enforced, 50 percent of residents experienced smoke entering into their units from adjacent units. Multi-unit residential property owners have the legal authority to make their properties smoke- free, which includes prohibiting the smoking or vaping of medically prescribed marijuana in individual units and common areas, even in jurisdictions in which the use of medical marijuana is permitted by state law.

https://publichealthlawcenter.org/sites/default/files/resources/Marijuana-in-Multi-Unit-Residential-Setting-2019-1.pdf

Jun 11

Housing Choice Voucher Wait List. A random lottery will be held from the applicants with 3000 families to be added to the waitlist.

Why will only 3,000 applicants be selected in the lottery to be on the wait list?

The wait list will be limited to 3,000 applicants so that they will have a reasonable expectation that they may receive a Housing Choice Voucher within a 2- to 3-year time period.

This shows how great the need is for expanded rent assistance.

Apr 16

The CARES Act includes a 120-day moratorium on evictions, late fees and other penalties for properties with federally backed mortgages (Freddie Mac/ Fannie Mae/ FHA /VA / HUD), beginning March 27th.

These prohibitions also extend to tenants receiving Section 8 vouchers.

Owners of properties with the government backed mortgages or tenants on rent assist are prohibited from serving eviction notices or filing evictions until July 25th. The law also requires a 30 day notice to evict, effectively not allowing evictions until August 24th.

This does not apply to tenants that are not receiving rent assist or living in a federally mortgaged property.

That said we are not charging late fees during this unprecedented time and urge other owners to do the same, because it its the right thing.

In WI you cannot evict or give notice for nonpayment to any tenant until 5/27/2020. The rent is, however, still due.

I will argue that it is in not only the tenants’, but also your best interest to work on payment plans for tenants who fell behind because of loss of income when you factor in the costs of unit turns.

Try mediation if you are having trouble working out a reasonable repayment plan. Maybe try meditation too. 🤔

We posted a bunch of resources to help tenants get through this at: https://apartmentsmilwaukee.com/r/

You can copy the page content into an email to your tenants, and edit out our contact info.

Feb 10

Here is the first “final” draft of the one page form and flowchart for animal accommodation request. This is only a draft, put out for feed back and comments. This form is based on HUD’s recently released Guidance on Documenting a Person’s Need for Assistance Animals in Housing.

I previously posted a draft flowchart for reasonable accommodation requests for assistance animals to use while making the determination.

Initially I did not feel the new HUD guidelines offered much relief from the problem with people who skirted no pet policies with fake “service animals”

After working through this I feel that this will prevent many of the problem we are currently experiencing, while protecting the tenant that has a true need for a service or support animal. While fake service animals concern me, I have no sympathy for the owner that would deny or charge extra for a seeing eye dog, a service dog for a person in a wheelchair, a person suffering from PTSD, etc.

Clarifying that the accommodation only applies if the requester has a disability that imposes a substantial limitation on major life activities is important.

Clarifying that property owners can request documentation of both a disability and the need for a disability-related need for the animal from a licensed professional rather than having to accept some $29 vest from Amazon as proof is important.

Feb 09

Yesterday I wrote a brief post on HUD’s newly released guideline on “Assessing a Person’s Request to Have an Animal”

No owner should object to true service dogs, think seeing eye dog, etc. However the proliferation of tenants trying to skirt no pet policies by calling fluffy a service animal has gotten out of control. There is also the rights of other tenants who have allergies to furry critters to consider.

Since the guideline has been released we’ve been working on creating tools for our staff and others to use in making determinations on tenants’ reasonable accommodation requests for having a support animal. We don’t want to deny a person something they need for major life activities, but we also are not happy with properties turning into a zoo full of uncontrolled animals.

Here is our draft version of a flowchart based on the HUD document. I am posting it for comments and corrections. Please do not base any decisions on this at this time. When this is updated, I will post the new version on this site.

Feb 08

Just over a week ago HUD issued a new guidance document on service animals and emotional support animal accommodations for housing providers It is 19 pages. There is a lot to digest.

The HUD press release on assistance animals is worth reading as well.

At first read I did not feel the new document was that helpful in addressing abuses by some pet owners and the internet “service animal document mills” that aim to exploit both pet owner and housing providers.

Once I got into it a bit more, I believe that this will help greatly reduce the amount of “service dog’ fraud, while protecting those who need assistance animals.

We are working on a flowchart and other tools for owners to use in making proper determinations.

Stay tuned for more.

Aug 18

The Fall 2019 Apartment Association Landlord Tenant Law Boot Camp is October 26, 2019

Even though I know the law well, we’ve sent our staff. It is good for them to hear the rules from someone else. Plus if they learn one new thing, it more than pays the modest cost.

Wisconsin landlord tenant law has changed dramatically in 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2018 to Wisconsin’s Landlord Tenant Law with Act 143, Act 76, Act 176 and Act 317.

Tristan obviously knows the latest law, but that’s the easy part. He also is one of the most prolific landlord tenant attorneys in Southeastern WI. That gives him great insights into how the courts are ruling today and what the most recent “Gotcha’s” are.

At $189 for members, it is far cheaper than learning from your mistakes. Not only does it help prevent costly errors, you also will learn how to legally screen better, thereby reducing evictions, and other things that will result in profitability.

AASEW Landlord Boot Camp 2019
WHEN: Saturday, October 26, 2019
WHERE: Four Points Sheraton 5311 S. Howell Avenue, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 53207 (Across from the airport)

Registration opens at 7:10 AM

The seminar runs from 8:30 to 5 PM with a 30 minute break for a complimentary lunch. There will be a one hour question and answer session afterwards, ending promptly at 6 pm. Many will find the Q&A invaluable, therefore you may wish to arrangements to stay until 6 pm.

Updated to include the latest law changes and court rulings!

INCLUDED: 100 plus page manual to help you put what you learn into practice.

More info and sign up at http://LandlordBootCamp2019.com

Jun 17

I had seen this years ago and then forgot about it until I ran into it this morning while searching for something.

A real wealth of info, of course much of it slanted towards tenants rights. Some of it is outdated, such as the eviction notice grid does not contain 5 Day Breach for Month to Month.

We should work to get eviction prevention (very different than eviction defense) as part of this, as well as more tenant responsibility focused pieces.

Eviction prevention is providing the resources and tools necessary for tenants to succeed. When tenants fail, landlords suffer or fail.

http://wilawlibrary.gov/topics/landlord.php

 

Jul 31

https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/healthy_homes/smokefree

This rule is helpful for private owners who wish to ban smoking, as well as offering a marketing opportunity, I guess, for owners that permit smoking.

I agree with HUD on this, the advantages of smoke-free housing outweigh any market advantage of allowing smoking.

https://archives.hud.gov/news/2016/pr16-184.cfm

HUD’s smoke-free rule will reduce damage and maintenance costs associated with smoking. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), HUD’s national smoke-free policy will save public housing agencies $153 million every year in repairs and preventable fires, including $94 million in secondhand smoke-related health care, $43 million in renovation of smoking-permitted units, and $16 million in smoking-related fire losses. It is estimated that smoking causes more than 100,000 fires each year nationwide, resulting in more than 500 deaths and nearly a half a billion dollars in direct property damage.

May 22
A lot of PhDs say the same thing we’ve said for years about landlording in general and Section 8 in particular in peer reviewed papers.  Typically we only see those critical of owners, but there are many that accurately explain the dynamics of rental housing.
Here is a excerpt from two.
 
How to attract more landlords to the housing choice voucher program: a case study of landlord outreach efforts –  David P. Varady , Joseph Jaroscak b and Reinout Kleinhans
Our interviews suggest that existing stereotypes of Section 8 (HCVP) landlords as greedy and unconcerned about their tenants are inaccurate. Moreover, our findings provide new support for the classic studies of inner-city landlords cited earlier. Currently, many landlords in the HCVP are themselves experiencing significant financial burdens and risks as they try to deal with the low-income rental market. Tenants exhibiting various forms of problematic behavior, such as drug dealing, substance abuse, and violent crime, exacerbate the problem.
Urban Landlords and the Housing Choice Voucher Program – Prepared for U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development by The Poverty and Inequality Research Lab Johns Hopkins University Philip Garboden Eva Rosen Meredith Greif Stefanie DeLuca Kathryn Edin
Of small properties with affordable rents (below the regional median), only those without debt service are viable. Only 25 percent of mortgaged properties have positive cash flow (Garboden and Newman, 2012). Taken together, these quantitative analyses and our own findings described in the following suggest that much of the stock is financially precarious, which could theoretically lead to under maintenance, abandonment, and conversion.
June 11th, 2018: The publication is back up on HUD USER at a new address above
Note: this publication has been removed from HUD USER.  I reached out to the authors who said it will be reposted soon, that the removal was to improve the formatting
preload preload preload