Legal groups seek to fix state's habitability laws, ensure tenants can hold landlords accountable
The broken air conditioning unit of the apartment soaked through carpet and ruined furniture before it ultimately stopped running in the dead of summer, Kacee Atherton told state lawmakers on Monday.
As a student lawyer with UNLV's Boyd Law School Tenants' Rights Legal Clinic, Atherton has represented tenants living in substandard living conditions unable to get substandard conditions fixed or take legal action against their landlords.
One client in particular, who Atherton referred to as Jane, suffered for months last summer without a properly working AC unit. When first trying to identify the source of the problem, Jane found black mold and mushrooms sprouting behind the AC unit.
'She asked her landlord to repair these issues, and twice the landlord sent unlicensed maintenance workers to come to Jane's apartment to inspect but no repairs were made,' Atherton said.
Jane finally sent a letter to the property manager 'detailing the mold and mushroom growth caused by the still unrepaired AC unit.'
'This letter went ignored after the required 14 day period,' Atherton said. 'Jane withheld the next month's rent. Instead of addressing the issues, her landlord initiated an eviction for nonpayment.'
The focus of the court case became about the lack of payment rather than fixing the air conditioner.
When it comes to holding landlords accountable to fix habitability issues, Atherton said current Nevada current law works about as well as Jane's busted AC.
Assembly Bill 223, heard Monday at the Assembly Commerce and Labor Committee, seeks to remedy the process and give tenants more power to hold landlords accountable for failing to provide livable conditions such as running water, working air conditioning, and a functioning lock on doors and windows.
'It removes language that has allowed loopholes that don't require unsafe conditions to actually be fixed,' said Las Vegas Democratic Assemblymember Venicia Considine, the bill's sponsor.
Under the proposed bill, a tenant could file a verified complaint with the court for expedited relief if a landlord hasn't fixed an issue within 15 days.
The court must conduct a hearing within seven judicial days of the filing. Once a complaint is filed with the court, tenants can withhold rent and place it in a court escrow account.
State law requires landlords to make 'best efforts to remedy breaches of habitability law,' said Alice Samberg, another student attorney with the Tenants' Rights Clinic.
The legislation would replace existing statutory reference to 'best efforts' with language requiring landlords to actually make repairs, she said.
Under the current process, if a tenant withholds rent because a landlord refuses to fix habitability issues, renters can still face an eviction for nonpayment of rent.
'If the landlord fails to take action within this time, the tenant may lawfully withhold rent,' Atherton said. 'This almost always prompts the landlord to initiate an eviction against the tenant for nonpayment. If the landlord does not, the tenant is often left in limbo, living in an uninhabitable home but unable to access a court.'
During eviction proceedings clients can bring up habitability issues, but if a tenant misses 'even one step' in the complicated process the tenant 'will almost certainly be evicted,' Atherton said.
Tenants are required to deposit any withheld rent into the court's escrow account prior to the eviction hearing. Renters are often unaware of this requirement or how to comply with it, Atherton said.
'This is where they typically lose their habitability defense,' she said. 'Without putting rent in escrow, the tenants' habitability defense will fail no matter how egregious or dangerous the ignored habitability issue is.'
AB 223 gives tenants another avenue to file habitability complaints through the court without waiting for eviction proceedings.
'We have all heard the stories from our constituents of black mold, broken air conditioners in the peak heat of summer, water that doesn't run or water that runs brown,' Considine said. 'Common sense tells us that no one should have to endure those living conditions while paying rent.'
Republican Assemblymember Toby Yurek of Henderson asked how the legislation would determine if the landlord is at fault. The example he gave was for pests and if infestations are the result of the tenant or neighbors in the property, not the landlord.
'Perhaps in these multi-family dwelling units where it isn't the landlord, but it's a neighboring unit that is doing that,' Yurek said.
Jonathan Norman, the advocacy, outreach and policy director for Nevada Coalition of Legal Service Providers, said it would be up to the court to make that ultimate determination.
State lawmakers have proposed bills over several sessions to seek to bolster tenant protections and rebalance a system legal groups say favors landlords.
When tenants violate lease agreements either by not paying rent or becoming a nuisance, the landlord has the ability to evict, Considine said.
'In the habitability issue, there is nothing a tenant can do that doesn't put them in jeopardy of eviction,' she said. 'Low income folks tend to not do anything because they don't want to put themselves in a situation where they could be evicted, have an eviction on their record and are stuck trying to find a new place to live.'
Tenants, housing organizers and legal groups speaking in favor of the bill detailed countless stories of insects and vermin overwhelming apartments, broken air conditioning in the middle of summer, and overall substandard living conditions.
In an hour of testimony in support of the bill, they tried to reiterate the point that sometimes landlords ignore requests to fix issues and how the current legal process doesn't empower tenants to take action.
John Sande, a lobbyist for the Nevada State Apartment Association, disagreed. While speaking against the bill, alongside the Nevada Realtors, Sande said the state 'already has a fair system for tenants to challenge habitability issues.'
'While courts may sometimes make bad decisions, that doesn't mean the law itself is bad or in need of drastic change,' Sande said. The bill 'doesn't fix an inherent problem in the law. It creates a new one.'
The committee took no action on Monday.
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