The Section 8 federal housing voucher program was conceived as one in which owners of rental properties participate voluntarily, but that may be changing. One straw in the wind: the push for “source of income discrimination” laws prohibiting landlords from turning away Section 8 tenants. Another: a new Third Circuit decision declaring that the owner of a unit converted to market-rate could not refuse to renew a lease even after the original tenant died. I look at Hayes v. Harvey in my new post at Cato.
Posts Tagged ‘landlord tenant law’
No escape from gas liens for Philadelphia landlords
John K. Ross, Short Circuit: “When tenants fail to pay gas bills, Philadelphia’s municipal utility allows debts to pile up for years without notifying landlords, then puts a lien on the property—effectively making the landlords liable for the debt. When landlords complain, the utility tells them to file a complaint with a state agency that has no jurisdiction to address their complaints. Third Circuit: No due process problem here.” [Augustin v. City of Philadelphia]
June 13 roundup
- Put a Plimsoll line on a T-shirt and you might hear from trademark lawyers [Cyrus Farivar, ArsTechnica]
- “Do Landlords Have a Duty to Evict Drug-Using Tenants (or Face Liability if Guests Die When Using Drugs with Them)?” [Eugene Volokh]
- Interview with Judge Jeffrey Sutton about his new book on state constitutions, “51 Imperfect Solutions: States and the Making of American Constitutional Law” [Ilya Somin, parts one and two] Federalist Society teleforum with Judge Sutton, Randy Barnett, and Judge William Pryor;
- “American Airlines bans insects, hedgehogs and goats as emotional support animals” [CNNMoney/WQAD] Peacocks begone: “JetBlue Updates Requirements for Emotional Support Animals” [press release]
- Gov. Hogan vs. teachers’ unions, pension mandate, a socialist for MoCo County Executive?, and more in my latest Maryland roundup [Free State Notes]
- “A Devastated Puerto Rico Must Still Contend with the Jones Act” [Cato Podcast with Colin Grabow and Caleb Brown, earlier]
Land use and development roundup
- Bay Area, L.A., and D.C. area should take an affordable housing lesson from cities that build: “Houston, Dallas, and NYC: America’s Great 3-Way Housing Supply Race.” [Scott Beyer]
- All things bright and beautiful/All
creatures great and small/All things wise and wonderful/The Commerce Clause reaches ’em all [John-Michael Seibler, Heritage, on Supreme Court’s denial of certiorari in Tenth Circuit decision upholding as constitutional federal rules requiring owners to preserve Utah prairie dog habitat on private land; earlier on PETPO v. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service here, here, and here] Photo: Wikimedia Commons; - WSJ editorial takes dim view of Louisiana coastal erosion suit against oil firms, earlier here, here, here, here, here, and here;
- “You’re Not a Progressive If You’re Also a NIMBY” [Robert Gammon, East Bay Express] “Density Is How the Working Poor Outbid the Rich for Urban Land” [Nolan Gray, Market Urbanism] “The absence of gentrification causes displacement” [Michael Lewyn, same]
- “Let’s Make America a Mineral Superpower” [Stephen Moore and Ned Mamula, Bakersfield.com/Cato]
- Backing off from a bad law: Washington, D.C. considers ending tenant purchase rights for single-family homes [Carolyn Gallaher, Greater Greater Washington]
Update: court strikes down Seattle landlords-must-accept-first-tenant law
A Washington court has struck down Seattle’s new law requiring landlords to rent to the first qualified tenant-applicant who applies, supposedly as a way of countering unconscious or implicit bias. Judge Suzanne Parisien
said the law violated property rights by stripping landlords of their ability to “freely dispose of property” and to choose their own tenant, a “fundamental attribute of property ownership.”
The judge also concluded the law violated landlords’ due process rights by imposing the rule without limitation. “A law that undertakes to abolish or limit the exercise of rights beyond what is necessary to provide for the public welfare cannot be included in the lawful police power of the government,” she wrote.
Finally, the judge said the law violated the First Amendment by broadly banning certain types of advertising by property owners absent individualized suspicion of discrimination. [David Kroman, Crosscut, earlier] More: Ilya Somin.
March 14 roundup
- “Special economic zones can be anything from tools of crony capitalism to seeds of a freer world order.” [Tom W. Bell on The Political Economy of Special Economic Zones by Lotta Moberg]
- 33 state constitutions have “baby Ninths,” which like federal version suggest existence and protection of some unenumerated individual rights. Potential there [Anthony B. Sanders, Rutgers Law Review forthcoming/SSRN]
- Judge hears argument on Seattle law ordering landlords to accept first otherwise qualified tenant who applies [Heidi Groover/The Stranger, earlier]
- Labeling of food, other products as “natural” helps keep class action lawyers in business [Julie Creswell, New York Times]
- SESTA, FOSTA, and trafficking: L.A. Times editorial warns on dangers of abridging Section 230 protections for Internet freedom [earlier here, here, etc.]
- Saga of Zen Magnets versus the CPSC, told in detail [Alan Prendergast, Westword (Denver); earlier; related, Nancy Nord]
Housing roundup
- “One year ago, Portland enacted inclusionary zoning. One year later, “apartment construction in Portland has fallen off a cliff.”” [@michael_hendrix citing Dirk VanderHart, Portland Mercury] Better policy is to focus on building supposedly unaffordable housing [Scott Sumner]
- Intractable problems of residential zoning and of public schooling in the U.S. have a great deal to do with each other [Salim Furth, American Affairs]
- New NBER study “suggests building energy codes hurt the poor, too” [Vanessa Brown Calder, Cato]
- Upzoning of Dumbo helped catalyze Brooklyn’s revival [Ira Stoll] How Henry George and followers influenced NYC property and tax policy, and the tax deal that helped touch off the Manhattan building boom of the 1920s [Daniel Wortel-London, The Metropole]
- How to live in some apartments forever without paying, and more tips for unscrupulous NYC tenants [Jeremiah Budin, Curbed]
- For “but,” read “therefore”: “Marin County has long resisted growth in the name of environmentalism. But high housing costs and segregation persist.” [David Henderson, quoting]
Housing roundup
- “The Rent is Too High and the Commute is Too Long: We Need Market Urbanism” [Andrew Criscione, Market Urbanism] Is excessive regulation making it costly to build starter homes? Ask the New York Times [Ira Stoll]
- Good: Sen. Mike Lee and Rep. Paul Gosar have introduced a bill to eliminate outright the Obama administration’s meddlesome AFFH (Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing) rule [Vanessa Brown Calder, earlier]
- “Dollar home” programs show mostly sparse results in urban revitalization, especially when regulatory strings come attached [Jared Alves, Greater Greater Washington]
- Too radical to pass? Bill 827 in California would impose upzoning on transit corridors [Ilya Somin] California wildfires will worsen Bay Area housing shortage, but where’d that shortage come from? [Enrico Moretti, NYT] “Why Does Land-Use Regulation (Still) Matter in Oregon?” [Calder, Cato]
- New from NBER: “Rent Control Raises Housing Costs” [Charles Hughes, Economics21] Study “provides strong evidence of rent control’s damaging effects” [Calder]
- “Blockchain technology can empower public and private efforts to register property rights on a single computer platform,” with particular benefits for poorer societies in which property rights remain ill-defined [Phil Gramm and Hernando de Soto, WSJ/AEI, Arnold Kling] “The U.S. property title system is a disgrace. It could be fixed with blockchain. But it also could be fixed without blockchain.” [Kling]
Challenge to Seattle law banning choice of tenants
“In Yim v. City of Seattle, PLF is challenging an anti-discrimination law that prohibits landlords from choosing their own tenants. Today, we filed our opening brief to ask the Court to invalidate this oppressive and brazen violation of fundamental rights. Under Seattle’s ‘first-in-time’ rule, a landlord must offer a rental unit to the first person who submits an adequate application.” [Ethan Blevins, Pacific Legal Foundation, earlier on Seattle law purporting to require landlords to rent to first qualified tenant who applies] The law has been rationalized in part as a way to restrict the operation of “unconscious” bias. “The Seattle law illustrates an important downside of trying to use government regulation to offset the subconscious cognitive biases of the private sector: there is little, if any reason to believe that voters and politicians are less biased than the people whose behavior they are trying to regulate. Much of the time, they are likely to be more so.” [Ilya Somin]
Seattle landlords aren’t to know about would-be tenants’ criminal records
“The Seattle City Council approved an ordinance Monday that will mostly prohibit landlords from screening tenants based on their criminal records. Landlords will be barred from excluding people with records in advertisements. When taking applications, they will be barred from asking about records. And in choosing tenants, they will be barred from rejecting people due to their records.” [Daniel Beekman, Seattle Times] Now with more re-education: “Any participation in this ‘conciliation’ process also mandates landlords attend anti-bias training courses.” [Christian Britschgi, Reason]