Plan would allow tenants to divert rent to pay for neglected repairs
Miami-Dade County’s ‘Tenant’s Bill of Rights’ includes new protections for renters. It passed a committee vote Thursday, but landlord groups want changes.
A proposed “Tenant’s Bill of Rights” would bring new protections for renters across MiamiDade County, including preventing their eviction if they pay for repairs neglected by the landlord out of the rent.
Florida law already allows tenants to stop paying rent if a landlord leaves their home unlivable, but the proposed legislation that unanimously passed a committee vote Thursday adds extra protections for renters. Under the proposal, tenants would be
protected from eviction if they deduct from their rent the cost of repairs neglected by the landlord.
Shoddy maintenance was one complaint renters shared with commissioners during the hearing of the Public Housing and Community Services Committee, while landlords warned that the new legislation could cause problems for tenants if not modified.
Laura Miolán told commissioners she was left with a ruined kitchen for lack of maintenance in her apartment, funded in part with a federal Section 8 rental voucher that pays a portion of rent for individuals with low incomes.
“I have experienced many aspects of landlord neglect,” she said, “including having all the kitchen cabinets fall on me, and leaving them on the floor for almost a year. Only to be repaired when the Section 8 inspection was coming up.”
The Miami Association of Realtors wants the repair provision dropped or revised, calling it an invitation for abuse should tenants opt to pad their repair bills or the owner be forced to accept substandard construction work.
“This is a serious liability,” Enrique Teran, a representative of the Miami Association of Realtors, wrote commissioners in an April 13 letter ahead of the hearing. The group proposed revisions that would require an inspection before repairs and the tenant to obtain three estimates for the work.
The Tenant’s Bill of Rights legislation is the latest proposal from Miami-Dade elected leaders who are facing pressure to address both rising home prices and spikes in rent. A national eviction moratorium ended last summer and in March, commissioners passed a law requiring 60-days notice for rent hikes exceeding 5%.
The legislation sponsored by commissioners Jean Monestime and Raquel Regalado requires landlords to provide tenants with a copy of the new bill of rights, which mostly recites existing renter protections in Florida law. Those include shields against landlords shutting off utilities, and protections for tenants in condo complexes where the landlord isn’t paying the required association fees.
Along with the repair provision, Miami-Dade would require landlords to notify tenants about ownership changes of their home, as well as provide any official notices about potential safety or structural issues with the property.
The legislation also prohibits landlords from inquiring about past evictions before deciding whether a prospective tenant would otherwise qualify for the rental unit. The rule is similar to “ban the box” legislation that Miami-Dade adopted in 2015 that prohibits the county’s employment screeners from asking about past convictions early in the application process. Conviction information is obtained at the end of the application process, before a decision is made on hiring.
“What’s happening is you get a stack of 10 applications, and one of them has an eviction on it, and that application gets tossed to the side,” said
Commissioner Eileen Higgins. “Meanwhile, you don’t know anything about that eviction.”
The South East Florida Apartment Association objected to the provision, saying it would cause a safety concern for existing tenants if landlords couldn’t screen for past evictions tied to property damage and criminal activity. A lobbyist for the group, Kelly Mallette, said the restriction against “inquiring” about evictions could be read as barring landlords from seeking public records in researching an applicant.
“I think it’s important for a property owner to know who they’re renting to,” Mallette said. She said the association isn’t objecting to a rule barring a box about evictions on a rental application, but is not in favor of restrictions that would keep landlords from researching tenants. “With some tweaks of that provision, I think we can be comfortable,” she said.
Douglas Hanks: 305-376-3605, @doug_hanks