Advocates urge veto of landlord guest-removal bill

A bill on Gov. Doug Ducey’s desk could allow landlords to discriminate against their tenants’ guests, critics of the legislation said this week.

A strike-everything amendment to Senate Bill 1185 allows landlords to remove any guest who is not listed on a written lease and is on the property without the landlord or tenant’s permission. It also allows law enforcement to remove guests the landlord or tenant don’t want on the property.

Bill author Sen. Gail Griffin, R-Hereford, said in a March 25 committee hearing to introduce the bill that it addresses a problem identified by a constituent.

The constituent and his tenant called law enforcement for help removing an unwelcome guest who refused to leave. Police said they were powerless because the guest had established residency by living there for several months.

Griffin, a real-estate broker, said most leases include clauses allowing tenants to have guests for a certain number of days without a landlord’s approval. A model lease provided by the Arizona Association of Realtors does not include such a clause.

“It (SB 1185) wouldn’t apply to somebody coming over for dinner, it just refers it back to the written lease,” Griffin said during the March hearing.

But opponents of the measure, including the William E. Morris Institute for Justice, see it as an overly broad reaction to a single incident and are urging Ducey to veto the bill. The governor has up to 10 working days to sign or veto it.

Ellen Katz, director of the Phoenix-based nonprofit institute that advocates for low-income Arizonans, said the legislation could allow landlords to discriminate against guests based on race or religion. “This allows the landlord to just say ‘I don’t like you,’ and have someone removed by the police,” she said.

SB 1185 won’t require landlords to give notice or a reason for removing guests, or for calling law enforcement to remove guests. It also doesn’t give a length of time for which a guest is allowed stay, and it could allow a landlord to prohibit visits by someone a tenant has invited to the property.

Katz said the bill, which is 94 words long, removes protections afforded to renters under Arizona rental law.

The Arizona Residential Landlord and Tenant Act makes tenants responsible for their guests, and landlords can serve notice to tenants if their guests violate leases. Tenants are also able to take civil action to remove unwelcome guests.

“We have an Arizona residential tenant act,” Katz said. “It works well and it works quickly. And this bill tries to circumvent that.”

“It (SB 1185) wouldn’t apply to somebody coming over for dinner, it just refers it back to the written lease.”

SEN. GAIL GRIFFIN R-HEREFORD AND AUTHOR OF SB 1185