News

Council to Issue Subpoenas on Possible Abuses of Eviction Law

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Alan Heymann
(202) 727-8229

December 9, 2005

Washington, DC – A DC Council committee has voted unanimously to subpoena several District landlords and their agents in an investigation of illegal tenant evictions.

Today’s 4-0 vote by the Committee on Consumer and Regulatory Affairs launches the investigation and authorizes subpoenas for the building owners and their agents – who have twice refused to testify when invited. The Committee will consider whether tenants’ rights were violated when the landlords proposed to vacate their buildings.

“We have many questions to ask these people,” said Councilmember Jim Graham (D-Ward One). “You can’t simply take a law that’s designed to protect tenants and use it to clear them out of your building. If that’s what happened here, we’re going to get some answers.”

The Committee, chaired by Councilmember Graham, recently held two public roundtables on the proposed evictions. The tenants who testified included the elderly, families with small children, and those who speak little English.

Representing four rent-controlled buildings, the tenants told of being asked to sign documents promising to leave their apartments within 120 days, in exchange for $500 immediately and $500 once their buildings were empty.

This happened because of a little-known law designed to protect the health and safety and tenants -- a law the landlords were apparently trying to use to clean out buildings and sell luxury condominiums.

Under the law, tenants have an "absolute right" to re-rent their apartments after repairs are made. And, if these repairs are meant to bring the property up to housing code, the tenants have the right to return at the same rent.

In the case of the tenants who testified, the District’s Rent Administrator had approved plans to vacate their buildings based on repair plans for a building in Leesburg, Va. The Rent Administrator has since been relieved of her duties, and nobody has been evicted.

Today’s action comes three days after the Council unanimously passed Councilmember Graham’s emergency bill to clarify tenants’ rights and landlords’ responsibilities in similar situations.

The subpoenas will call for testimony at 10 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 21 in Room 412 of the John A. Wilson Building, 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW.

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