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URLTA in Operation: The Oregon Experience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Samuel Jan Brakel
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Extract

Section 1.102(b) of the uniform act states the primary objectives, the “underlying purposes and policies” of this model legislation:

(1) to simplify, clarify, modernize, and revise the law governing the rental of dwelling units and the rights and obligations of landlords and tenants;

(2) to encourage landlords and tenants to maintain and improve the quality of housing; and

(3) to make uniform the law with respect to the subject of this Act among those states which enact it.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Bar Foundation Research Journal , Volume 5 , Issue 3 , Summer 1980 , pp. 565 - 586
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 1980 

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References

1 Or. Rev. Stat. §§ 91.700-.895.Google Scholar

2 See Blumberg, Richard E. & Robbins, Brian Quinn, Beyond URLTA: A Program for Achieving Real Tenant Goals, 11 Harv. C.R.C.L.L. Rev. 1 (1976); Note, The Ohio Landlord and Tenant Reform Act of 1974, 25 Case W. Res. L. Rev. 876 (1975); Note, Covenant of Habitability and the Ohio Landlord-Tenant Legislation, 23 Clev. St. L. Rev. 539 (1974); Brian Quinn Robbins, The New Oregon Landlord-Tenant Act and the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act a Comparison, 7 Clearinghouse Rev. 327 (1973); Richard E. Blumberg, Analysis of Recently Enacted Arizona and Washington State Landlord-Tenant Bills, 7 Clearinghouse Rev. 134 (1973); Michael H. Marcus, Landlord/Tenant Relations for Oregon (Vancouver, B.C.: Self-Counsel Press, Inc., 1977). see also Hirsch, Werner Z., Joel G. Hirsch, & Stephen Margolis, Regression Analysis of the Effects of Habitablity Laws upon Rent: An Empirical Observation on the Ackerman-Komesar Debate, 63 Calif. L. Rev. 1098 (1975); Charles J. Meyers, The Covenant of Habitability and the American Law Institute, 27 Stan. L. Rev. 879 (1975).Google Scholar

3 E.g., a study entitled Are Tenants Really “Deadbeats”? An Analysis of the Cleveland Municipal Court “Eviction” Division, by Richard E. Newman and others of the Case Western Reserve Law School and the Cleveland Legal Aid Society Law Reform Unit. The study by Marilyn Mosier & Richard Soble, Modern Legislation, Metropolitan Court, Miniscule Results: A Study of Detroit's Landlord-Tenant Court, 7 J.L. Ref. 8 (1973), of the Detroit experience sheds indirect light on the question of the practical effects of the URLTA to the extent that parts of the Michigan law resemble aspects of the habitability concept as treated in URLTA.Google Scholar

4 Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act § 2.104 [hereinafter cited as URLTA]; Or. Rev. Stat. § 91.770.Google Scholar

5 URLTA 9 3.101; Or. Rev. Stat. § 91.775.Google Scholar

6 URLTA 0 4.105; Or. Rev. Stat. § 91.810.Google Scholar

7 I.e., retaliation by the landlord against a tenant for previous complaints or organizing activities, URLTA § 5.101; Or. Rev. Stat. § 91.865.Google Scholar

8 The 1979 House Bill 2485, 1979 Or. Laws ch. 643 (effective Oct. 3, 1979), amending Or. Rev. Stat. §§ 91.770, 365, and repealing§ 91.773, expanded the retaliation provision to actions such as rent raises, but the price for this expanded coverage was the loss of the “presumption” of retaliation that became operative if the landlord's action took place within a specified period of time (see text infra.)Google Scholar

9 Or. Rev. Stat. § 91.865(2); compare URLTA § 5.101(b). See note 8 supra. Google Scholar

10 URLTA §§ 4.101, .103, .104; Or. Rev. Stat. §§ 91.800, .805.Google Scholar

11 URLTA § 3.103; Or. Rev. Stat. §§ 91.785, .860.Google Scholar

12 URLTA §§ 4.104, .107; Or. Rev. Stat. § 91.815.Google Scholar

13 Or. Rev. Stat. § 91.800(1).Google Scholar

14 L & M Inv. Co. v. Morrison, 286 Or. 397, 594 P.2d 1238 (1979); Ficker v. Diefenbach, 34 Or. App. 241, 578 P.2d 467 (1978).Google Scholar

15 Or. Rev. Stat. § 91.755; e.g., URLTA §§ 4.102, .104, .105.Google Scholar

16 Brewer v. Erwin, 287 Or. 435, 600 P.2d 398 (1979).Google Scholar

17 Or. Rev. Stat. §§ 105.105, .137.Google Scholar

18 34 Or. App. 1035, 580 P.2d 217 (1978).Google Scholar

19 By the same token, the cumbersomeness of the legal process sometimes (in the less frequent tenant actions for affirmative relief) also serves the interests of the landlord.Google Scholar

20 Or. Rev. Stat. § 105.115(a).Google Scholar

21 URLTA § 2.101; Or. Rev. Stat. § 91.760.Google Scholar

22 The law (URLTA § 4.207; Or. Rev. Stat. § 91.850) no longer permits this sort of (self-)help, and both landlords and law enforcement personnel the latter in response to some educative tips from Legal Aid (according to Legal Aid) kqow it and have tailored their behavior accordingly.Google Scholar

23 Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 5321.07B(1).Google Scholar

24 Rallie Co. v. Pastor, No. M76CVG-463763 (Franklin County Mun. Ct. 1977).Google Scholar

25 The question has been raised whether these struggling “mom-and-pop” owners really exist in significant numbers or whether they are (as Legal Aid, for example, scoffs) simply a sentimental prop for the landlords' “baser” objections to the act. While we have no official statistics, the impressionistic evidence is that mom-and-pop ownership is indeed a common thing in Portland. Several respondents pointed to the abundance of single-family housing on the rental market in Portland, and asserted that these units were quite often the property of retired folks who had themselves moved to smaller quarters. The testimony of a Housing Authority official with ten years' experience in the business was particularly persuasive. She said that her agency dealt with mom-and-pop type owners “all the time”-people with four or fewer rental units who receive a direct subsidy from the Housing Authority for leasing to low-income individuals or families or who lease to the agency, which in turn rents out to eligible tenants at rates that are only a fraction of what the market could bring. Most respondents thought that this situation was, if not unique to Portland, at least different from the prevailing situation in other large cities, particularly those “out East.”Google Scholar

26 Or. Rev. Stat. § 105.115(a)Google Scholar

27 What the general effect of the act might be on the cost and quality of housing is a very complicated issue, involving intractable questions of measurement, proof, and cause and effect. The studies cited in note 2 supra Hirsch et al. (an empirical approach) and Meyers (a theoretical analysis), are good beginnings, but they can hardly be viewed as definitive or dispositive of the general issue.Google Scholar

28 An informal survey of 545 FED cases conducted by one of the “public interest” attorneys in Portland confirms the results of the 100-case sample taken in this study. Out of the 545 cases, the tenants prevailed in only 9 cases, on procedural grounds in 7, on the merits after trial in 2. Default judgments against tenants were counted at 174, i.e., slightly over 30 percent.Google Scholar

29 Evidence of more significant impact comes from the state of New York, which has incorporated the habitability warranty in its Real Property Law (5 2354 (McKinney's Cum. Supp. 1979-80)). One of the attorneys for the landlord's side in the case of Park West Management v. Mitchell, 47 N.Y.2d 316, 319 N.E.2d 1288 (1979). which interprets the reach of the warranty, reported in a personal letter to the author how far the New York Court of Appeals has gone:Google Scholar

[O]wners [are now held] liable for damages in such extreme situations as assaults, death actions, loss of wages, etc. This direction is most alarming, particularly where we have strict control of rents as we do in New York. This development is making ownership of residential rental property in New York extremely hazardous and in my view will result largely in the elimination of rental housing here. As of the present time, very few investors are interested in either building or purchasing rental housing, particularly in New York City.

Letter of April 14, 1980, from Eugene J. Morris (of Demov, Morris, Levin & Shein, New York) Whether we agree that this direction is alarming or not, that is beginning to sound like real impact.Google Scholar

30 See Javins v. First Nat'l Realty Corp., 428 F.2d 1071 (D.C. Cir. 1970), and Richard H. Chused, Contemporary Dilemmas of the Juvins Defense: A Note on the Need for Procedural Reform in Landlord-Tenant Law, 67 Geo. L.J. 1385 (1979).Google Scholar

31 URLTA § 4.101, especially § 4.101(b); Or. Rev. Stat. § 91.800, especially § 91.800(2).Google Scholar

32 See Judah Gribetz & Frank P. Grad, Housing Code Enforcement: Sanctions and Remedies, 66 Colum. L. Rev. 1254, 1289 (1966). concluding that it would be unwarranted and premature to brand the governmental inspection system a failure and also cautioning against overreliance on “the uncertainties of private initiative.” The article further noted that the initial, if inconclusive, experience with private remedies demonstrated that they seemed to be used primarily by “good middle-class tenants seeking to compel the extension of housing amenities, if not frills, rather than the repair of dangerous conditions” (at 1289 & n.151) an assessment that describes with considerable accuracy the current experiences in Portland and Cleveland, particularly the latter.Google Scholar