Welcome to Rent control

History of Rent Controls in America

In the United States during World War I, rents were "controlled" through the efforts of local rent anti-profiteering committees and public pressure. Between 1919 and 1924, a number of cities and states adopted rent and eviction control laws. Modern rent controls were first adopted in response to WWII-era shortages, or following Richard Nixon's 1971 wage and price controls. They remain in effect or have been reintroduced in some cities with large tenant populations, such as New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, and Oakland, California. Many smaller communities also have rent control, notably Santa Monica, Berkeley, and West Hollywood, California[1] along with many small towns in New Jersey. In recent years, rent control in some cities, such as Boston, Massachusetts and Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been ended by state referenda.

New York has had the longest experience of rent controls, since 1943, with most residents being unable to remember a time beforehand. The period has been marked by the lack of an "adequate supply of decent... housing". The worsening in the rental market led to the enactment of the Rent Stabilization Law of 1969, which aimed to help increase the number of places put up for rent. The current system is very complicated, which is especially troublesome as most of the protected renters are elderly, and understanding the city's complex rent-control regulations is difficult even for experienced lawyers.

In some regions rent control laws are more commonly adopted for mobile home parks. Reasons given for these laws include residents owning their homes (and renting the land), the high cost of moving mobile homes, and the loss of home value when they are moved. California, for example, has only 13 local apartment rent control laws but over 100 local mobile home rent control laws. No new mobile home parks have been built in California since 1991.

Purpose and scope

Although the political debate over rent control is far-reaching, as described below, the purposes and provisions of such laws are intended to be limited in scope. They define which rental units are affected, and may have only larger or older rental complexes covered by the law. The frequency and degree of rent increases are limited, usually to the rate of inflation defined by the Consumer Price Index or to a fraction thereof. (San Francisco, for example, allows annual rent increases of 60% of the CPI, up to a maximum 7%.)

Unregulated rent increases may be allowed when a tenant moves ("vacancy decontrol"). Rent-control laws that don't include vacancy decontrol are called strong rent-control laws. Such laws were in effect in five California cities (West Hollywood, Santa Monica, Berkeley, East Palo Alto and Cotati) in 1996, when AB 1164 (known as the Costa/Hawkins Bill) made strong rent-control unenforceable in California (except in special cases like mobile home parks).

Economic

The rental-accommodation market suffers from information asymmetries and high transaction costs. Typically, a landlord has much more information about a home than a prospective tenant can reasonably detect. Moreover, once the tenant has moved in, the costs of moving again are very high. Unscrupulous landlords can thus conceal defects and, if the tenant complains, threaten to raise the rent at the end of the lease. With rent control, tenants can ensure that hidden defects at least be repaired to comply with building code requirements, without fearing retaliatory rent increases. Rent control may thus compensate somewhat for inefficiencies of the housing market.

Income tax codes often provide benefits for housing, and rent control allows tenants to share in some of those benefits. In the United States, the Internal Revenue Code allows landlords to claim depreciation deductions for rental property even while increasing rents.[3] Homeowners may also deduct property taxes and mortgage interest, and exclude capital gains, from their taxable income. Tenants pay income tax but get none of these housing-related deductions or exclusions. By limiting the extent to which landlords can raise rent on purportedly depreciated property, rent control restores balance to tax benefits that would otherwise become concentrated solely in the hands of landlords.

Social

Rent control is considered necessary[5] to protect the public and to prevent landlords from imposing rent increases that cause key workers or vulnerable people to leave an area. Maintaining a supply of affordable housing is believed to be essential to sustaining the local society. Homeowners who support rent control point to the neighborhood instability caused by high or frequent rent increases and the effect on schools, youth groups, and community organizations when tenants move more frequently.

Enforcement issues

Some landlords use extralegal means to evade rent controls and attempt to take advantage of housing conditions. Some landlords may step up discrimination against any group they dislike if they believe there is a surplus of prospective tenants. Jurisdictions that implement rent controls may have to pass laws in response such as those forbidding landlords from compelling new tenants to hire the landlord's moving company. In some areas with especially strict rent controls, landlords may require "key money" (a non-refundable deposit). Demanding key money is illegal in most of North America, but since the landlord will invariably demand it in cash, it is very difficult to trace and nearly impossible to prove in court. Rent control enforcement may likewise create considerable bureaucratic hurdles for the repair and improvement of properties, creating a disincentive for landlords to carry out such actions.