NEWS
Campus-area alder tenant proposal garners mixed reactions
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by Pratha Muthiah
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
A downtown alder’s recently proposed city ordinance designed with tenant rights in mind has been received with mixed feelings among students and property managers.
The ordinance would require landlords to document any damages deducted from their tenants’ security deposits with photographs.
Ald. Eli Judge, District 8, said he feels the ordinance is a necessity.
“Ever since I’ve been elected, there’s been a problem of bad landlords taking advantage of students, or people who don’t know their rights,” Judge said. “It’s really expensive to go to court over damages that have been claimed by landlords, and some landlords are claiming damages with the assumption that the tenant will fail to challenge it.”
University of Wisconsin senior Kira Brenner said she has had firsthand experience with being taken advantage of as a tenant.
“We completely cleaned out the apartment, and then found out we were charged for damages that were already there,” Brenner explained. “About $400 was taken out of our security deposit for nothing.”
According to Judge, the new ordinance would protect tenants from being unnecessarily charged for damages, as well as help landlords in situations with dishonest tenants.
“By setting a burden of proof on the landlord, hopefully it will both protect tenants from bad landlords, and also landlords from fraudulent tenants,” Judge said.
Some landlords and property managers are a bit hesitant, however. Darrick Dischaw, a landlord of The Aberdeen apartment building on West Gorham Street, agrees that the ordinance would be helpful, but said it would be difficult to uphold.
“I think it’s a good idea to photograph significant damages, but if you want to photograph every single thing a landlord has to deal with, that’s going to be tricky, especially because you’re not going to have an accurate picture of what the apartment looked like before,” Dischaw said. “It would be hard to have before-and-after pictures of every square inch of every room of every apartment in the complex.”
Michael Greiber, corporate counsel for Madison Property Management, said while the plan itself is a good one, it would not be efficient.
“I’ve found that in my experience, normally, damages within the apartment at move-out are not disputed,” Greiber said. “Where the disagreement lies is when the tenant says the condition was preexisting — where they claim they didn’t see it or forgot to mark it. The other issue is when people say they shouldn’t be responsible for ‘normal wear and tear.’”
Greiber said taking so many pictures is a lot of extra work and an unnecessary step.
“It would expand tenant rights, but for that many apartments, only a small percentage would actually ask to see the photos,” Greiber said.
However, Greiber said he could also see how photographs would be helpful in the courtroom.
Judge responded to these sentiments by explaining that landlords would indeed benefit from the ordinance as well.
“[Landlords] are going to get a lot of money out of this. If they take these pictures, it’s going to protect them against some pretty heavy liability issues and legal fees in the long run,” Judge said. “Landlords would also be protected against made-up charges.”
Despite some of the uncertainty, however, the ordinance has garnered support overall from renters.
“I think it seems like a pretty fair ordinance,” Brenner said. “It wouldn’t really cost landlords anything, and it would protect them as well.”
Anonymous (October 23, 2007 @ 11:35am):
If you interview Madison Property, of course they're going to say that.
Anonymous (October 23, 2007 @ 1:41pm):
Pictures will not matter anyways. Just got out of a court dispute and the Landlord won charges from tenant without any "picture" proof. It will depend on Commisioner/Judge in my theory. If things were broken at time of move in and you "Clearly" state that fact on your check-in form, then there should be no reason that you are charged for the repair. In my opinion the problem is that new tenants do not fully examine the property prior to turning in their check-in form. I highly doubt anyone would waste court time and costs over a small $20-$40 charge.
Anonymous (October 23, 2007 @ 1:45pm):
A Picture a the the end of tenancy will have no relavance without an "initial condition" picture. Without a context, 1 picture is worthless. Good idea for easy proof. If the burden is on the landlord to document damages with picture, perhaps in fairness the tenant should bear burden of proof of existing damage or of initial condition to compare to.
Anonymous (October 23, 2007 @ 3:03pm):
how can you tell if the stuff is preexisting, you'll have to get pretty good cameras to get the detail on there with some of the damages
Anonymous (October 23, 2007 @ 4:56pm):
this is just a bad ordinance. first of all, landlords going to court are going to take pictures anyway, unless they're dumb. and the students aren't going to have pictures showing there was no damage in the first place. waste of time.
Anonymous (October 23, 2007 @ 8:14pm):
I think the past 4 comments were written by landlords. Most of these disputes are not over whether there was something there in the first place, but rather, if the damage actually exists. And to claim none of this matters or is too hard to do, then why do many landlords already use this procedure? It's not hard to show paint chips or broken door frames on a 5 dollar disposable.
Anonymous (April 18, 2008 @ 8:07am):
This wouldn't work for the first year, no. Like people were saying there would be no "before" picture. However, the sooner we get started, the better. It should be passed, with the stipulation that it comes into effect at the start of next leasing term, August 15th, 2009. That would give enough time for "before" pictures. Also, this is a project personally undertaken by my boyfriend before we moved in to our current apartment, so that we can dispute any charges at end of lease. We were both had false deductions from our security deposits from our last apartments, and we now have the documentation if such a thing were to happen again. For the record, our last landlords were Wisconsin Management Company, and Boardwalk Investments. Do not rent from them if you can avoid it - they will not make repairs if they can avoid it. We currently reside with Oakbrook Corporation, and they seem o.k. They normally don't repair things the first time asked, but do get around to it.
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