An amendment to a section of the Madison General Ordinance involving rental properties did not reach approval in the Common Council Tuesday night, but alders will reconsider the issue at their next meeting.

Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, a sponsor of the amendment, said the purpose of the change is to clean up ambiguity in the current ordinance. Presently, landlords are required to present check-in and checkout forms for tenants before their move-out date, Verveer explained.

However, he said, the ambiguity in the language legally allows landlords to provide these forms any time before the lease is over. This includes the day the lease starts, sometimes allowing landlords to wrongfully withhold security deposits or cause disputes in the courtroom.

"This is going to keep everyone out of hot water that they don't need to be in," Ald. Austin King, District 8, said. "We can fix this, it's a very simple ordinance. It makes sense if you look at it from a tenant perspective."

The amendment in the ordinance would simply require a checkout form to be mailed with other checkout information within seven weeks of the end of the tenant's lease, King said. The additional forms would be an extra record to protect tenants and their security deposits, he added, which was originally intended, but not made clear in the language of the first ordinance.

Yet Ald. Jed Sanborn, District 1, argued the amendment is an unnecessary procedure. The landlord has copies of the check-in forms on record, he said, so even if tenants lose forms, they would be able to access and assess the records of any damages.

"The next step for this would be saying if there is a disagreement, the landlord has to provide the tenant a procedural checklist on how to sue them," Sanborn joked. "This change goes beyond spelling out rights and responsibilities for people and actually makes one party responsible for the other. It goes too far."

Ald. Cindy Thomas, District 20, also said the change in the ordinance would raise the responsibility for landlords. The crucial information to prevent wrongful withholding of security deposits is already provided in the current policy, Thomas added.

Marcia Mansfield, clinical assistant professor at the UW law school, disagreed, saying anything that makes documentation of the state of rental properties easier for tenants is a positive change. She said this issue comes up frequently in landlord-tenant disputes in the area.

Mansfield agreed the language of the current document is ambiguous, allowing landlords to provide only a single form at the beginning of tenancy when two forms would be more appropriate.

"The problem is, [the ordinance] leads to problems at the end of tenancy when landlords and tenants have disputes about rental damages," Mansfield explained. "A change in the language really harmonizes the entire ordinance and makes it easier not only for tenants, but for landlords [too], to figure out the state of a rental unit and provide a paper trail if there is a dispute."