A bill that would allow landlords to throw away a tenant’s belongings and take additional money from their security deposit without notification is moving forward after the Senate’s recent passage of the legislation.
UPDATE
The bill, introduced by Sen. Frank Lasee, R-De Pere, and Sen. Dale Schultz, R-Richland Center, would allow landlords to dispose of anything left behind by a tenant after eviction or move-out day. The bill would allow the landlord to assume the belongings are abandoned, leaving the landlord with the ability to dispose of it.
The legislation passed 18-15 along party lines. The measure would also allow tenants to fix their own repairs or address bug infestations with the landlords approval and for landlords to tow any car in a tenant’s private spot without a citation from a traffic officer or the vehicle owner’s permission.
University of Wisconsin professor Mitch, an expert on Wisconsin rental housing regulations, said the bill’s “hands-off approach” is bad for both tenants and property owners. According to Mitch, the proposed bill fails to specify tenants still hold the ability to sue landlords for throwing away their belongings without notice.
“Before deregulation, landlords and their employees could look at the statute which laid out a 1-2-3 step process for what to do when a problem, like property left behind, arose,” he said in an email to The Badger Herald.
Mitch said he recalled a story from a landlord who was not aware of the laws requiring property owners to notify tenants of their leftover belongings, leaving him with a lawsuit on his hands.
“A tenant could not get everything moved on moving day, but came back the next morning to get the last few bags of their belongings,” Mitch said. “Those bags were thrown away by the landlord’s cleaning crew. Turns out that those bags contained the student’s laptop computer, clothing and photos.”
The bill also eliminates the requirement for landlords to hire attorneys to handle evictions.
Heiner Giese, an attorney with the Apartment Association of Southeastern Wisconsin, a group in favor of the bill, said the provision allowing landlords to handle their own evictions would help tenants not fear a court case and helps landlords financially.
“It makes it cheaper for the landlord to do an eviction, so that’s an advantage to the landlord,” Giese said. “But some advantage to the tenant who is contesting something like this is they won’t face a lawyer, but the landlord.”
Sen. Jon Erpenbach, D-Middleton, also introduced an amendment that would prohibit a domestic violence victim from being evicted, which would have been possible under the bill. The amendment was added to the bill, which will be returned to the Assembly for approval.
Jacob Riederer, UW College Democrats spokesperson, said the organization strongly opposes the bill as it would negatively affect student tenants.
“This blatant assault on tenants’ rights is especially alarming for UW-Madison students when you consider the nearly 75 percent of students who live in off-campus housing,” Riederer said in an email to The Badger Herald. “In empowering landlords, Republicans are punishing tenants and punishing students.”
Mitch said the bill does not help either landlords or tenants since it removes guidance from the state on these issues.
“Landlords and their employees, busy with turning over thousands of student apartments in Madison, are likely to assume that anything left behind is trash and throw it away — thinking that the new law allows them to do that,” he said.
Mitch added many of the bill supporters also believe deregulation will help boost the property renting market, which is not true in Madison as new student apartment buildings are continuing to be built.
The bill will be returned to the Assembly with the new revisions from the Senate.
The Apartment Association of South Central Wisconsin, a group that lobbied in favor of the bill, did not comment on the bill’s passage.
Calls to Lasee’s and Schultz’s offices were not returned.
