90-Day Rent Increase Notices Sent Before 2023 Legislation Becomes Law

Question:  All indications are that the 2023 legislature is going to revisit the rent increase formula currently in effect, and once passed it would likely become law immediately upon the Governor’s signature. How can landlords deal with having already issued a September 2022 90-day rent increase notice if the 2023 rent cap is legislatively reduced before the landlord’s previously-issued September 2022 increase goes into effect?

Introduction. First, let’s start with the basics: There are two main types of property, real and personal. (There is a third category, a hybrid actually, called a “fixture,” which was originally personal property that when securely attached to the real property becomes a part of it. Removal would cause damage to the structure. Fixtures transfer with the structure unless removed by pre-agreement before closing of the sale. In residential housing, attached light fixtures are the main example.) For purposes of this article, we  will ignore fixtures.

Introduction. A recent ruling from the Oregon Court of Appeals should be of interest to landlords, including those owning manufactures housing communities. Many provisions in the Oregon Landlord-Tenant Act apply a multiplier for the landlord’s violation of a statute.

A case in point is 90.315(4), a utility billing statute which allows that aggrieved tenants may recover the greater of “one month’s periodic rent or twice the amount wrongfully charged” for each individual violation. In Shepard, the plaintiff sought to apply the statute in an ongoing manner for every month the alleged violation existed. It does not require a calculator to conclude that an alleged violation that existed for 12 months (the statute of limitations under the Act) can amount to a sizeable claim against the landlord – and especially so if brought as a class action on behalf of the entire Park.

Not all requests for disability accommodations are reasonable. How can you tell which are and which aren’t?

While the COVID-19 pandemic may have kept people at home in 2020, it apparently didn’t keep them from suing for discrimination. There were 28,712 total fair housing complaints in that pandemic year, according to the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA). That’s the third highest annual total since 2009, and only 168 complaints fewer than the second-place year of 2019. (Note: NFHA, a national civil rights organization that tracks fair housing litigation across the US, hadn’t published the 2021 statistics as of the date we went to press.)

Continuing historic patterns, disability discrimination was the most common ground of complaint, accounting for 15,664 (54.46%) of all 2020 cases. It’s a pretty good bet that failure to provide reasonable accommodations was at the center of most of these cases.

Bottom line: Statistically at least, if an applicant or resident ever sues you for a fair housing violation, it’ll most likely be for allegedly violating your obligation to provide reasonable accommodations for a disability.

Ask anyone who works on a Senior Living Community how they like their job and I can almost guarantee that they will tell you they have a love-hate relationship with it. Most employees will tell you that they love working with seniors; that they are a nice group of people, and they have a bond with them that they have never experienced while working on a multi-family community.  They will also tell you of the heartaches and troubles of a senior community; and this is not just the obvious complications of dealing with an aging resident population. You will hear about the vast disparity between “the new senior” and “the elderly,” the trends seniors are setting, the financial issues many seniors are facing, the troubling issue of increasing mental illness in seniors, and the demands seniors are making on staff. How does all this affect not only the senior market, but how will it affect the market at large? How do we stay on top of trends, and how do we assist the employees in this highly specialized market segment? 

Holding. In late July 2022, the Oregon Supreme Court issued its ruling in Hickey v. Scott, 370 Or 97 (2022) that addressed the application of ORS 90.394(3).[1] The Court ruled that when issuing a termination notice for nonpayment of rent, the landlord must specify the “correct amount due to cure the default.” Hickey, 370 Or at 101. If the court determines that the tenant owes a lower amount than the amount specified in the notice, the court must dismiss the FED.