When the rain, sleet and snow fell on Cherita Powell’s North Little Rock home on Christmas Day, a leak developed in the bedroom ceiling above her bed.
Powell, who is pregnant with her sixth child, said she called her landlord’s office, reported it and waited for its repair.
Four days later, the ceiling, weighed down with soggy insulation and Sheetrock, gave way. City code enforcement officials verified that the sodden ceiling had fallen in.
Powell said she suffered a concussion as a result and is weighing her legal options, but officials at the Center for Arkansas Legal Services have said she has little recourse.
“I was scared, actually, and I didn’t know what to do as far as the problems I was having,” Powell said.
Arkansas is the only state that doesn’t require landlords to maintain their properties. Unless expresslymentioned in the lease, landlords have no legal obligation to keep buildings up to code, make repairs, ensure that all plumbing, heating and ventilation are in working order, or even provide running water.
The lack of an implied warranty of habitability is one of the key issues raised in a report by the Nonlegislative Commission on the Study of Landlord-Tenant Laws.
The report also noted that Arkansas is the only state that criminalizes failure to pay rent and failure to vacate. It’s a statute that puts prosecutors in the position of arguing cases for landlords against tenants.
The commission has proposed repealing the criminal failure-to-vacate statute. Some of its members suggest immediate repeal, while others insist that the law be removed only after morelandlord-friendly civil eviction laws are passed. Overall, the commission made 15recommendations, including establishing an implied warranty of habitability to require landlords to provide dwellings that are fit to live in.
The commission also recommended a law to protect tenants from being evicted for filing complaints against their landlords. Currently, a landlord is free to evict a tenant who reports building or housing-code violations to authorities.
“As this report demonstrates, Arkansas’s residential landlord-tenant law is significantly out of balance. Arkansas residential tenants have significantly fewer rights than tenants in any other states,” the commission wrote.
But some landlords say few criminal failure-to-vacate cases actually go to trial and that the current statute is needed to evict someone who refuses to leave a property.
Nearly 500 criminal failure-to-vacate cases have been filed in the state’s courts since January 2008, according to information provided by the Administrative Office of the Courts.
The crime is a misdemeanor, and poor defendants typically don’t receive free legal counsel regarding their rights.
Arkansas Code Annotated 18-16-101 states that “if, after ten days’ notice ... the tenant shall willfully refuse to vacate and surrender the possession of the premises to the landlord or the landlord’s agent or attorney, the tenant shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.”
Prosecutors aren’t required to - and often don’t - consult with the tenant or hear the defendant’s side before filing charges.
Stephen Giles, a Little Rock attorney appointed by Gov. Mike Beebe to lead the commission, said the criminal failure-to-vacate statute is a way for landlords to avoid the more arduous civil eviction process.
“It’s inexpensive, it’s very fast and it’s geared toward moving a tenant out in a very efficient manner,” Giles said.
But efforts are under way to change the law during this year’s legislative session.
State Rep. James Word, DPine Bluff, who is a housing director, said he proposed the commission review after hearing stories from tenants applying for Section 202 housing, which is provided through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Word said he makes home visits during the application process.
“You would not believe some of the places that they are living and some of the conditions that they are living under,” Word said.
He said some tenants’ only recourse is through code enforcement in the cities, which inspect properties after receiving complaints. But many rural areas and small towns don’t have housing codes that tenants can rely on, according to the commission’s report.
In Little Rock, the city has cited or shut down several apartment complexes in recent years for a variety of violations. During a hearing last week, a Little Rock district judge called the Stonecrest Apartments, which were shut down Jan. 25, a “death trap.”
Word said he plans to meet with representatives fromlandlord and tenant organizations in Pine Bluff this week and hopes to file legislation by the middle of this month to address some of the issues raised in the report.
He said he also plans to discuss possible legislative action to repeal the criminal failureto-vacate statute or make the civil eviction process easier for landlords to navigate.
Right now, the civil eviction system is slower and costlier, Giles said. He said the commission heard from several landlords who support streamlining the civil eviction process so it gets “the job done in the shortest period of time.”
“We’ve heard the horror stories on both sides of this, and some tenants need to be evicted quickly,” Giles said.
He said the commission also recommended drafting official forms for notice to vacate, complaints and answers that would inform a tenant of his rights because many tenants represent themselves in the eviction process.
Howard Warren, the legislative director for the Landlords Association of Arkansas who also served on the commission, said that in some parts of the state, the courts do not handle criminal failure-to-vacate cases because of a lack of resources in the prosecutor’s office.
In a criminal case, a tenant who refuses to vacate is served with a notice to be out by a certain date or face going to court, he said.
In such cases, “I don’t get any money out of it. I just get possession of the property back,” Warren said.
Jordan Haas, the president of the Little Rock Landlord Association, said a landlord’s preference on use of the criminal failure-to-vacate statute or the civil eviction statute often depends on where his property is. Haas said the criminal statute is effective and less expensive, which also ultimately benefits renters.
“Anything that costs the landlord money ... that ends up getting passed [down] to the tenant,” Haas said.
Haas and Warren said they support an implied warranty of habitability statute.
Warren said most landlords keep up with their properties and respond quickly to tenants’ requests. But, in instances when that’s not the case, a warranty-of-habitability statute would allow tenants to move out without paying a penalty for breaking a lease or let them take their case to a judge.
“I know that that is a kind of bill that could be written so the good landlords are not hurt by it,” Warren said.
Warren said many landlords in the state also favor granting additional protections to victims of domestic violence. The state’s domesticabuse statute, Arkansas Code Annotated 18-16-112, does not allow a victim to terminate a lease prematurely without paying a penalty.
“I don’t know any landlord who would not work well with the abused victim in this case ... but the law needs to be patched,” Warren said.
Amy Johnson, executive director of the Access to Justice Commission, which advocates for fair access to the courts in civil matters, said that for several years she has been aware of the issues raised in the report, and she supports the committee’s recommendations.
“The current laws ... are tilted heavily in favor of landlords and leave little in the rights of tenants,” Johnson said.
Some of the report’s suggestions would require action by the state Supreme Court. The high court could, for instance, allow district courts to issue eviction orders and writs of possession. Such a recommendation, however, would have to be submitted to the court by its Committee on Civil Practice, not by the state Legislature.
Johnson said she isn’t sure how long it will take for changes to take place, but she’s hopeful. “I think that the ultimate goal would be to see some legislation get passed this session,” she said.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 15 on 02/03/2013