Thank you.
Good morning.
This is the regularly scheduled meeting of the Sustainability and Renters' Rights Committee of the Seattle City Council.
Today is Friday, January 20th, 2023, and the time is 9.30 a.m.
I am the chair of the committee, Council Member Kshama Sawant.
Would the clerk, Ted Verdone, from my office please call the roll?
Council Member Sawant?
Present.
Council Member Morales?
Here.
Council Member Nelson?
Present.
Council Member Juarez?
Ted, I believe that's El Presidente Juarez, so.
El Presidente Juarez.
Here.
Council Member Lewis.
Present.
I present.
Thank you, Ted and welcome to all members of the committee.
Today's committee has one point on the agenda to hear a briefing from community renters rights organizations advocating for new legislation that would limit the late fees landlords can charge for overdue rent.
My office supports this legislation and has asked Asha Venkatraman from council central staff to prepare it.
Given the workload of the city attorney's office, whose time is required to review any new legislation, Asha has estimated that the committee should be able to consider a draft in mid to late February.
Today's discussion is intended to give members of the Sustainability and Renter Rights Committee and members of the public an overview of the concept of legislation capping late fees and why renters need it.
Without caps on late fees, renters can be trapped in a cycle of debt by overdue rent worse than the most predatory credit cards.
Some cities in Washington state already limit late fees in different ways, so we do have precedents to compare with, along with potential pitfalls to avoid.
I know today's presenters will describe these in detail.
My office supports capping late fees at $10 a month, as has been done in Auburn, which is the best model currently in Washington state.
And we, of course, support closing loopholes like notice delivery fees, which we will hear more about from the presenters.
Before we begin that agenda item, we will hear public comment.
Ted, how many people do we have signed up for public comment?
There are three speakers remote and one in council chambers.
Speakers will have two minutes each.
Ted will read out the names of the speakers in order of signing up.
For people speaking remotely, when Ted calls your name, you will be prompted to unmute yourself.
And when you hear that, you should please hit star six on your phone to unmute yourself and begin.
Ted, let's begin with the first speaker.
We can start with Carolyn Malone, followed by our remote speakers in order, Angie Gerard, Aidan Nardone, and Howard Gale.
Go ahead.
Can you pick?
Oh.
I'm Carolyn Malone, I've been here many times before because daily I live in a housing limbo and threats of eviction from Ina Whitaker, Catholic Community Services Executive Director, because I will not submit to real page compliance.
It's an algorithm that allows landlords to charge any amount of rent and this rent, my rent, I've given you a copy.
I'm charged with, please don't cause my stomach to quiver.
My rent payment due is $9,050.
I pay HUD subsidized rent legally of $325 a month, but I'm not given credit for it on this bill because Ina Whitaker is trying to force me into the real page algorithm, whereas rent she can determine arbitrarily what I must pay.
And the more I protest, the higher my rent goes.
The market value for my one-bedroom apartment is $1,133.
I'm charged or extorted for that whole amount, which is about 80% of my income.
I've submitted paperwork and copies of a person who pays only $3 a month and that $3 is a credit.
So basically I do believe I'm the only one charged with full market value because I come to city council and protest.
Other renters pay $15 a month or $3.
This is illegal and must stop.
I will continue to fight against it.
Thank you.
Our next speaker is Angie Gerald followed by Aiden Nardone.
Good morning.
My name is Angie and I'm a small landlord in Ballard and a member of Seattle Grassroots Landlords.
As you begin discussing new legislation for the year I'm here to remind you that you have passed an unprecedented flurry of regulations in recent years with broad new social obligations and major new risks for even the smallest rental property owners.
A resulting impact is that Seattle is losing small rental housing and it's becoming more expensive.
The number and diversity of options is dwindling.
Barriers to small scale ownership have skyrocketed.
The Rio data for registered rental units is available through the city's open data portal.
I check it once a month or so.
Do you?
Small housing providers are all in the Rio database.
More than 4,000 of us responded to a survey back in 2018. We are easy to reach out to.
Will you?
As elected leaders, it has been your choice to not include small housing provider perspectives in presentations or deliberations, with one exception that came from outside this committee.
Last year, council did prompt FDCI to conduct a small landlord stakeholder group, and the report was issued in December.
Have you read it?
When small landlords have called in for public comment, this committee chair and some of her presenters have gone out of their way to disparage and ostracize housing provider input, while providing no means to engage in actual dialogue.
For a city that desperately needs more housing, this approach is not working well.
If you talk to small landlords, you will get an earful of pitfalls, confusion, protective measures, and exit strategies.
Trust me, it's worth listening.
Is City Council interested in local independent rental housing as part of our ecosystem?
In a diversity of viable rental housing types, not just one bedroom corporate-owned apartments, The narrative doesn't have to continue as a false choice between capitulating to corporate landlords or empowering tenants.
Enabling and encouraging more Seattleites to rent housing to one another should be an integral part of our housing strategy and it needs to be considered as a regular lens in your legislative actions.
Thank you.
Our next speaker is Aidan Nardone.
Good morning, my name is Aidan Nardone.
I'm a resident in D6.
I'm confused.
Citizens utilize the public comment period as one vehicle to communicate with the city council about many things, including proposed legislation.
How would a citizen be able to comment about this proposed rent overdue fees on overdue rent without any proposed legislation presented.
I checked the websites of the two presenters and there was no information there either.
Today's meeting is a waste of time if you don't have the legislation ready to present.
You should have canceled the meeting.
We'll wait until February to see what the plan is.
This is incredibly poor planning.
The final speaker is Howard Gale.
Good morning.
Howard Gale, District 7 renter, speaking about the increasingly widespread practice by landlords and developers who, with the cooperation of SDCI, now avoid Seattle laws limiting evictions and rental increases.
Over this last year, landlords and developers, like Cadence Realty that famously displays Section 8 tenants from the Chateau on Capitol Hill, have discovered a way to evict people and exorbitantly raise rents without having to provide the 180-day notice and avoid almost all tenant relocation assistance.
All a property owner need do is claim they're doing renovations that supposedly cost over $6,000.
This is a simple requirement when a developer can have one of its LLCs purchase kitchen cabinets for a few hundred dollars and then have their other LLCs pay $6,001 to repurchase and install them.
In my building with 48 apartments, Cadence Realty is doing this So it's to force people out without paying most people any relocation fee and then raise rents by 70%, 70%.
As an added bonus for Cadence, for the very few tenants that will apply and meet income guidelines for relocation assistance, the city must pay one half of that assistance.
This is a flagrant abuse of city code, one that will convert 48 affordable units into being unaffordable and displace 48 families.
Cadence and other corporate property owners are doing this in many dozens of buildings all across the city with SDCI happily issuing permits as they just did with my building last week because SDCI fears legal action from developers whereas they feel no threat from disempowered tenants or city's elected officials.
How can the council claim they are fighting homelessness when the city regularly issues permits for an end run around tenant laws that will simply produce more homeless people?
How can council members feel good about providing tenant protections that now only exist on paper and not in reality.
These renovation evictions must be halted.
Thank you.
That's our final speaker in public comment.
Thank you to everybody who spoke in public comment.
Before we begin the item, I just wanted to quickly address one of the points that the last speaker, Howard Gale, made about cadence real estate and tenants at the shadow building.
Thank you, Howard, for mentioning that.
We had heard that from community members, and in fact, my office is going to be in touch with the tenants this morning, actually, first thing, and make sure that we are helping the tenants of the shadow building fight back against this latest attempt.
I don't know how many are listening and of them, how many remember or know about the fight back we had done alongside the shadow tenants in 2019. And it was actually a really encouraging example of tenants because they got organized alongside our office and community members and union members who stood by them.
We were actually able to defeat Cadence Corporation in their attempts at that time to evict the tenants and these are all working class or senior tenants on fixed income and so we want to make sure that those those gains are not lost and we will make sure to also share with the members of the public next time we are here in this committee to relay to them the progress that we have been able to make hopefully on that issue.
Now we will begin the briefing on capping the late fees landlords may charge for overdue rent.
We are joined by Devin Glaser from the Tenant Law Center and Kate Rubin from BC Apple.
Welcome to you both.
Thank you for being here.
I've already made a few points about this, but obviously we're looking forward to hearing in more detail from you both about the problem itself, how it affects renters and what the legislation would do and why it's necessary.
So please introduce yourselves for the record and then begin your presentation.
Hi, thank you, Council Member Sawant.
Council Members Juarez, Morales, Nelson, Lewis.
I hope I didn't miss anyone.
I'm Devin Klaeser.
I'm a staff attorney with the Tennant Law Center.
And then Kate Rubin, do you want to introduce yourself?
Hi, I'm Kate Rubin.
I'm the organizing director and co-executive director of Be Seattle.
And I can't quite see the screen.
Is the PowerPoint up or Cool.
It's not particularly complicated I think last time I was in front of council I had to explain 175 page report so I had lots and lots to add here we're kind of just talking about a situation that's facing many renters in Seattle, and kind of a gap in legal protections.
So, We have quite a few laws in Seattle that regulate some of the landlord tenant interactions but right now nothing that really covers late fees and then so called notice fees.
So while Seattle may be preempted from regulating rent.
It is not preempted from regulating the fees that some landlords may charge, and in the gap we're facing landlords are kind of I mean, they're given free reign to charge whatever they want.
So I think some landlords may charge totally reasonable fees, and they would not be impacted by this legislation.
Other landlords charge, I would say, very heinous fees, and they would probably find that their power to do so would be capped by this.
If you want to pop to the next two slides, because I think the next one's just introductions.
We've been working with part of the Stay Healthy Coalition to kind of go around different cities throughout King County and pass legislation to protect tenants and kind of work in the gap between what state law allows and what local ordinances can really do.
As part of that, we've been copying a lot of Seattle regulations, because Seattle has some really great regulations, and so both Unincorporated King County and cities around Seattle have been kind of emulating Seattle, but also we've done some things that Seattle has yet to do.
So right now late fees are completely unregulated a landlord could charge a million dollar late fee they could charge a penny late fee.
And I think that probably some guidance from the Council would be really good.
Auburn and Burien just a Catholic fees at $10 a month.
I think that is the proposed legislation we're looking at here, Kenmore if I've been incorporated in county captain and 1.5% of the monthly rent.
I think that sounds fair, but then as rents escalate, those small percentages actually start getting to very high amounts for paying your rent a day late.
If you want to go, actually, once again, two more slides, because I'm not very good at PowerPoint.
That's basically the same information.
Here we go.
I think the language we're looking at here is Basically, I don't want to read it aloud, but it would cap rents at $10 and then also include language here that says no other fees may be charged for non payment of rent or default of the rental agreement, including for the service of notice.
What I've been seeing in Seattle and other local cities as a staff attorney with the tenant law center.
Is tenants who are being charged fees for the delivery of notices.
So, whenever you're dealing with your landlord, whether you are out of compliance with your lease, and they give you a 10 day notice, whether you are behind on a rent, and they give you a 14 day or a 30 day notice, whether you just have a late fee and they give you a piece of paper on your door, it says you have a late fee.
They're charging for the privilege of receiving that notice.
Once again, this is an unregulated area of the law.
So, as.
As housing becomes more scarce and the landlords have more power in the landlord-tenant relationship, they kind of get creative here.
And I can show some examples of what this would fix in the next slide.
Go ahead and pop to the next one.
So here's a ledger that I kind of made anonymous there.
This is actually a person who is a housing and essential needs tenant.
So they get $1,000 a month from the state to help pay for housing.
Their rent is $1,300 a month, or $1,130 a month, right?
They missed a payment, started being hit with late fees of $75 a month, a notice delivery fee, which is another thing we don't do to make illegal, of $25 a month.
So while the late fee is only 75, they then threw on a, a third of that as a fee.
They then would not let them renew their lease.
So they charged them a month-to-month fee of $175 a month.
And so a tenant who was just slightly behind on one rental payment ended up owing, I should have summed this, but like hundreds of dollars extra each month.
And as someone who was living off of substantial government subsidy and only paid about 130 of her own income, being stuck with 400 or so of a deficit each month really, really put her behind.
And so this is where it may sound abstract.
We're just saying, should we limit late fees?
Should we limit them to 2%?
Should we say you shouldn't charge for delivery of a piece of paper that's notifying you of your late fee?
But when people are living on the margins, which more and more Seattle residents are, these small things really, really nickel and dime people out of their houses.
If you want to go to the next slide.
One more slide, if we can.
before moving on to the next slide.
Yeah, if you have a question, feel free.
No, it's not so much a question, Devin.
It's been hard to understand.
It's not that you're not audible.
It's for some reason, maybe if you speak a little bit slower, it'll help.
I'm not sure what the problem is, Ted.
Can you identify what?
Yeah, I think just the sound quality is a little off.
So if you speak more slowly, it might be a lot more.
Sure.
I also speak talk, so forgive me.
I know.
I do the same.
So yeah, I get that all the time.
And feel free to please ask me any questions as we go back, because, again, the core of what we're proposing here is not overly complex.
The idea is just to showcase what can sound like a small fee can really hurt someone.
So just to loosely reiterate, this is a tenant who lives off of the Housing and Essential Needs Program.
It's a state program that pays $1,000 a month towards rent for people who are disabled or otherwise very low income and qualify.
So her portion was $130.
for full rent, and the state pays another thousand.
But when a portion of that was paid late, I actually think it was the nonprofit that helped pay late, so it wasn't even the tenant.
But regardless, she was hit with a $75 late fee, which is Half of what you pay because her rent, her portion was 130, a second $25 delivery fee where they delivered the notice saying you didn't pay rent correctly late fees on her utilities.
They wouldn't let her renew her lease so they started charging her an additional month a month fee.
And so a tenant who used to pay $130 out of pocket started paying close to.
You know $340 out of pocket because all of a sudden those small fees really started to add up.
And so, as we think about, you know, what does it mean to say that he shouldn't be more than $10 or late fee shouldn't be more than say a certain percentage is really thinking about people who are just barely able to stay housed, and who.
may be able to kind of cover the rent, even if it's a very large struggle.
But then when they miss payment by a day or when they miss payment because of a clerical error, all of a sudden just a deluge of charges come out of nowhere.
And those charges right now are just completely unregulated.
If the Senate were to face the eviction and go to court, there's a chance that some of these would have been thrown out.
But you have to end up in court before any of that really occurs.
And court is both expensive and Ideally, it's the thing we want to avoid for every tenant on the margins.
You don't really want to be an eviction court.
You want to be staying in a good relationship with your landlord, particularly if you can't afford the rent otherwise.
And so I think this is a good example of why these large fees can really make a difference on the margins.
I see two questions, I think.
Thanks.
Yeah.
I was waiting for you to finish.
All right.
Council Member Nelson and then Council President Juarez.
Go ahead, Council Member Nelson.
Do you happen to know if the tenant was enrolled in the utility discount program?
I don't have an answer for you there, no.
OK.
I am just wondering, I'll follow up on that with City Light, thanks.
Go ahead, President Morris.
Oh, thank you.
So Devin, yes, you do talk very fast.
So I'm trying to get up to speed here on your slide deck.
So just help me out here.
It may be a dumb question, so I understand it.
So you have examples, late fees, utility late fees, notice delivery fees, which I want to get back to that because that doesn't sound right.
But anyway, so you're listing like a utility late fee electric, what the costs are when people are late and what costs are imposed when people are late in paying their bill, correct?
Yes.
Okay.
So you're not saying that all of this could, or are you saying that all of these late fees could add up on top of the late fee for paying your rent late?
Yeah, so inclusive of paying your rent late, which was for this tenant $75 out of the 130, they paid out of pocket.
They're also getting fees for delivery of the notice that your rent is late, they're getting utility fees.
It just starts getting things like thrown on, on top of everything.
What's hard is like, I mean, this is just one example of many, but this this area is just very unregulated.
So, I mean, rent itself is pretty unregulated, the fee structures are pretty unregulated.
So, if a landlord dislikes a tenant, or just feels like they want to have their bottom line, they can charge whatever amount they want once a tenant misses a payment.
or is late on a payment.
Ultimately, in all these situations, the landlord is paid in full.
Tenants don't want to miss their rent because they then lose their housing and people really, really work to avoid that.
These fees, I'm sure it is an inconvenience to be paid rent late or utilities late, but in the absence of regulation, they can be very exorbitant and more than the cost to the actual landlord of what it costs to get a check a day later.
So again, and it could be me, you're saying is this example, is this chart, if somebody is late on their rent, besides getting the fee, the $75 late fee, that all these other charges could accrue as well.
Yes, without regulation is basically up to the landlord to decide how much they want to soak the tenant.
I mean, like, there are people who are good landlords and hopefully would not do this.
And again, they wouldn't be impacted by this legislation, but because there's no law at all, they can do whatever they want.
And when you have a.
a very big power imbalance between the landlord and tenant, and then a landlord who just feels like they want to charge higher fees.
That's a dangerous calculation.
OK, so well, I don't know.
I mean, let's not get into a discussion about private property and how people feel about that in this country.
I don't I mean, people can do what they want with their property.
But you're right.
There is a landlord tenant relationship.
There is a power relationship.
There is a contract, a meeting of the minds of when you pay your rent.
So I get that.
So when you say statements like it's a so your your position, what you understand or with these fees being listed that all of this is totally quote unquote unregulated area of the law.
Yes.
So there's no law that says with your electric bill, your utility bill, your sewer, your trash, that no, there's no 10% or there's no cap on any of these late fees.
Setting aside the rental thing for a minute, all those other ones.
The city of Seattle.
So Auburn does, right?
Like Kirkland does.
So we have the possibility to do so.
But a tenant in Seattle would not have a protection right now.
I think the point of confusion might help to recognize that what Devin is saying is that all these are from the landlord.
The landlord is free to slap any label and then say a late fee for this, a late fee for that, a late fee for the other.
That's the problem.
And so a lot of this is not visible.
So in reality, a really income strapped tenant might end up being liable for all kinds of late fees.
Oh, I see what you're saying now, Madam Chair.
These are all at the discretion of the landlord that says, hey, I'm not just going to impose a 75 by the way.
No, it's not.
It's not just one very particular kind of case where the tenant was late on all kinds of things.
It's the landlord is free to charge all kinds of things.
So there's like five areas where there's this area.
And this is an actual bill.
And it's an actual bill.
It is an example bill.
Got it.
So now I get it.
OK.
Yeah.
But the reason it's a good representative example is that it's widespread that the landlord can charge late fees on different things, even though it's in reality its tenant hasn't paid the rent because whatever, financial adversity or whatever.
So that's why the question of capping late fees comes into being.
So that they can't then have all these 10 different categories where they can charge different late fees and then suddenly you're liable for hundreds of dollars.
So the question I have for you probably as well, Madam Chair and Devin is, so when you talk about what is notice delivery for, what is that?
I would probably use profanity to describe it but it's a completely made up fee, where basically, they said you owe $75 because your rent was late.
We're going to charge you an additional $25 because we told you a friend was late.
I mean it's.
That's the landlord saying, because I have to do this, it's the landlord you're talking about.
Yes, he's just creating a fee for handing out a piece of paper.
And I wish I could print money that easily, right?
And I could give you a number of examples of landlords who've said, in policy, that anytime they give a legal notice, so a 10-day notice, a late fee notice, a 14-day pair of vacate notice, they're charging for the delivery of the notice.
And delivering notice is not like a legal process.
It's a it's a predicate to starting a legal process, but it's just printing out a piece of paper.
So the landlord can say, you know, you owe a late fee.
Also, I'm going to charge you twenty five dollars on top of that.
That's both completely unregulated and really out of field.
I don't know how they feel.
Yeah.
Yeah, I agree with you on that one.
Yeah, I can see that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The whole notice delivery fee is it almost seems unreal like it seems like would a landlord actually go to this length that they would charge the tenant a fee for having to deliver the notice of the late fee.
I mean it's just so just so brazen and absurd that it should be illegal on the face of it and it's just stunning that it's not and I'm not a lawyer but it seems to be really Just a flaunting of a law capping late flouting of the law capping late fees, because you know the question it begs is what's next you know printing late fee notices on blue paper, and then charging a blue paper fee you know where does it end so it's, yeah it does it seems.
It seems punitive in nature, quite frankly, but I like what you're saying.
OK, thank you.
And just briefly on that, I also so 10 day notices are also often given by landlords to say, please follow X and X rule or so.
And so I've been seeing fees for that, too.
And once again, like there's just no limit to what you can write, like 10 day notice, please pick up your recycling or whatever.
So they're also charging the fee to print out a notice just saying, please follow your lease like.
I would love to have some kind of regulation in this area because it's so free form.
I mean, I want to pull my hair out when I get calls from tenants because it's so strange.
And I'm sorry, I know the council member Nelson, et cetera.
No, actually, council member Morales hasn't spoken yet, so council member Morales, go ahead and then council member and I'll share the meeting and council member Nelson.
Thank you.
I just I want to go back to this bill and just make sure that I'm understanding right what you said, Devin, which is that There's utility late fee, sewage, garbage, water.
These are not late fees imposed by the utilities themselves as part of their process.
These are additional fees added by the landlord for each utility that is used by the tenant.
Yes.
So this is one of those things where the landlord is billing individually for utilities and water, trash, et cetera.
And then on top of that, charging a late fee for the utility.
And on top of that, charging a fee for delivering the notice that your fees are late.
On top of that, charging a late fee for rent.
And then also on top of that, refusing to let the tenant sign a longer lease term.
So then charging a fee for being on a month-to-month lease.
So it's just a lot of play in the areas that are unregulated.
But taken together, I mean, for a very low income tenant, this is, I mean, I don't know how to use polite language about it.
Like, this is this is scary.
Thank you, Devin.
Sorry, Council Member Morales, did you have a follow up or?
No, I'm good.
Thanks very much.
Okay, thank you.
Council Member Nelson, go ahead.
I think that this Our conversation so far is we're wondering about the late fee, and I think that just this is a good example of why we should also ask the, the landlord what, where does this come from and what does this pay for, I'm imagining that it's probably to pay for a property management company, because a lot of the building owners have property managers that cost money to contract with, and so I'm just imagining that's what that's for.
I'm not excusing it, I'm just saying that's my thinking here, but we should ask them.
But anyway, landlords can't, correct me if I'm wrong, Devin, but Were these fees, late fees for rent, expressed in the lease?
I mean, it seems to me that they must be, that this fee schedule should be in the lease agreement.
So in other words, that they're regulated not necessarily by rules set by, you know, government, but they are regulated by the contract that is signed.
Well, there's kind of two things.
So the statewide law, the Residential Landlord Tenant Act regulates what can and cannot be in leases.
And so things that are blatantly illegal cannot be included in a lease and you can't contract away your basic rights.
But there's a lot of uncovered area there.
So it would probably be covered by the lease.
A, there's a huge power imbalance in who gets to write leases because tenants are not able to free-form edit their lease when they're looking for housing.
But separately, this tenant here is on a month-to-month lease, which means that the terms of release can be changed within 30 days notice.
There may be a requirement for notice for rent increases that are longer.
City of Seattle is 180 days, other cities is two months.
But for a change in a basic rule, like a late fee structure, that could be done over 30 days notice.
So if you're already in a house, if your landlord changes the rules and says starting 30 days from now, if I give you a late fee, I'm going to charge you a $25 notice.
You can move out.
I mean, there's not much you can do to fix that.
Right.
And so realizing that there is a housing scarcity issue and tenants do not really have the freedom to just walk away when the contract terms are bad is why we regulate this area.
I mean, it is a heavily regulated area because it's housing and because there's a huge power imbalance.
And if you don't like the terms, there really isn't a lot of freedom to just walk away, particularly on a short term basis.
Did you have a follow-up, Council Member Nelson?
No, not right now.
Thank you.
And I also wanted to invite Kate Rubin into the discussion.
Kate, did you want to add anything, not just on this topic, but anything that we've discussed so far?
I did have a little bit to add, but I wasn't sure if this was the end of Devin's portion.
Well, please hop in.
You don't need me to dominate the Zoom room.
So there was an article in the Seattle Times last year that showed about 47% of Seattle renters are cost burden, meaning that we spend 30% or more of our income on our housing, which means that a lot of renters here in Seattle are living paycheck to paycheck.
So if there's an emergency, If rent isn't getting paid, because it's usually prioritized, something bad happened.
For example, a restaurant was recently shut down, and none of the workers were paid.
Restaurant workers are often living paycheck to paycheck.
So the idea that they could be late, and then they would be charged The late fee, the delivery of notice fee which is one of the most ridiculous fees, I have ever heard.
And then some places even charge compounding late fees so if you're.
Late by one day, you pay X amount.
If you're late by another day, it adds up.
And these fees add up so quickly.
So not only are you dealing with your emergency, you're dealing with being nickel and dimed to death over what is essentially an unavoidable accident.
And it's so hard to get caught up from there.
I think probably most of us are familiar with the idiom, you can't squeeze blood from a turnip.
That's exactly what these fees are doing.
They're just trying to get more money from people who are struggling.
Landlords are at this point profiting from people being late.
Right, thanks so much for making that point I know you guys have more of the presentation, and you should go ahead but just just wanted to interject by saying that I really appreciated the point you make it because I think that if we don't keep.
this fact in mind, it can be extremely misleading as to why landlords are actually even charging late fees.
And this goes to the question that Council Member Nelson was asking, what do they do with these late fees?
And I think that's a really important point to recognize, that if you look at the data, when tenants, for the most part, obviously we're not, you know, there are outlier cases, but we're talking about what is statistically the most predominant.
And what happens, what we see is statistically speaking, rent tenants want to pay their rent on time because they don't want to get into trouble.
They don't want a bad, they don't want an eviction on their renting record.
they don't want their credit score to be affected negatively so they're going to do everything in their power to pay their full rent on time and when they don't it's as you were saying Kate something bad has happened and that's why they are not able to and so it really if you look at the math of how much money.
Landlords especially corporate landlords end up spending in really trying to squeeze blood out of a turnip or as in India they say blood out of a stone.
They actually spend more dollars out of the dollars.
It's more than what the tenant might have owed them.
But really it comes down to also what Devin was referring to.
There's a deep imbalance of power between tenants and landlords and you know this is this is what happens in that situation and that is why a full bill of rights for renters including rent control obviously that's the biggie that that is needed but eliminating late fees is in in the vein of the renters rights that we have been fighting for and winning and it's Good that we've been able to get a majority votes on the council on all of those on all of those aspects.
1 question I had before you go on is we're talking about late fees for rent and maybe you have this in your presentation.
And if so, you can wait to that point, but.
isn't it also true that very often and maybe you have statistics for this information of this is uh tenants pay when they're in financial difficulty it's not like they they don't pay any of the rent there are case many cases where they pay as much as they can but maybe they're not able to pay their full rent and even then they get into trouble and the reason i'm referring to this is and i'm sure kate and devin know about this but this um famous on really or really infamous as far as the landlord is concerned.
This case that happened in January 2019 where a renter named Kalani Luxmore she owed the her landlord two dollars in the rent and she faced eviction and the housing justice project which is the part of the King County Bar Association.
They fought her case successfully against her eviction, but that's an example of where she owed $2 and yet it was a problem.
So it is connected to the question of late fees as well.
Well, yes, small balances can lead to, I mean, evictions right so I mean even most like a landlord doesn't really charge you a late fee until the sixth but they could technically give you a 14 day or a 30 day pay or vacant notice on the second we didn't pay.
And if you're missing some of what is owed.
They could file a case against you.
I think it is. mainly just harassing a tenant to file a case over a small balance, because it costs money to go to court.
But once a case is filed against a tenant, they have an eviction on their record.
Win or lose, they could win the case.
That eviction is a court record.
We have very open access to public records in the state.
And so even if your landlord files an eviction against you for nothing and it's thrown out because it's a bad case, there is still that eviction record.
There's some creative workarounds we can try to do to restore a tenant's reading record.
But the eviction's there forever, even if you win.
So trying to avoid unnecessary evictions, particularly over small stuff, is really valuable.
Thanks.
President Juarez, did you have a question before they move on to the next slide?
You're mute.
Man, I haven't heard that in a while.
Thank you.
They are on mute.
Madam Chair, what I was going to ask is I actually had a few follow up legal questions, but I wanted you to get them to get through their slide deck.
So I didn't know how much more is there or if you wanted me to wait, because I think when we start getting to some of the discussion and debate, not debate, but discussion about these kind of contracts and what they mean in the realm of housing, which is separate than different kind of contracts, because There's a public policy piece there that has to be discussed.
So I want to know what from you, Madam Chair, what would be the right time to bring up those kind of issues?
I believe there's one more slide if you want to finish the slide deck first.
Yeah, there's basically two.
Then I'll hold my questions till then.
Yeah.
Okay.
If you want to go to the next one, it's pretty brief.
This is just showing how fees as a percentage of rent sound like a pretty fair calculation, but because we have no limit on rents in Seattle or the state of Washington, as rents get really high, a percentage-based fee system can also be really high.
So this is a tenant who was late on rent and was being charged $205 a month for being late.
So even if this money is meant to pay for the cost of a management company or the cost of an overdraft fee or whatever, you know, cost the landlord might say, it's hard to really imagine that being $205 for being a day late on your rent.
So while I think Kirkland and unincorporated King County, et cetera, have set late fees to a percentage, that's just inherently going to be a sliding scale.
And as rents go up, that also means late fees would go up.
Whereas a flat flat cap, you know, doesn't have that that predicament.
And then the last slide is just the list of co signers so to make me not feel alone out here.
It's not just Kate and I.
So, they say how to stay healthy coalition is a very large organization of people who are really trying to deal with I mean, the crisis of our time, right?
There's not enough housing.
There's not enough affordable housing.
And people who were housed last month are unhoused this month because we're being pushed out for a variety of reasons.
But the most common one is that the costs that are going to your landlord become too high to pay.
So I'm not going to read everything there, but we've sent a letter to the council and to the mayor encouraging a passage of these protections.
And we'd be happy to answer questions, but just It's not just me as a random staff attorney from the Tenant Law Center.
It's not just Kate.
There's a lot of interest in making sure that we protect Seattle tenants because, I mean, I think we're all afraid of losing our neighbors, right?
Like, I grew up in Seattle.
Most of my best friends from high school and college can't afford to live here anymore.
They live in Fort Townsend and Skamania County.
Like, it's heartbreaking.
So I think if we can ensure that our communities can stay in their communities they want to stay in, that's really powerful.
Thanks, Devin and Kate, for the presentation.
And I want to call on President Juarez to ask a question.
I just wanted to say, though, in that slide, it's really important to see how many organizations, both community organizations, renters' rights organizations, and labor organizations, community organizations, are part of the coalition.
You should add socialist alternative.
You know we are also part of that coalition.
And for some strange reason, that's missing.
So I would appreciate that you add that.
And then President Juarez, yeah, go ahead with your questions.
Thank you.
Thank you for the presentation, Kate and Devin.
So I just want to go back to the question, also the comment raised by Council Member Nelson as well.
So I'm going to get a little wonky here, so I make sure I understand it when we go back to the unregulated law statement that you made.
And then I agree with you, there's a real question about the notice fee being illegal.
That sounds to me just straight up wrong.
I think we have to start the premise with, and you probably know this as well, Madam Chair, that you can't, if you have a contract, you can't contract illegality.
I don't care what, you can't.
And so what I'm hearing from my head is harking back to contract law and housing.
And you saw this a lot in what they call adhesion contracts.
And I'm sure Kate and Devin are familiar with adhesion contracts, where they're just unconscionable their contracts that just contravene public policy.
And we saw that a lot in the 80s and 90s, which they can't do anymore, and the kind of rent to buy, like furniture, where you would end up paying, you know, $400 for a $50 couch, because you had to keep paying and getting late fees for not paying it.
And those are outlawed no matter what.
So I know that we're in the area of housing, which is public policy, which is different than other contracts for goods and services.
So that's where you have like a more heightened conversation where public policy comes in, where you have you have room, I believe, for the renter to have a little bit more power in the unbalanced relationship between a landlord and a tenant.
So what I'm looking at here, obviously, a landlord does have some superior bargaining power because it is their property.
but by public policy and law and the fact that it's housing, the tenant has rights as well.
And particularly now in our housing crisis that we're seeing, and we have been seeing, you know, I'm sure as long as Council Member Sawant has been on council declaring our homelessness and housing issues.
So what I'm trying to get at here is, have you thought of, or are you gonna be presenting again about, like a good example is, again, I go back to the notice fee.
of letting us know like which ones it's clear where we can put in a category that these are just unconscionable against public policy and shouldn't be imposed.
And then those may be that we can find out as Council Member Nelson-Reyes, what is the landlord or property company say about that?
Because I really wanna hear the other side of that before I would make a decision so I have the full picture.
I'm not trying to defend a tenant or a landlord or a company.
I just want the full picture.
So we may have some people that come in and say, look, I manage property and I'm also a landlord and I have never imposed those fees.
And I don't know how many people who do do that.
I know when people are being persuasive, they put the best facts forward, but I kind of want to see all of it.
So are we going to see more of that from you folks?
Um, I guess my point would be that if someone's not doing this, they're not going to be affected by the legislation, right?
We have speeding laws that affect people who walk and don't have people who drive the speed limit.
Landlords who don't do these policies don't need to worry about passing laws, banning them.
Because.
is kind of just irrelevant at that point.
By its nature, like I do tenant defense, I help people when they're facing a problem with their landlord.
So I'm only going to deal with tenants in trouble and landlords who are being problematic.
But there's a lot of them.
And I think if we just ban the bad practices, then there's plenty of room for landlords with good practices to continue to be good landlords.
But we make it a leap for us.
So let me ask, how did Auburn and Burien get to the point of capping it $10 a month?
How did they come to that number?
Do you know?
I couldn't tell you how they came to the number.
I think they said it was a fair number.
Okay.
So and then you probably then don't know how Kenmore and Redmond decided to cap at 1.5% monthly.
I mean, so all of them are part-time councils.
They meet like 6.30 on a Monday.
So I've listened to it on a lot of them.
They've all deliberated and tried to figure out what they thought was fair and then kind of settled on a number, but.
Okay, so what I'm asking then is two parts then.
Number one, what we would want to regulate or just outright outlaw.
And then the second section would be what would be a good way to land to cap because obviously Seattle rents are different than Kenmore rents.
I don't even know if, I mean, I'm inclined to suggest a different number, but I feel like I need to have some more information.
Well, it ultimately messes up with the council.
Like I'm just here to tell about what we see.
No, no, you don't get to back away now.
No, you don't get to do that.
I mean, I mean.
You don't get to have all the answers and all of a sudden, oh no, I'm just a guy here.
Well, I'm quite happy to be here, but like I don't have legislative authority.
So you guys get to decide what you think is a fair amount.
But I think that if you're going to charge someone for being late on rent, a small amount is fair.
I think if you're tying it as a percent, it has to be a pretty small percent because rents are huge.
And I think at the end of the day, if tenants are paying 40 to 60 to 70 percent of their incomes to their landlords.
We need to be very careful that if they're a day late, they aren't charged 65, 75 percent.
These are tenants who are really, really struggling to stay housed.
I'm not disagreeing with you in that whole issue.
What I'm trying to get at, because you're here to advise us what you think is a good number to cap at.
I'm asking you, where do you get that number or how do you come about that?
That's what I'm getting at.
If there's more discussion on that.
Yes, as, as Devin was saying earlier, the reason that a city like Auburn arrived at $10 an hour is not an hour $10 is because it is fair.
That's the whole point.
I mean, so again, it's ultimately that is why it is not, I mean, I do have a slight disagreement with Devin.
It's not just that, oh, the city council has legislative authority.
No, the city council will end up passing what renters demand.
And so there is a real role for renters to come to city hall and say, this is actually insult upon injury in the sense that the rents are already so high.
I mean, obviously it's worse in Seattle than in Auburn.
And then on top of that, if you talk about, you know, as the one of the slides that you all had where the rent itself is $2,050 and then you add late fees of $205, that is beyond the capacity of somebody who's in that situation in the first place because they are having extreme financial hardship.
So to find $200, just to take that example, is impossible.
So in other words, that tenant is going to sink further and further into financial trouble.
It's not going to allow them to actually come out of that.
and I think it's a good question to ask, you know, so what are landlords gaining?
I think one useful, and we should, I'm glad you're asking all these questions Council Member Juarez and President Juarez and also Council Member Nelson because, you know, it does give us a sense of what more material we can bring for the next discussion because we're not going to be looking at the legislation until the middle of next month at the earliest.
Because I think we already have statistics that show that landlords, and I was saying this earlier, landlords actually, if you look at it in dollar terms, and many of them are big landlords, they end up spending more in dollar terms in trying to evict their tenants.
Almost entirely, it is low-income tenants who are in a very bad financial situation.
than the actual money that is owed to them.
So I don't think that the answer to this question, what do they gain and how much they spend, is going to come on the basis of just looking at dollar terms.
Because in reality, if you look at just in dollar terms, and it's actually better for the landlord to let the tenant continue to live in that unit and not go after them.
However, the reason they're doing that is because each time they do that, each time that cycle happens, it allows them to increase the rent.
And then there's always some other potential prospective tenant who can pay more rent because That's what's happening.
There are people who can pay a lot of rent.
It is squeezing them also at this point.
But the people who get squeezed the most are working class and poor tenants.
But to be honest with you, I will also tell you, I've had many tech workers, well-paid tech workers who come and say, I am paying so much in rent, I'm barely able to get by.
That's how much rent has gone up.
So I think late fees, is not the be all and end all of it.
We do need rent control, but it is something that is punitive, and to use your own word, President Juarez, it's punitive on people because it doesn't serve any purpose in terms of actually helping them stay in their rental homes.
But these are good questions we can come back to in the next discussion.
It's helpful.
Madam Chair, may I have a follow-up to what you just said?
Yes.
So, and I'm hoping we have some more information and I can talk to you offline about what may be a little bit more helpful, a little bit more information.
But what I'm also concerned about is those folks that when this happens, what happens to the credit line and credit score, particularly if they're unbanked.
That's always been a concern of mine as when people, when you have a credit score, people look at different things, but we've also been pushing that you should also look at people that other credit lines Do they pay their rent on time?
Do they pay their phone bill on time?
Do they pay their cable bill on time?
All of those should go into your credit score as well to show that you're a good, you pay your bills on time, not just a car and a mortgage, not everybody has that.
So I'm thinking these unfortunate, I think unconscionable byproducts that come when you impose fees like this and people can't pay it.
And then they send it to, we saw this with sound transit with fees and not paying your fare, then they want to send it to court.
And then of course it affects their credit score or whatever they try to buy a home or rent a home or try to rent again.
So I guess I'm just seeing the ripple effect of this.
So it isn't just the fee itself.
It follows you around and you can't get rid of it.
And I'll just probably, you know, there was a day when I was young and I was a college student and couldn't afford rent.
And then they followed me all the way past law school.
I'm like, my God, that happened in 1983. That's still there.
So that's the kind of stuff I think about as well.
So I just want to put that out there.
So thank you.
Thank you so much, President Juarez.
I mean, that is a very important point.
It follows you everywhere.
Even a small hardship leads you to missing a payment, and then it follows you, as you said, for years, sometimes decades, and it does affect your credit score.
So all of these ripple effects are there, and we should definitely make that as part of the discussion.
I appreciate you mentioning that.
Council Member Nelson, did you have a question?
Yeah, so I just wanted to to agree with Council President Juarez about needing to get the other side, because when I with all due respect here, you say it is fair.
That is subjective.
So we do need to understand the other why this is why these fees are being charged.
What are the burdens that landlords are under that we might not know about?
Because when Kate says I think it was landlords are profiting from people being late.
It could be that they are also incurring fees from the utility for being late.
And if they're just a small landlord and just have one renter, you know, that's a different story than if they're a multifamily housing provider, in which case we also need to understand what our nonprofit housing providers are, what are they thinking about this too?
Because there are nonprofit and for-profit housing providers whose perspective that we should be taking into account, I think, before we go forward.
Where I'm coming from is simply that I am concerned about these about small landlords selling properties, because it is becoming more and more difficult in Seattle to to do business because of because of regulations that maybe they didn't have much input into before they were implemented.
So I just want to make sure that we hear all sides, because I don't want more of these, I know that this is a term of art, but naturally affordable units, older homes going off the market because it becomes untenable for them to keep going.
And so we do have to understand where they're coming from.
And I think, now this is my question, aren't landlords required to offer repayment plans before even getting to eviction so are these late fees negotiated or are these repayment plans Taking into account, maybe writing off any of these late fees, or have you seen any repayment plans that have written off some of these fees in the in the terms that are offered before?
So by the time you're in court, these late fees are waiting.
You can't be over late fees alone.
And so repayment plans often cover just back to rent.
No, but before it gets to winter eviction, when are they?
Or they don't waive the fees because they have no incentive to.
But once you're in court, yes, they're often waived.
But like that's a very expensive process.
And then also just to kind of like, you know, put a pin in the repayment plans process.
A lot of people owe back rent from COVID or from just a life emergency.
And it's really good that we've built a repayment plan system to let tenants pay back.
But like landlords get all of their money back over time.
You know, we kind of a, we told workers they couldn't go to work, because we were having a global COVID-19 emergency and we told landlords you will get paid we'll get paid back in a year.
So, it's, I mean I guess it's a whole separate conversation to go into repayment plans but like the landlords are ending up getting their money and if they don't, the tenants get evicted and they're out.
But it's separate from late fee conversation because much of this happens pre-court.
Your landlord just applies a late fee and then you pay it because you're afraid of a court filing.
This is much more to regulate the areas that would happen before you had a summons and complaint, before you were there in front of a judge or a commissioner.
This is just the day-to-day interactions because most tenants, thankfully, are not in eviction court, but they still have issues with their landlord.
Thank you, Devin.
Ted, did you want to add something?
I wanted to come in briefly about this balance of power between the landlord and the renter.
My previous landlord, not my current one, but my previous one charged for late fees for rent that was the first day that it was late, you know, after the five days that are required by state law.
But after the first day that it was late, it was $50 and then an additional $25 a day until you're caught up.
So after several days, I got a notice from my landlord that I was several days late.
And I I was surprised because I set up, so my bank just mailed them a check automatically.
And it turns out I was not late, and they just thought I was late, and they had actually cashed the check.
And it was entirely their fault, and it worked out for me.
But if I didn't have those bank statements to prove that, or if I had been late because I had lost my job, as Kate explained, gave the example of these, it just can run away with you.
It can just spiral out of control.
And yes, it said that in my lease that they could do that, but on what universe could I say to my landlord when signing the lease, hey, actually, I think we should change this lease so you don't charge late fees as much because maybe I might be late and then it would run away with me.
I can't imagine any tenant ever negotiating something like that.
So the power imbalances is just so great.
That's the whole reason why we have discussions like this.
It's not because landlords don't have enough power.
I mean, they're some of the wealthiest people in Seattle, and they've got the most power, and we need to correct that imbalance.
Right.
Exactly.
I wanted to also call on Kate.
I saw your Zoom hand up.
Kate, go ahead.
Um, I wanted to comment more on that, that power imbalance, because I, some landlords, as Devin pointed out, charged to deliver the notice of these late fees, and then continue charging.
There is no, like, reverse version of that, where if a landlord delivers a notice, or charges you for delivering a notice that is invalid, that you can invoice them for your time and your fear and your research and whatever else you need to resolve that.
They charge these arbitrary amounts.
But if it goes, it does not go the other way.
So I'm sure, I mean, luckily Ted had the proof that it was paid, but still it was a matter of research and communicating with the landlord.
And then I imagine if you had had to pay the landlord for that delivery and then had to fight them on getting that money back.
Thanks so much, Kate, I appreciate that.
I wanted to, in this context also reiterate a point that Devin had made earlier, which is that if landlords are not engaging this kind of punitive charging of their tenants, then they wouldn't be affected by this legislation any more than any of the other renters' rights legislation that we have succeeded in winning in the last 10 years where, yes, it is protection for renters, but if you are not exploiting your tenants as a landlord, then it doesn't affect you in any way because those laws are meant to hold landlords accountable when they are exploiting tenants and that applies to this potential legislation also that we're talking about.
And I also wanted to reiterate another point that Kate you just made which is really important and sort of add to that because you said that There are no, you know, the landlords can charge all these things, but then a tenant cannot charge in the reverse.
So the example that Ted gave, you know, there's no recourse for the tenant to do that.
I wanted to also mention in this context that we've seen many cases where tenants are evicted, obviously, because of even failing to pay a few dollars of their rent because they're in financial hardship.
But then on the other hand there is no reverse law that says that if the landlord failed to fix the problems you know for example if your heating is not working in the winter it's and it's a good example of something that's happening to a lot of low income tenants.
And this is you know survival issue, especially for families with children, for senior citizens.
But we don't have a law in Seattle that, yeah, this is something that my office will be pushing for.
But I just wanted to say that there's no law that says that if you as a tenant filed a complaint about something essential not working in your rental home with the Department of Construction Inspection and the landlord failed to fix that problem, there is no recourse for you.
You don't get to say, like the landlord gets to charge late fees, you as a tenant don't get to say, the landlord needs to pay me for all the problems that they failed to fix.
There is no such reverse law.
That's a prime example of the imbalance of power.
And that's the context in which we should look at.
And I don't actually agree.
I mean, this is my political opinion.
Obviously, council members have different opinions.
But I don't actually agree that corporate landlords and the landlords who are exploiting their tenants don't have a platform.
This committee, the committee that I'm chairing, this is for renters' rights.
And that's the name of the committee.
everything else is their platform.
The status quo has been their platform.
That's why we've had to push for the laws that we've been pushing for and winning, because it is not like it's an equal situation.
It's not a politically neutral situation.
Our landlords also have complaints.
Tenants also have complaints.
It's not like that.
It's for the most part, tenants are getting exploited by corporate landlords.
And for the landlords who are not doing the wrong thing, these laws don't affect them anyway.
And in fact, we've had landlords who have supported us, small landlords who have supported every single renter's rights that we have been pushing for because they don't want to be in the business of exploiting their tenants.
I definitely agree we should look at the non-profit question.
I appreciate council members bringing that forward and Devin and Kate, let's talk offline as well in terms of if there's data we can bring forward and how we can take that into account.
But in that context, I will also say that at the end of the day, for the tenant, it doesn't make a difference who the landlord is.
If you're getting exploited, you're getting exploited.
So we want to end exploitation of tenants as a whole.
So we should definitely take all those things into account.
But I think paramount is what is going to be necessary to improve the lives of renters in our city, in my view anyway.
And I'm sure renters will agree.
Council Member Nelson, you still have your Zoom hand up.
Did you have a follow up?
Yeah, I had a follow up for Devin.
Did you say that that the late fees go away once you're in eviction court?
You can't be evicted over late fees alone.
Yes.
So once you're formally convicted, the fees are no longer really there or they're limited to seventy five dollars.
But there's a whole world for your eviction court that is, you know, can be evicted for nonpayment of rent.
But this but late fees do not cause eviction themselves because they
What can happen though is say you have $500 on your ledger and you pay your rent on the 28th of the month, cause you're trying to be early and not get a late fee.
They can take that money you paid that is meant for rent and then apply it to the late fees.
And now your rent is behind.
So once you owe money to your landlord and they're alleging money owed for fees or damages or delivery notice fees or whatever they're creating, it's on your ledger.
And actually as we become increasingly tech savvy, a lot of people pay rent via portals and they can mock you out if you don't pay the correct amount that says balance due, but that balance due would include your rent plus the late fees that are there from the previous month.
So a lot of tenants can't even just pay their rent as usual if there's a fee on their account because it says, you know, send the full amount or else buy, right?
Like the fact that this is more technologically Savvy's not the right word, but like, as we move into the tech sector, things that would not be possible if you're paying by check, you can just write the check out for a full amount, are possible if it's done via app, because, I mean, once again, power imbalance, the landlord programs the app, you just have a button to push.
So this, if you were in a court of law, there's a way to fight the late fees.
Everything before the court of law, there's really nothing, and that's why having a clear regulation would really protect tenants.
Sorry, Devin, I'm sorry.
As I said, because of the audio, I'm having a hard time understanding what you're saying, but I don't know if you mentioned this already, but yeah, I think there is also data that shows that tenants end up self-evicting when they run into problems because they don't know what's going to happen.
One of the things that the Housing Justice Project, which does provide and we have won through the People's Budget Movement funding for, legal defense for tenants facing eviction but they've said many times how as a matter of fact a lot of tenants who end up in eviction court they actually don't know what their rights are and because it's catching them at the worst possible situation sometimes in their lives and they're having you know financial issues they're probably having other problems in their lives and so I think as much as we can have the law in prevent these things happening in the first place and not putting the tenants renters in the situation where they need to know the letter of the law every detail to be able to defend themselves which I don't think is the case they don't actually So I think that that will be good.
And so in that sense, the late fee law that we're talking about here is also going to play that role where, you know, upfront, the tenants will be protected and prevent landlords from doing something like that in the first place.
Yeah, well, self evictions are actually very common, because if you're scared, and you can't pay your rent, or you owe money, you get a pay or vacate, and you say, or vacate, I can't pay and tenants think I better run away.
And unfortunately, what then happens relatively often is that the landlord will serve the apartment building because perhaps the tenant didn't notify the landlord correctly.
The landlord will evict an empty apartment building, and then the tenant still has an eviction on their record.
So we work as part of the Tenant Law Center to help people with previous evictions try to conceal them or try to otherwise repair their tenant rental history because they can't find apartments now.
And I have one tenant who Received a pay or vacate notice thought oh god I can't pay.
So she believed it meant vacate and she just left.
And then she moved to another place and again fell behind on rent and got a pay or vacate notice and thought oh god I can't pay and so she left.
And what she did not know, because she did not properly notify her landlord but also it is a weird scary legal process.
was that they were going through the eviction proceedings in default against her empty apartment twice.
So now this is a tenant who was homeless, who has two evictions on her record and cannot get into a house.
And she thought she was following the rules, like, oh my God, vacate.
That's what the notice says.
You have this amount of days to pay or vacate.
Back in the day, it used to be three.
And so she said, OK, I guess I'll leave in three days notice, which in and of itself is mind blowing because I can't imagine moving everything I own out of my apartment in three days.
But because the legal process is inherently intimidating, because the legal process is inherently arcane, if people don't respond correctly, are they going to notice anything that means, oh, I have to leave now?
There's all kinds of unknown consequences that can stem from that years and years down the line.
And particularly if those notices stem from a $200 late fee, it's really worth just cutting that off in advance.
Right.
That is very helpful, Devin.
Thank you for explaining that.
Just in the interest of time and because we've had already a lot of questions, Council Member Nelson, your Zoom hand is still up.
So if you want to go ahead, please go ahead and ask your question.
And then Council President Juarez, you had your hand up.
So I was thinking, Councilman Nelson, you're shaking your head, so you don't have...
Yeah, okay.
Thank you.
And yeah, really helpful questions.
We will definitely make that part of the discussion going forward.
President Juarez, you have your hand up.
I did.
And make sure you go ahead.
And then, Kate, you also had your hand up, but I'll just have Kate close it out.
And then, so Council President Juarez, you go first.
Oh, thank you.
I just want to make a comment that on the contracting piece, there will never become a time where, and it should in a real world, in a perfect world, where you will have equality between a tenant and a landlord.
It should be that way, but it isn't that way.
Simply by the fact of private property and land, that's a whole nother discussion.
So I want to get back to what Devin was saying, what we've heard, that we know that these kinds of contracts are, contract law is governed by state law and landlord-tenant is also governed by state law.
So what I want to get back to is some of the what you had listed in that one slide deck that some of these issues in a contract.
They will always have, as I said, some inequality, but what gets offensive when there's such disproportionate inequality.
is when it becomes offensive, obscene and unconscionable and against public policy.
So I wanna focus on that, on those issues for public policy that this city can look at and say, this is beyond the pale in a contract for a tenant to agree to this in a rental agreement.
And so why it's important for me to say that is that as Council Member Nelson put it out, and Madam Chair stated as well, I wanna see the other side of the ledger, if you will, I think that was the word you used, or the other side of the equation, if indeed these fees could be imposed, are imposed, I would like to hear from a landlord, property or whatever, and say, do you impose these fees, not City Light, SP, all these other city departments that impose fees when there's late fees, when people don't pay their bills on time, but you as an individual are going to impose a fee for water, gas, garbage, all these things that, you know, those are your, that's not your, you don't own those things.
So why are you imposing a fee on that?
And so maybe the landlord comes back or whomever, property person comes back and says, well, you know, I own 10 properties.
And the reason why I do that is because when the tenant doesn't pay, then I have to pay.
And if I have to pay, then that comes out of my pocket.
And that's okay too, but I just, I want to know what the other side of that is.
And so I do agree with what, what Madam Chair said, this is a opportunity for, for landlords and other folks to come forward and say, well, let me show you.
I don't think it's, and I don't want to be rude or anything, but I think it's kind of, you know, a bit glib to say, well, if you're not doing anything wrong, do you have nothing to worry about?
That's not an answer for me.
So I'm going to leave it at that.
And I'm guessing we'll have more discussion.
I'll also talk to Madam Chair offline.
So that's why I'm inclined to be supportive when I have a little bit more information.
But I do agree that are just from the list that you did, that some of those things are just are truly on their face, prima facie, as we would say, unconscionable.
and against public policy, and because we're in the realm of housing and rental and the disproportionate amount of power we have, I believe City Council has the power to, whether it's a $10 cap or a percentage or a five, whatever number we can talk about, that we're hoping that you come back and I'm sure Madam Chair will make sure of that.
to give us that other side and some more information so we can make and have a really good, professional, kind, dutiful, respectful debate about this.
So that's it.
Thank you, Council President.
Yeah, and just on the question of, you know, if you're a good landlord, you don't have to worry.
It's not meant to be glib.
As a matter of fact, we have heard from landlords, you know, small landlords who don't engage in this kind of punitive approach to their tenants who do support the rights of their tenants and who agree that the tenants are not there to be exploited.
And so it's coming from that spirit.
But I also agree with you that we which is why we are having this initial discussion.
I'm happy all these questions have come up because that allows us to look into all of this and make sure that we are taking those points of view into consideration.
I'm happy to hear that you're inclined to understand how this actually puts a burden on the tenant.
That is very much appreciated.
Kate, did you want to give closing remarks, so to say, from your side?
And there was just one more thing that I wanted to add that Devin pointed out that you can't be evicted for late fees.
But unless it's like explicitly clear that whatever payments that you are making to the landlord go towards your rent.
If you say get caught up quickly, but don't have the spare money for the late fees immediately.
If the landlord chooses to apply.
the money that you gave them for the next month to your late fees instead of to your rent, then you're late on rent again.
So it can become this very quickly building cycle, and people have been known to take advantage of that.
So you mean that it does result in eviction proceedings or at least a threat of eviction?
So if your rent was $2,000 and you fell behind, but you were able to get caught up and you gave your landlord a check the next month, let's say for $4,000 and they applied whatever the late fees were, $400 to that and removed it.
Now you're $400 short for the next month.
Unless it's explicit that it is for rent only and not to be used for fees, which most tenants do not know how to convey that information, or there's not a way to do it online if they are trying to pay through the portal.
As Devin pointed out, they might even get locked out completely.
Right.
Thank you.
Did, were you looking into that something?
Devin, did you want to add something before we close for today?
No, I think Kate said it well, yeah.
I mean, there's plenty of ways where if you're attempting to pay just your rent in full, but you missed a late fee, the money gets put towards the wrong bucket of charges.
And if you don't pay rent in full, then yes, they can move for eviction.
Right.
Thank you all so much, Devin and Kate, for coming and presenting in the Stay Healthy Coalition and also Council members, particularly Council Member Nelson and President Juarez, thank you for engaging in this discussion.
And we will make sure to take many of the questions that came up today and the points that, you know, to have a fuller discussion when we maybe have a more concrete discussion related to the legislation.
And as I said, it's not going to happen.
soonest mid-February, maybe late February, so we'll see when the committee meeting is.
President Warris, go ahead.
Is there, and we could probably do it quickly with our own staff, but do you think that you could have your staff send us what the Auburn area law looks like?
I would love to see that.
Absolutely, that's in my...
Is that in your head already?
Okay, good.
No, no, you're great.
No, I totally appreciate you reminding me, but I was just assuring you that wasn't my mental to do list after the questions came up that we should absolutely share that information.
And if it helps for your offices, staffs, both of your offices staff to have a meeting with Ted and somebody else in my office, that's also, we're totally happy to set that up, but we'll send whatever information we can.
Always a pleasure to meet with Ted.
When will we get a draft of the legislation that you're working on, just so that we can know more precisely what you're thinking?
Um, so you're welcome to, uh, check with Asha to see if she's doing the drafting, but, um, the, uh, what Asha's told us is that the, just in terms of the timing is that drafting the legislation doesn't take a long time, but the city attorney's office is just, just has a backlog of things to look at.
So to waiting till mid February is because that's when they will be able to.
Do begin and complete their review of this legislation.
So, um, So it all depends on if you want it before or after it goes through the city attorney's office's review.
That would be helpful.
Thanks.
OK, well, we'll definitely share it with you once it's ready.
Thank you all.
And I'm looking forward to our next discussion.
I appreciate everyone, unless there is anything else for the good of the order.
Wait, then, Madam Chair, what do we mean again?
Do you know, because I'm going to be out of town in February, that's what I'm worried about.
February 17th is our next meeting.
Are you out of town then?
Yeah, I'm in Washington DC.
We're flexible, so we can see if there's another date that works for you and the other members of the committee, then we're happy to reschedule.
So let's talk about it offline.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you.
And thank you for the heads up.
So it's 1051 am, the meeting of the sustainability and renters rights committee will be adjourned.
Thank you, everyone.
Have a good rest of the day.
Thank you.
Thank you, Devin.
Recording stop.