Tag: Fair Rent Commission

Don’t Believe Everything Your Landlord Tells You

by a New Haven PAR reader who wishes to remain anonymous

A corporation bought the apartment building I was living in and told me as soon as my lease was up the rent for my apartment would be raised from $1500 a month to $2300 a month. I couldn’t afford that and gave two months’ notice that I’m moving. I was told I had to pay a penalty and the remaining balance of the lease.

I contacted Wildaliz Bermudez, Executive Director of the City of New Haven’s Fair Rent Commission. She said even when all parties sign a lease agreement, the CT General Statute 47a-11a puts limits on how much a landlord can sue the tenant if the tenant leaves early. There are very specific conditions about being penalized for breaking a rental lease.

The law states whatever the landlord receives from the new tenant must be applied to reduce what the old tenant would have owed for the rest of the lease. This will often result in a zero tenant liability or at least a liability of no more than the security deposit. If the landlord does not make reasonable efforts to re-rent, the tenant’s liability is zero, even if many months still remain on the lease.

Since the new landlord was going to immediately re-rent the apartment for $800 more per month than what I was paying, I didn’t owe any additional money for leaving before the lease was up. Because I knew this and confronted the landlord, I saved many thousands of dollars.

There’s another law that allows seniors to break a lease without penalty. C.G.S. 8-116d, which was adopted in 2008 as P.A. 08-93, allows a senior to break a lease with one month’s notice to move to state or federally subsidized housing.

In addition to the Fair Rent Commission, other tenant resources include tenants’ unions (in New Haven and Hamden) and New Haven Legal Assistance.

Renters: If you move before your lease is up, investigate before paying fees for leaving early. Our state law is clear about these exceptions. People should not have to pay for what they’re not liable for.

First Official Tenants Union Recognized

by Noel Sims, New Haven Independent, Dec 7, 2022

A group of Blake Street renters delivered a 31-name petition to City Hall — and officially became New Haven’s first legally recognized tenants union. Tenants of the 311 Blake St. apartment complex took that legal-recognition step on Nov. 23.

City Fair Rent Commission Executive Director Wildaliz Bermudez confirmed that 31 tenants from the 311 Blake St. complex signed on to the petition that was delivered late last month to her office.

Because only 45 of that 70-unit complex’s apartments are currently occupied, Bermudez said, the petition clears the local legal threshold that a tenants union include signatures from — to quote directly from New Haven law — ​“a majority of the tenants listed as lessees within the housing accommodation.”

“As more tenants become involved in tenants’ unions, it can provide us with a better picture regarding the housing stock that is available,” Bermudez said in an email comment sent to the Independent on Tuesday, ​“and for discussions to occur regarding better ways to maintain properties and have a good well-maintained housing stock when items are needed to be addressed.”

The Blake St. Tenants Union is now the first officially, legally recognized tenants union in the city. ….
311 Blake St. renter Jessica Stamp is one of the lead organizers of the newly recognized Blake St. Tenants Union.

“I want to stay,” she told the Independent in a recent interview about her current apartment. Her rent is affordable, which allows her to save money, and she enjoys her ​“fabulous closet space.”

She said that she and her neighbors organized a tenants union partly because of a lack of response from her landlord, an affiliate of the mega landlord Ocean Management, when Stamp and other tenants have complained of rodents, disruptive construction, and other safety issues. ….

Stamp said she is excited that the union will help her neighbors that have been anxious about rent hikes, safety issues, and possible evictions. ​“This will give them relief,” she said. Having filed the petition, tenants are now protected from rent hikes and evictions for at least six months under
state law.

Now that their union is legally recognized, Stamp hopes this will ​“empower people to speak up.” Before, she felt that tenants withheld their complaints out of a fear of retaliation by 311 Blake’s landlord.

Read more at www.newhavenindependent.org/article/blake_st_tenant_union

Fair Rent Commission Okays New Tenants’ Union Rules

Laura Glesby, New Haven Independent, Oct. 19, 2022

Local tenants’ unions now have an official path forward for being recognized by the city in order to participate in housing-related investigations, thanks to the Fair Rent Commission’s adoption of a new set of union-related rules.

The commissioners unanimously approved those rules and regulations Tuesday night during their latest regular online monthly meeting.

The now-adopted rules pertaining to tenants’ unions flesh out a renter-power law recently approved by the Board of Alders. Thanks to the alder-approved law and the Fair Rent Commission-approved regulations, tenants’ unions are now able to:

  • officially register with the city;
  • designate a representative (who may or may not be a fellow tenant of the complex);
  • launch a public investigation from the Fair Rent Commission office into housing conditions at the apartment complex in question; and
  • have a representative assist union members in filing an individual fair rent complaint.

The regulations stop short of allowing tenants’ unions to collectively appear before the Fair Rent Commission with a complaint about rent or living conditions within individual units. They also require tenants’ unions to have their registration forms notarized before submitting them to the city.

[Read the entire article at www.newhavenindependent.org/article/fair_rent_recognizes_tenant_unions]