PASSING OF WORTHLESS CHECKS WILL NOT BE PROSECTED IN CITY OF MILWAUKEE
Issuing a worthless check is a crime in Wisconsin. Accordingly, when a tenant pays his/her rent or security deposit with a worthless check, I typically advise my landlord clients to do two things: (1) serve the tenant with the proper notice terminating tenancy for failure to pay rent so that an eviction action can be commenced against the tenant, and (2) report the crime to the local police so that a potential criminal action could be initiated against the tenant. Unfortunately, this second piece of advice is no longer valid -- at least for clients who own or manage rental property in the City of Milwaukee.
The Milwaukee Police Department has in place a written policy statement containing 20 exceptions to its normal prosecution of "worthless check" complaints, and one of those policy exceptions directly affects landlords and/or their agents: Policy Exception 17 states that "checks issued pursuant to any contractual agreement, including the payment of rent or security deposits for rental property," will not be pursued. The Milwaukee Police Department does not explain or provide a rationale for this policy exception. After reading the entire list of policy exceptions, I am hard-pressed to find any situation involving the issuance of a worthless check that wouldn't fall under one of the twenty exceptions. Apparently, the Milwaukee Police Department is not interested in pursuing individuals who pass worthless checks in general and, specifically, the MPD will not pursue tenants who pass them to their landlords.
This means it is more important than ever that City of Milwaukee landlords and/or property managers conduct thorough, legal background checks on all prospective tenants to increase their odds of securing trustworthy, responsible tenants. Second, landlords may want to add language to their standard rental agreements stating that all rental and security deposit payments must be made via certified funds (i.e., certified check/cashier's check or money order). Third, City of Milwaukee landlords now have another reason not to allow tenants who have fallen behind on rent to continue living in their properties.
To protect themselves and their properties, landlords or their managers should consider commencing an eviction against a tenant as soon as the tenant is one month late on rent. If landlords continue to allow tenants to get further behind in rent payments and continue to accept promises of future payments from such tenants, landlords will increase the chances that the promised past-due rent payments will be made via worthless checks -- and now landlords will receive absolutely no assistance from the Milwaukee Police Department when trying to recover these funds from their tenants.
