Tristan’s Landlord-Tenant Law Blog
Top 10 New Year's Resolutions for Wisconsin Landlords
About 75% of my law practice involves representing landlords and management companies on issues that they confront on a daily basis (the other 25% involves business and general civil litigation). Devoting such a large segment of my law practice to representing landlords, I have had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with many of you, talk to you, learn from you, and sometimes even notice a few things that if they had been done ...
"Reasonable Modifications:" What A Landlord Needs To Know About This Important Topic
The term "reasonable modifications" is used throughout the federal Fair Housing Act as well as Wisconsin's Open Housing law (which for the most part adopts federal law). Requests for reasonable modifications by tenant are on the rise. The Basics:Wisconsin's Open Housing law, which can be found at sec. 106.50, Wis. Stats., states that a landlord cannot refuse to permit, at the expense of a person with a disability, reasonable modifications to the ...
Bed Bug Liability Poses Legal Quandary
I was recently interviewed by the Wisconsin Law Journal about the issue of bed bug liability in rental housing. You can read the article by Jack Zemlicka here.If you are interested in additional information on bed bugs you should review my earlier posts on this pesky subject.
SMALL CLAIMS BENCH/BAR MEETING: Milwaukee County Gives Clarification Regarding Including Late Fees In 5 Day Notices and Other Issues
The Milwaukee County Small Claims court has reinstituted its monthly Bench/Bar meetings. These meetings allow the Milwaukee County Small Claims Court, including Judge Jane Carroll (presiding small claims judge) and the court commissioners, to come together with attorneys that appear regularly in small claims court, to discuss issues and concerns.The most recent small claims bench/bar meeting was held on Monday, December 6, 2010. I was able to attend the meeting ...
Milwaukee County Eviction Court Schedule For The Holidays
For those of you scheduling evictions in Milwaukee County, eviction court will be closed on the following days:- Thursday, December 23, 2010- Friday, December 24, 2010- Thursday, December 30, 2010- Friday, December 31, 2010
City of West Allis Passes Landlord Licensing Ordinance
The City of West Allis recently passed a new ordinance that requires all property owners to register their rental properties with the City.The new law is contained in 3 separate ordinances. The first ordinances was passed back in August 6, 2010, followed by a repeal and revision to the original ordinance on September 24, 2010, followed by an ordinance creating a sub-section of the ordinance on October 7, 2010.You can read all 3 ...
CCAP Committee Speaks Out About Clerks Removing Dismissed Charges From CCAP
I recently posted about the fact that some counties in Wisconsin were unilaterally deciding on their own to remove certain information on CCAP. Specifically, a few counties were opting to remove charges that were dismissed or dropped as a result of plea deals in criminal cases from CCAP.This practice concerned the committee that was covened to discuss issues related to CCAP in Madison. The Wisconsin Law Journal's blog reported on ...
Landlord Boot Camp - Saturday, February 26, 2011
The Apartment Association of Southeastern Wisconsin's (AASEW) will be offering its third annual Landlord Boot Camp on Saturday, February 26, 2011 from 8:30 am - 5:30 pm. Learn everything that you need to know about Landlord-Tenant law in Wisconsin at this all-day seminar.Yours truly will be the presenter and I will be addressing the following topics: - Screening Rental Applicants- Written Screening Criteria- Fair Housing (Discrimination) law- Rental Documents (Rental Agreements, Nonstandard ...
Landlords Should Periodically Inspect Their Rental Property . . . or Risk $98,465 In Damage
Last night I read an article about a Virginia landlord that had $98,465 in damage to one of his rental units. Apparently his tenant was a compulsive hoarder and every room in the home was full from floor to ceiling with trash, soiled clothing, old newspaper, rotten food, and other deberis and excrement. It cost the landlord over $98,000 to get the unit back into rentable condition. The landlord's ...
State Rep. Marlin Schneider Loses Re-Election - What Does This Mean for CCAP?
State. Rep. Marlin Schneider lost his bid for re-election last week to Scott Krug for the 72nd Assembly District. As many of you know I am not a big fan of "Snarlin Marlin." Besides being voted one of the worst legislators in Wisconsin byMilwaukee Magazine, he also was a persistent thorn in the side of landlords due to his wishes to either restrict information that appeared on CCAP or ...
New Report States What Landlords Already Know - That Milwaukee's Regulations Hurt Businesses
This past weekend I read a very interesting report which was drafted by the Institute for Justice as part of its City Study Series entitled Unhappy Days for Milwaukee Entrepeneurs: Brew City Regulations Make It Hard For Businesses To Achieve the High Life.The report is 40 pages long (excluding footnotes) but I encourage everyone to read it. The report touches on the following issues:- How the city rigidly restricts ...
Housing Discrimination: What Actions Are Covered?
There are federal, state and municipal laws that make discrimination in the area of housing illegal. The breadth of fair housing laws is vast and landlords should educate themselves on just what actions may be discriminatory before they get themselves into trouble.I have previously blogged about what the various protected classes are but this post will focus on what actions may be considered to be discriminatory if they are solely ...
Self-Help Evictions (or Why You Should Not Remove The Roof In An Attempt To Evict Your Tenant)
I apologize for the delay in drafting a new post but this has been a crazy week with two trials in the early part of the week and another one tomorrow (all tenants fighting evictions and none of these trials have been or will be easy). But enough with the excuses . . .I saw a recent article about a landlord in Lusaka, Zambia (Africa) that actually attempted ...
Some of The Best Bedbug Information That I Have Read To Date
If my crystal ball is correct we will be seing a large uptick in litigation regarding bedbugs in the future -- both tenants suing landlords for not dealing with the bedbug infestations and landlords suing tenants for bringing the critters into the landord's property. There have already been lots of lawsuits regarding bedbugs, many of which I have touched on in a prior blog post. If you need some basic information on bedbugs please ...
Upcoming Landlord-Tenant Law Seminar on Nov. 3rd.
I will be co-presenting a landlord-tenant law seminar for Sterling Education Services (S.E.S.) on Wednesday, November 3, 2010.The seminar is entitled "8th Annual Landlord-Tenant Law Update" and will run from 8:30 am - 4:30 pm. Registration will open at 8 am. The seminar will be held at The Residence Inn Downtown which is located at 648 N. Plankinton Avenue in Milwaukee.I will be speaking on three main ...
New Rental Agreement for Self-Service Storage Units Now Available at Wisconsin Legal Blank
I have recently drafted a Self-Service Storage Unit Rental Agreement that is now available and being sold at Wisconsin Legal Blank Co., Inc. Additionally I have drafted two seperate default notices that should be sent to the tenant who has breached the rental agreement for the self-service storage unit. The two default notices contain differernt language as required per Wisconsin's new law regarding self-service storage facilities and units.Self-service storage facilities ...
Business Journal Article Addresses Fallout of the City's RRI Ordinance To Date
I was recently interviewed by Business Journal reporter Sean Ryan regarding the fallout of the dismissal of three landlords' lawsuit against the City of Milwaukee regarding the unconstitutionality of its Residential Rental Inspection (RRI) program. My most recent post on the subject can be read here.On October 1, 2010, The Business Journal published its article entitled "Judge Upholds Milwaukee Home Inspection Program. Reporter Sean Ryan spoke with the ...
Imagine If Every Tenant Received A Free Lawyer In Eviction Actions . . . It Could Become A Reality
If Legal Action of Wisconsin, Inc, 274 lawyers, 7 judges and 2 court commissioners,have it their way, all indigent persons that are involved in civil lawsuits involving issues of "basic human needs" will be given a free lawyer.According to a recent Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article and ABA Journal article the Wisconsin Supreme Court has been petitioned and asked to require that all indigent persons involved in civil lawsuits that involve issues impacting ...
New Carbon Monoxide Detector Notice Form (and Others) Available at Wisconsin Legal Blank
I have recently completed drafting 3 new forms that Wisconsin Legal Blank Co., Inc. now has available for purchase that should assist landlords and property managers with their rental units..The new forms are:1. Carbon Monoxide Detector Notice:As of April 1, 2010, state law requires that an owner of a residential property must install a carbon monoxide detector in various locations within the property. This new notice sets forth the ...
Bedbugs, Bedbugs and More Bedbugs!
Since my earlier post on the topic of bedbugs, I have been innodated with more and more information on bed bugs. It seems that every blog or newspaper article you read, every radio station that you listen to, and/or television station that you watch has recently addressed this lovely topic. As a result I thought I would devote another blog post to this topic replete with multiple links to the recent ...