Landlords Sound Alarm As D.C. Moves To Lock In Eviction Rules

D.C. lawmakers are preparing to vote on permanent changes to the city’s eviction laws that could have big implications for the city’s rental housing industry.

Landlord groups are making a last-ditch effort to alter the language of the bill on the table.

The Emergency Rental Assistance Amendment Act of 2025 is scheduled for a first vote at the D.C. Council’s legislative meeting Tuesday after the council’s Committee on Human Services last week voted to advance the bill with a series of changes.  

The bill would enshrine the temporary eviction reforms that the council passed on an emergency basis in October amid a mounting crisis of unpaid rent that put housing owners in financial peril. While the real estate industry initially supported the permanent bill, landlords in recent days voiced strong opposition to the committee’s changes. 

A key change the real estate industry opposes would require more participation from landlords in the Emergency Rental Assistance Program and would allow courts to hold them in contempt if they don’t comply. Council Member Matthew Frumin, chair of the Human Services Committee, told Bisnow Monday afternoon he is working to introduce an amendment to that portion of the bill to address landlords’ concerns. 

Three real estate industry groups — the Apartment and Office Building Association, the D.C. Building Industry Association and the Small Multifamily Owners Association — said they opposed the committee’s changes to the bill and urged the council to reverse them before passing it. 

“We just think it’s going to confuse the courts, slow down the eviction process, and we’re hearing from our members that it’ll slow down the process and hurt the entire system,” DCBIA CEO Liz DeBarros told Bisnow Friday. 

SMOA sent an email to its subscribers Thursday with the subject line “Don’t Weaken ERAP Reforms.” It urged members to call their council representatives and voice opposition to the committee’s changes, which it called a “disaster.”

Tenant advocate Legal Aid DC told Bisnow Monday it supports the bill that came out of the committee. Policy Manager Jen Jenkins said it “incorporated thoughtful and important changes that we urge the full council to support.”

Council Chairman Phil Mendelson said Monday morning he had spent about an hour reviewing the bill after the committee’s changes but hadn’t come to a conclusion on where he stands on it.

“It’s still in a state of flux,” Mendelson said at his press conference.

Mayor Muriel Bowser sent a letter to Mendelson Tuesday morning saying she doesn't support the version of the bill that came out of the committee. She said she is concerned the committee's changes will “result in further delays in reducing the backlog of cases.”

“The addition of these requirements will place further burdens on housing providers — particularly small- and family-owned rental businesses — with additional compliance requirements that will further delay resolution of cases and further complicate an already strained system,” she said in the letter.  

D.C. has the highest amount of rent arrears in the nation, at $2,207 per unit, the committee report says, more than $800 above the next-highest jurisdiction. Total unpaid rent in the city has reached $147M this year, up from $11M in 2020, according to the Office of the Deputy Mayor of Planning and Economic Development. 

Unpaid rent has reached those levels in part due to pandemic-era changes to the Emergency Rental Assistance Program that required judges in eviction cases to automatically stay any case in which a tenant had a pending ERAP application, even if they didn’t qualify for the program or if it wouldn’t cover all of what they owed. 

This led to a surge in renters filing multiple ERAP applications. More than half of all ERAP applicants this fiscal year have previously applied to the program, and nearly a quarter of all applicants have applied three or more times, according to Department of Human Services responses cited in the committee’s report. 

ERAP had 319 cases of suspected and attempted fraud last year, according to the report. 

The court’s timeline for handling eviction cases has ballooned from less than six months to more than a year in some cases, according to D.C. Policy Center research cited in the report. Meanwhile, tenants have racked up huge unpaid rent bills and have stayed in units, preventing landlords from re-leasing them and earning income from the dwellings. 

This has put landlords on the brink of financial distress, and at least one has defaulted on loans. Affordable housing properties that go through foreclosure can lose their income-restriction covenants. This potential loss of affordable housing stock is in part what led Bowser last month to propose the RENTAL Act, a comprehensive bill with several major housing reforms, including the enshrining of the temporary ERAP bill. 

The council is now preparing to vote on permanent ERAP reform as a standalone measure apart from Bowser’s other proposals. 

Affordable housing providers and court officials told the committee that the emergency bill passed Oct. 1 has led the eviction court to work “more efficiently than in recent memory,” the report says. And the process of approving ERAP applications has accelerated from 145 days in fiscal year 2024 to 63 days this fiscal year, the report says. 

“The provisions of this legislation, then, are already achieving their goals without jeopardizing access to ERAP for those able to benefit from the limited resources for the program,” the committee report says. “There is no reason to change horses midstream.”

However, the report goes on to detail several changes the committee made to the legislation.

One of those changes would require more cooperation from landlords in the ERAP application process. 

Tenants are responsible for applying to ERAP, but they often need information from landlords to complete their applications. Dozens of witnesses testified at the committee’s hearing that their landlords didn’t provide necessary information. The Department of Human Services said 731 ERAP applications in FY 2024 were denied because landlords didn’t provide information, according to the committee report.  

“Requiring landlords to remain responsive in the ERAP process will ensure that eligible tenants aren’t denied assistance because a landlord can't or won't provide basic documentation,” Legal Aid DC’s Jenkins said in a statement. “When landlords are more accountable, the entire process runs more smoothly for everyone, and landlords can receive ERAP payments faster.”

The committee’s changes to the bill would give courts discretion to order landlord cooperation, meaning landlords could be held in contempt if they don’t comply. Additionally, if a tenant can prove that a landlord failed to produce requested information within 30 days, the bill authorizes the court to waive the tenants’ rent in the amount requested on the ERAP application. 

AOBA Director of Policy Communications Alex Rossello said this is the biggest part of the committee’s changes that the organization opposes, arguing it would introduce a new way for tenants to delay an eviction case. He added that the bill doesn’t define what type of information landlords would be required to provide.

“There’s a big problem with this,” he said. “Basically, allowing for this assertion to be made with such vague language, you’re incentivizing renters to utilize the provision and legal aid attorneys to recommend utilizing this provision, even if there’s little basis for it.” 

Frumin told Bisnow Monday afternoon he is preparing to amend the bill again to extend landlords’ required response time from 30 days to 45 days. His amendments would also make clear what kind of documentation landlords must provide, he said, and they would clarify that tenants can only raise this defense at trial, not as a motion to delay a case before trial. 

The committee also added a way for tenants to delay eviction cases if they didn’t have a chance to apply for ERAP, given that the application portal now opens only once a year. It changed the bill to say that if a tenant can prove they never had a chance to apply for ERAP during their court cases but now have a pending application that could prevent evictions, it would require landlords to reschedule evictions. 

Additionally, the committee changed the bill to require the Department of Human Services to provide specific regulations defining what constitutes an emergency situation under ERAP. 

The council’s scheduled vote Tuesday would be the first of two it must take on the bill before it goes to the mayor’s desk. It remains to be seen which of the committee’s changes will make it into the final bill and which amendments will be passed.

UPDATE, APRIL 1, 9:40 A.M. ET: This story has been updated with a statement from Mayor Muriel Bowser.