New Orleans        Recently I was surprised to find that tenants in Maryland were legally able under certain conditions to withhold their rent to force their landlords to make repairs by following certain procedures.  Living and working in red states in the South and elsewhere for so long had “blinded me to the light” that might allow very different tactical and strategic options elsewhere in the country.  Legendarily, Arkansas is reputed to be the only state in the US that does not have any kind of warrant of habitability.  Louisiana is only better by a degree, requiring habitability, but giving little recourse other than to being able to get out of a lease and in narrowly exceptional cases allowing tenants to make repairs themselves and demand reductions or reimbursement.  In states like Texas, Georgia, and North Carolina even if the HVAC and plumbing do not work, a tenant has to pay their rent in full.  So, it goes.

Opening my eyes wider to the situation, I now find that a majority of US states, 32 in fact, have some ways and means of protecting tenants taking direct action by withholding their rent to guarantee that their housing is livable.  California and New York, where I might have thought tenants have the best protections, continue to be highly restrictive about “repair and deduct” situations.  Neither has a statutory system for tenants to withhold in escrow.

In Ohio, tenants have a formal, court-administered rent escrow process (Ohio Revised Code § 5321.07).  They have to be current on their rent to trigger and give the landlord reasonable time to repair, but that is around 30 days or less, if there is an emergency like no heat in winter.  If no remedial action is taken and the problem continues, the tenant can deposit their next month’s rent directly with the local municipal or county Clerk of Courts rather than paying the landlord.

Pennsylvania does not have a single statewide universal court-run escrow registry like Ohio does for all counties, but rent withholding is legally recognized under specific frameworks.  Pittsburgh and Philadelphia make provisions under their code enforcement rules.  The state Rent Withholding Act might help, but local code enforcement is required to certify a property as “unfit for human habitation” in order to give the tenant legal protection to withhold rent.  Tenants have to crawl through some more holes in the wall as well.  There’s no way to pay the rent to an authority or the courts.  Legal aid recommends a separate account or money order, but that’s not arm’s length, if other emergencies arise, and the whole thing collapses if the landlord or others can establish that you dipped into the rent money for other emergencies.

All of which is better than nothing.  In ACORN’s Home Savers Campaign a couple of years ago when we were targeting lease to purchase and rent-to-own companies we visited a tenant hoping to be an owner in Youngstown where the bathroom ceiling had fallen on him while taking a shower.  In Cleveland, we met tenants where the steps had collapsed and they had to talk to us from the porch.  Same in Detroit and Indianapolis where we were also on the doors.  Every door seemed to have a litany of issues where tenants were living in uninhabitable dwellings, because the so-called payments, really rent, were relatively low and in some cases, they still hoped they might end up as owners.

For such families and many tenants, it’s worth knowing how, when organized, they can trigger these escrow payment ordinances and laws when they are available.  I wish I had known about them then, but knowing about these mechanisms proves once again that knowing now is better late, than never.