D.C. landlords press Congress, Council to set court deadlines

A coalition led by the Small Multifamily Owners Association is urging Congress to fully fund the D.C. Courts and the D.C. Council to pass housing legislation with a mandatory 60-day hearing deadline. The group says court delays are driving housing distress, maintenance deferrals and a growing backlog in the District’s affordable housing stock.

Why it matters: - D.C. landlords say long Landlord and Tenant case delays are hurting housing providers and the city’s affordable housing supply. - SMOA’s recent report, The Cost of Delay, says 7 in 10 landlords with completed cases waited at least a year to recover their units. - The report says 58% deferred maintenance because tenants were not paying rent. - CohnReznick says more than half of the District’s publicly financed affordable housing inventory, worth more than $1 billion, is now on the distress watch list.

What happened: - The Small Multifamily Owners Association and the D.C. Housing Recovery Coalition called on Congress to fully fund the D.C. Courts. - The coalition also urged the D.C. Council to pass the Housing Investment Protection Act with mandatory 60-day hearing deadlines. - Dean Hunter, SMOA’s CEO and chairman of the D.C. Housing Recovery Coalition, said court delays are a policy problem, not a budget problem. - Hunter said he raised the issue with Congress on the same day Council member Robert White held a public roundtable on landlord accountability and housing conditions.

The details: - Hunter said Civil Division leadership told him last year that the court could meet a 60-day deadline. - Hunter said the court’s delays predate the current funding fight by five years. - The D.C. Courts’ 2019 Statistical Summary showed the Landlord and Tenant Branch processed more than 30,000 cases that year, or about 100 or more per court day. - Hunter said that level of capacity has not returned because the court has continued using a pandemic-era virtual calendar. - Hunter said the Council has not held a public roundtable on the operation of the Landlord and Tenant Branch. - Hunter said no one from the court has been invited to testify and the court has not provided a written response on hearing deadlines. - Hunter said the Council is relying on individual conversations instead of court testimony or data to shape policy. - The coalition says Virginia requires an initial hearing within 21 days of filing. - The coalition says Maryland typically schedules an initial hearing within 5 to 10 days. - The coalition says the District often takes four to five months, with many cases stretching past two years. - Hunter said filings are below pre-pandemic levels, so caseload is not the main constraint.

Between the lines: - The coalition is trying to shift the debate from landlord accountability alone to court operations and procedural timelines. - The message is that funding matters, but structural court policy matters more than budget alone. - The push for mandatory deadlines suggests landlords see the current process as a policy choice that could be changed without waiting for broader court reform.

What's next: - SMOA and the coalition want the Council to pass HIPA with a mandatory initial hearing within 60 days of filing. - They also want regular public reporting on Branch operations. - The coalition wants Congress to reject proposed cuts to D.C. Courts funding and increase funding to reduce the backlog. - Hunter said the Council should keep hearing deadlines intact because the fate of D.C.’s affordable housing industry depends on it.

The bottom line: - D.C. landlords are pressing for a faster court process and more public oversight, arguing the current delay is worsening the District’s housing crisis.