D.C. housing owners press Council to move court reform bill

The Small Multifamily Owners Association is urging the D.C. Council to mark up the Housing Investment Protection Act by Nov. 30, arguing court delays and weakened eviction reforms are worsening the city’s affordable-housing crisis. The group says prolonged cases, unpaid rent and stalled maintenance are hurting both landlords and tenants.

Why it matters: - SMOA says D.C.’s court process is dragging out rent disputes, increasing unpaid balances and putting affordable housing stock at risk. - The group argues that delay is now undermining both housing providers and tenants, not protecting either side. - SMOA is pressing the Council to restore court deadlines and pass the Housing Investment Protection Act, or HIPA, with stronger enforcement language.

What happened: - The Small Multifamily Owners Association asked the D.C. Council’s Committee on Housing to mark up HIPA by Nov. 30 and send the bill to the full Council. - SMOA said the Council has not addressed a rent-payment crisis that is destabilizing affordable housing. - At a Sept. 24 HIPA hearing, Housing Committee Chair Robert White said, “We covered almost every single request from the industry over the past three years.” - SMOA disputed that characterization.

The details: - SMOA said the Committee weakened or removed several court reforms originally proposed by the Mayor in the RENTAL Act. - The Committee omitted a proposed 45-day initial hearing deadline, and that provision never became law. - The Committee narrowed requirements for rent payments into the court registry before a hearing on protective orders; later Council action restored those requirements. - The Committee cut a proposed 30-day hearing deadline for violent-crime evictions, required a formal criminal charge instead of an arrest, and tripled the notice period from 10 days to 30 days; the full Council later reversed those changes. - The Committee removed a remedy for repeated, substantially similar lease violations within one year, and that proposal never became law. - SMOA pointed to pandemic-era ERAP stay rules as a warning sign for HIPA. - The Housing Committee’s July 2025 report found tenants stayed protected “even if they were ultimately deemed ineligible.” - The same report said those stays, combined with the automatic stay policy, extended eviction timelines by months and in some cases years. - The report said arrears reached tens of thousands of dollars and concluded the stays acted more like delays to inevitable eviction than a safety net. - Hunter said the virtual calendar is repeating the same mistake because balances become too large for assistance or payment plans to fix. - Hunter also said the issue is a policy choice, not a budget problem, noting that Landlord and Tenant Court handled about 100 in-person cases a day before the pandemic. - SMOA said the court now has fewer filings and added capacity, but landlords and tenants still wait months under the virtual calendar. - At an Oct. 1 roundtable, White criticized owners “who know exactly how to game the system for maximum cash while avoiding responsibility.” - At the same event, Beth Mellen, senior counsel for housing protection and affordability at the D.C. Office of the Attorney General, said landlords were “not always being paid rent” and were “really struggling” to cover repairs and maintenance. - SMOA’s 2025 rent-loss study found landlords have lost more than $1 billion in rent since September 2021. - In SMOA’s survey of 621 housing providers, 58% said they delayed or canceled maintenance and capital improvements because of unpaid rent. - The D.C. Office of the Tenant Advocate said eviction filings in fiscal 2025 stayed below fiscal 2019 levels. - White said at the HIPA hearing that the District is “completing evictions at a historically high level.” - In SMOA’s survey, 70% of respondents with completed cases waited at least a year to recover possession. - The same survey found 35% of respondents said cases lasted at least two years. - SMOA wants HIPA to keep a 60-day initial-hearing deadline, all other mandatory deadlines and the owner’s right-of-access provision intact.

Between the lines: - SMOA is framing the fight as one over court structure, not just rent debt. - The group’s argument is that slow adjudication can worsen arrears until a repayment plan becomes unrealistic. - White is casting the issue as a fairness and accountability problem for property owners, while SMOA says the current system is producing longer delays and more completed evictions. - The clash shows a broader tension in D.C. housing policy: how to balance tenant protections with keeping small rental properties financially viable.

What’s next: - SMOA wants the Housing Committee to schedule a HIPA markup by Nov. 30. - The group is also pushing the full Council to pass the bill with its preferred deadlines and access provisions. - If Council members do not act, SMOA says court delays will keep eroding affordable housing and deepening rent losses.

The bottom line: - SMOA is asking D.C. lawmakers to speed up housing court and restore stronger deadlines before rent disputes become longer, costlier and harder to resolve.