University of Virginia Library

Legal Aid Proposes Legislation
To Reform Landlord - Tenant Laws

By TIM WHEELER

"Virginia common law has been
traditionally landlord-oriented." In those
terms, Ron Tweel, a lawyer for the
Charlottesville Legal Aid Office,
described the legal status of present
landlord-tenant relations.

Historically, landlord-oriented
common law is our heritage from a
medieval feudal economic system, in
which possession of land was a measure of
wealth. The feudal idea that the right to use
land is a privilege granted by the landlord to
those without land has been passed down to us
through the framework of the common law.

At least, such is the analysis of Kurt
Bergren, William B. Lissner, and the Legal Aid
Society of Roanoke Valley. In a pamphlet of
legislative proposals to the Virginia Housing
Study Commission, Mr. Bergren, Mr. Lissner,
and the society took a critical look at the
effects of the present laws governing
landlord-tenant relationships.

According to the pamphlet prepared by the
Society, a significant amount of Virginia
housing is, "substandard in structure,
equipment, sanitation, and maintenance."

These conditions, the Society adds,
contribute to the "development and spread of
disease, crime, infant mortality, juvenile
delinquency, broken homes...and constitutes a
menace to the health, safety, morals, and
welfare of the residents of this
Commonwealth."

It is to combat these harmful social effects
that the Roanoke Legal Aid Society compiled a
list of proposed bills on landlord-tenant law.
These proposals would, if passed, give tenants
more bargaining power in negotiating with
landlord, making landlord-tenant laws a system
of "mutual and dependent covenants."

The first, and possibly the most significant,
proposal would give tenants the right to
withhold rents from landlords under certain
conditions. If the rented dwelling is in
"substantial violation" of any existing laws or
regulations setting standards of fitness for
human habitation, a tenant may, upon giving
notice, withhold further rent payments until
those standards are met by the landlord.

Another proposed bill further states that all
leases, by implication, require the premises
rented to be fit for human habitation. Failure
to meet this implied requirement automatically
breaches the contract between landlord and
tenant.

Concerning security deposits, the pamphlet
includes a proposal requiring all deposits paid
by tenants to be placed in a savings account.
Deposits would then be returned at the close of
the lease with interest, minus a one per cent
charge for the landlord.

One proposal by the society would prevent
landlords from shirking their legal
responsibilities through a written lease. Under
this law, no lease could contain a clause waiving
the tenant's legal rights.

The last major proposal in the pamphlet
dealt with the "landlord's obligation to repair
and tenant's right to repair." In this section, the
society offered a bill that would require
landlords to repair all conditions that make a
dwelling "untenable", as defined by state
housing regulations.