Tenant organizations including 86 members ask DHCD to redesign a misleading rent increase form

Representatives of 12 tenant associations and organizations today sent a letter to Colleen Green, Director of the DC Department of Housing and Community Development, requesting that the agency redesign a misleading form for announcing rent increases to renters. The letter was sign by 86 tenant leaders and tenant association members in Washington, D.C.

Specifically, the letter states:

“The form, RAD Form 8, is sent by rental housing management companies to tenants, announcing annual rent increases. However, the DHCD letterhead and logo make it appear that DHCD is the sender. This gives recipients the impression that the amounts recorded in the fields are issued by the DC government, erroneously implying that they are obligatory.”

DC renters are often confused by the form, which appears to come from the DC Department of Housing and Community Development, but instead is sent by rental property owners or managers. The form misleading states that a certain increase “will” be imposed beginning on a certain date, making it appear the DC laws make such increases automatic.

In fact, DC law sets a limit on the percentage that a landlord can raise the rent annual in a rent-stabilized building, but renters may negotiate a lower increase — or no increase at all. Moreover, according to the law, landlords cannot raise the rent if conditions in the unit or the building substantially violate the DC housing code.

If renters have been systematically misled into believing that rent increases are automatic when they are not, it could substantially contribute to the rising cost of housing in the District of Columbia.

The signatories close the letter requesting that DHCD hire an expert outside consultant to redesign the form, and that they be included in the redesign process.

Signatories of the letter include leaders and members of these organizations:

• Van Ness South Tenants Association

• Brandywine Tenant Association

• Sedgwick Gardens Tenant Association

• Connecticut House Tenants Association

• Kenmore Residents Association

• Kennedy Warren Residents Association

• 4000 Mass Ave Tenants Association

• Parkwest Tenant Association

• 3220 Parkway Tenants Association

• 1600 16th Street NW Tenants Association

• Rittenhouse Tenants Association

• DC Tenants’ Advocacy Coalition (TENAC)

Read the entire letter in printer-friendly PDF format.

Tenant association president calls for triple penalties in "rent concession" case

Harry Gural, president of the Van Ness South Tenants Association, filed his 41-page closing arguments along with 81 pages of exhibits in his eight-year legal battle against Equity Residential for overcharging him using its “rent concession” scam. Gural is requesting that the court force Equity Residential to pay him more than $150,000 penalties — three times the amount that Equity has overcharged him over this period — as required by law when the landlord overcharges a tenant in bad faith.

In response, Equity Residential filed its final arguments, restating its claim that before recent related court decisions it did not know the meaning of the word “rent.”

DC law states that in older buildings that are subject to rent stabilization, property owners may raise the rent annually by a maximum of 2% plus inflation. In order to circumvent the law, Equity Residential wrote leases with “rent” amounts that far exceeded the actual rent paid, claiming that the “rent charged” could be $1,000 or more per month higher than the rent that is actually charged.

Equity Residential had invented a new definition of the word “rent” — one that was neither in a standard English dictionary in in DC law.

Using its own definition of the word “rent” and the words “rent charged,” Equity Residential in 2016 demanded that Gural pay a rent increase of 20% ($297 per month) instead of the 3.5% ($65) allowed by law.

As president of the tenant association, Gural contacted the office of DC Attorney General Karl Racine in 2016, requesting help for other tenants who complained that Equity Residential had demanded that they pay rent increases of $1,000 or more per month. In 2022, a judge in DC Superior Court handed down a $2 million judgment against Equity Residential for deceiving and overcharging its customers at 3003 Van Ness.

However, the judgment affected only residents of 3003 Van Ness, despite the fact that Equity Residential appears to have used the same rent scam in its other six rent-stabilized properties.

Gural’s case against Equity Residential is distinct from the Attorney General’s case — he had filed the complaint before the Attorney General decided to sue Equity Residential on behalf of the residents of 3003 Van Ness.

In 2020, Gural won the main part of his case on appeal to the Rental Housing Commission (RHC), which issued a strong decision in his favor confirming that the word “rent” in DC law has its plain English meaning, i.e., the amount a person pays for the right to occupy a rental unit. The RHC sent the case back down to the Office of Administrative Hearings for a final decision on related issues, including Gural’s claim that Equity had retaliated against him for his work assisting other tenants.

Nevertheless, eight years after Gural filed his initial complaint, Equity Residential continues to claim that it could not possibly have known the meaning of the word “rent” before the 2020 RHC decision and a related case, Gabriel Fineman v. Smith Property Holdings, or before it lost the Attorney General’s case against it, District of Columbia v. Equity Residential.

While Gural’s tenant petition in the Office of Administrative Hearings against Equity Residential has been litigated over eight years, Equity Residential’s lawsuit against Gural in DC Superior Court over the same issues has been on hold. However, Equity convinced the court in 2016 to force Gural to pay $297 per month into escrow to protect the company’s interests — Gural has now paid $29,474 to date. Moreover, Equity claims that Gural owes the company more than $50,000.

The law calls for restitution to the tenant of three times the amount of the overcharge in the case of bad faith. Gural has asked the court for triple the overcharges — more than $150,000 — because Equity has continued to overcharge Gural despite several court decisions finding that it’s novel definition of the word “rent” is wrong.

In response to Equity Residential’s closing arguments, Gural submitted his final rebuttal — a short overview of the case that points out that Equity continues to object to the simple definition of the English word “rent” and the phrase “rent charged,” despite the fact that the Rental Housing Commission has ruled against Equity’s claim that a radically different definition could apply. In response to Gural’s final rebuttal, Equity filed its own rebuttal — again claiming a novel definition of the word “rent.”

Both parties await a final decision by the Chief Justice of the Office of Administrative Hearings.

Maximum rent increases for 2024

The DC Rental Housing Commission has released the new MAXIMUM rent increases for the rental year beginning on May 1, 2024. This applies to all rent-stabilized apartment buildings — those constructed before 1975. This includes 3003 Van Ness.

The maximum rent increase during the period May 1, 2024 to April 31, 2025:

• 4.9% for those under age 62

• 2.9% for those age 62 or older, or those with a disability

However, please note that the maximum two-year increase (last year plus this year) is 12%. So if you had a high rent increase last year — e.g., more than 7% — subtract that rent increase from 12% to see your maximum rent increase for the coming year.

For a slightly longer explanation of this, see additional information from the DC Office of the Tenant Advocate.

Another way to calculate your MAXIMUM rent increase for the coming year is to use the Rent Calculator from the Office of the Tenant Advocate. It’s a bit wonky, but you may find it useful.

Or read the original announcement by the DC Rental Housing Commission.

One more important point — beginning this year, landlords must give you 60 days notice before a rent increase is to go into effect.

The Van Ness South Tenants Association wants to make sure that all residents understand that these are the MAXIMUM allowable rent increases. The city forms that announce rent increases are misleading — they make it appear that these are MANDATED rent increases. This is not true. These are MAXIMUM rent increases. Smart renters will attempt to negotiate for a better deal in a slack market.

VNSTA sends letter to DHCD asking if rents database will contain historical data

The Van Ness South Tenants Association today sent a letter to Colleen Green, Director of the DC Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD), asking if the much-awaited database of citywide rents will include historical data.

If the database does not include historical data, it will prevent the public and the press from finding out the extent of the “rent concession” scam, by which many DC residents were overcharged by rental housing companies.

Only the residents of 3003 Van Ness who were overcharged are slated to receive $1 million in restitution. There may be thousands of other tenants of Equity Residential and of other rental housing companies that may be due restitution for overcharges.

Read the letter in printer-friendly format.

See the written response from the Director of the DC Department of Housing and Community Development, who reports that ““Once completed and launched for public use, the rent control database will not include historical rent data beyond the past three years.” 

VNSTA asks the DC Housing Authority to reverse its rejection of FOIA request

The Van Ness South Tenants Association today sent a letter to Brenda Donald, Executive Director of the DC Housing Authority (DCHA), requesting that she override the agency’s recent rejection of a FOIA request by VNSTA.

The request, sent on April 1, ask for aggregate data on the number of housing vouchers used at 3003 Van Ness Street in the years 2015-2022, as well as the current rents paid by DCHA and the amounts received by Equity Residential for the apartments rented. The reason for the FOIA request is that there is substantial evidence that DHCA pays very high rates to landlords, driving up rents and discriminating against non-voucher holders, undermining rent stabilization, and providing huge profits to landlords.

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Dear Ms. Donald,

I am writing in response to DCHA’s recent rejection of our FOIA request for aggregate information about the number of DCHA vouchers used and the rents paid for apartments at 3003 Van Ness Street, NW. DCHA refused to provide any information whatsoever, stating “we thoroughly searched the applicable agency records and found that there were no documents responsive to this request.”

It strains the imagination to think that the DC Housing Authority has no records whatsoever of how many households it sponsors at a given address and at what cost. For this reason, we ask that you overturn the blanket rejection of our request and that take action to quickly provide the information requested.

I and many other residents of 3003 Van Ness and the surrounding community support the use of vouchers to subsidize housing for low-income individuals and families. However, the DCHA list of approved rents reveals extremely high rates – $2,648 for a one-bedroom apartment in our area. (cont.)

Read the entire letter and attachments in printer-friendly PDF format

VNSTA asks the Bowser administration to provide a list of rent-stabilized properties

VNSTA president Harry Gural today sent a letter to Lauren Pair, Rent Administrator for the DC Department of Housing and Community Development, requesting release of a list of DC apartment properties with 50 or more apartments that are subject to rent stabilization.

The letter argues that by failing to provide prospective renters with such a list, the Bowser administration deprives them of information that would enable them to choose apartments that in the long run would be less expensive — making housing less affordable in the District of Columbia.

The letter begins:

Dear Ms. Pair,

I am writing to request a list of apartment buildings in the District of Columbia that are subject to rent stabilization, including the owners and operators of those properties.

Prospective renters in the District of Columbia should be able to search for apartments based on whether or not they are subject to rent stabilization. The failure of the city government to provide such information makes rental housing less affordable in the District.

I understand that DHCD was supposed to have created a rent database that would include such basic information, along with much more detailed information about rents. Despite the fact that rent records reside in DHCD’s Rental Accommodations Division archives, the agency failed to deliver such a database. DHCD has published some rent records in PDF format, but this is like providing access to thousands of file boxes in one’s attic. The City Council reassigned responsibility for the database to the Office of the Tenant Advocate, which also has failed to deliver.

Read the entire letter

Equity Residential threatens to evict VNSTA president Harry Gural

On Thursday, Jan. 20th, a neighbor of VNSTA president Harry Gural found a letter from one of Equity Residential’s attorneys, taped to Gural’s door. The letter, dated Dec. 30th, threatened Gural with eviction for supposed underpayment of rent. Equity Residential claims that he owes $30,979 in overdue rent, despite the fact that he has paid the rent in full.

Although many have assumed that Equity Residential no uses “rent concessions” to circumvent DC rent stabilization laws, this is clearly not true in the case of the tenant association president, who already has paid — in addition to his actual rent — more than $21,000 over five years under a protective order in Landlord and Tenant Court, where in 2016 Equity had filed suit against Gural for refusing to pay an illegal “rent concession” surcharge.

Today, Gural sent a letter to Equity Residential management demanding that the company rescind its threat of eviction and that it stop all such retaliation against him for his work as the president of the Van Ness South Tenants Association.

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Follow up: Soon after VNSTA president Harry Gural sent a letter to Equity Residential demanding that the company revoke the legal threat to evict him, Equity Residential responded by saying that it was it was a mistake.

Gural responded with a second letter demanding that Equity Residential stop retaliating against him for his work as tenant association president. For example, although it appears that Equity generally has stopped using the “rent concession” scam to circumvent DC rent stabilization laws, it continues to use it against Gural, claiming that he owes the company more than $34,000 in overdue rent, even though he has paid his rent in full. He has been forced to pay more than $21,000 under a protective order in the Landlord & Tenant Branch of DC Superior Court — even though he has paid his rent in full.

VNSTA receives rent records of Equity Residential properties via FOIA

The Van Ness South Tenants Association, representing the tenants of the apartments at 3003 Van Ness Street, NW, submitted on January 31, 2019, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for rent records of seven properties owned or operated by Equity Residential Corporation or its affiliates. The DC Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) processed the request, releasing data on February 21, 2019.

The records reveal that Equity Residential very likely has incorrectly reported the rents received on many of its apartments in rent stabilized buildings, vastly inflating many of the figures. At 3003 Van Ness, Equity was pressuring tenants into signing leases listing the “rent” as several hundred dollars or well over one thousand dollars higher than the amount actually received per month. Equity based annual increases on these inflated figures, breaking DC rental housing law.

The data can be found in three compressed files:

1. FOIA pages 1-50

2. FOIA pages 51-100

3. FOIA pages 101-164

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