Your turn: Proposed law would make Illinois landlords guilty unless proven innocent

Innocent until proven guilty is a fundamental principle of America’s justice system, but soon that may not be true in Illinois.

Each year there is an onslaught of legislation attacking housing providers. This year is no exception.

HB4768, The Landlord Retaliation Act, is working its way through the General Assembly. The title of the bill suggests a terrible wrong is being corrected.

While there may be merit to the intent of the bill, the devil is in the details.

The purpose for the legislation is to prevent a landlord from retaliating against a tenant who complains about property conditions. That behavior is already prohibited by law, but the advocates of this bill feel the existing law doesn’t sufficiently punish landlords.

Among a list of triggering actions, the new version states that if a tenant simply requests a repair then a landlord is prohibited from making management decisions like raising rent, refusing to renew a lease or change any term of service for one year after that request is made.

This is not limited to major maintenance problems. Almost every request for repair could trigger the prohibition. Multiple maintenance requests within a year are not uncommon, so the liability of this bill will often be continuous.

Even if the landlord responds immediately to perform a repair, or the damage was caused by the tenant, the landlord is exposed to liability.

The biggest problem with the bill is a presumption that the landlord is guilty of retaliation if they make any of the prohibited management decisions within the year after the request for maintenance is made.

That’s right, the landlord is assumed guilty unless they prove their innocence.

The advocates argue that the presumption of guilt is ok because an innocent landlord is free to hire an attorney to prove their innocence. Thousands of dollars will be spent by housing providers who acted responsibly in response to requests for repairs and then made normal management decisions for their property.

If the landlord fails to defend themselves they must pay damages to the tenant and pay the tenant’s attorney fees. If the accusations against the landlord are baseless, there is no reciprocal payment of attorney fees or damages.

Most rental housing in Illinois is provided by people who have a small number of rental units for supplemental income. Many of those small landlords would be burdened to come up with a $5,000 retainer fee that an attorney will charge to defend a lawsuit. Those who can’t fund a defense will be extorted into settling cases by tenants who find an opportunity to profit from this law.

This legislation is callous in its disregard for the harm it will do to mom and pop landlords. It is unfair and unbalanced.

Illinois already has an unfriendly legislative environment for housing providers and HB4768 will further that problem.

It will discourage people from providing rental housing and a limited supply of rental housing reduces competition in the marketplace. The effect is higher rents and less incentive to renovate older housing stock. Prospective tenants are forced to accept whatever is available.

Housing providers, tenants and neighborhood conditions will all be impacted by HB4768.

Call your state legislators and tell them to stop the assault on housing providers in Illinois. We need more people providing quality housing and HB4768 will not help accomplish that goal.

Paul Arena is the director of government affairs for the Rockford Apartment Association. He serves as a Winnebago County Board Member and Republican caucus chairman.

This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: Your turn: Proposed Landlord Retaliation Act must be stopped