The laws that regulate rental properties, landlords and tenants vary widely across the U.S., as property law is dependent on state and local statutes. Depending on the city or state you live in, you may find that the policies in place either heavily favor the landlord or the renter, but rarely does it feel like an even balance.
In an effort to encourage a more uniform focus on ensuring renters’ rights, the Biden administration published the “Blueprint for a Renters Bill of Rights” in January 2023, prepared by the White House Domestic Policy Council and National Economic Council.
The white paper, which is not official policy and creates no mandate for policymakers or individuals, identifies five basic principles and associated best practices that the administration believes would reduce tenant exploitation, create a more equitable renter market and help ensure fair housing practices, if implemented.
We’re breaking down what’s included in this document, what it means for renters and landlords, and how it may be implemented in the future.
[Read: How to Break Your Apartment Lease]
What Is the ‘Blueprint for a Renters Bill of Rights’?
The “Blueprint for a Renters Bill of Rights” aims to identify the basic principles of guaranteeing fair and safe housing for all renters. Those tenets are broken down into five categories:
1. Safe, quality, accessible and affordable housing. This first principle addresses housing affordability, habitability and housing safety. While it addresses a series of known issues in the rental industry, it touches on the importance of all these steps as renters in the U.S. face a general housing shortage, which drives up rents, as well as the aging housing stock among rental properties. This principle specifically states renters should pay no more than 30% of their household income on housing costs.
2. Clear and fair leases. The second principle focuses on the lease document, noting that the contract between landlord and tenant should be transparent, honest and avoid exorbitant fees or gouging, including in the security deposit. It also stresses the importance of plain language in a lease, to ensure all renters know the conditions to which they are agreeing.
3. Education, enforcement and enhancement of renter rights. The third principle advises that federal, state and local governments should make a concerted effort to educate renters on their rights, while also enforcing fair housing laws and other housing regulations. It elaborates on the ways housing discrimination can occur both subtly and blatantly, and the importance for governing bodies to prevent such discrimination in the future.
4. Right to organize. This principle advocates for a renter’s right to organize a tenant association, a landlord or property management company’s recognition of any such organization and a renter’s ability to contact their landlord in the event of a problem.
5. Eviction prevention, diversion and relief. The final tenet focuses on a renter’s access to resources to avoid eviction, a fair and legal eviction process and steps in place to prevent a pattern of housing instability.
Each principle is accompanied by an explanation of the issues at hand that lead to a need for policies addressing them, as well as plans or proposals for federal agencies to take action. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Federal Housing Finance Agency, Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Department of Justice are a few of the groups included.
Is the Renters Bill of Rights Law?
The Blueprint for a Renters Bill of Rights is not law or official policy, and does not create any mandates for state or local governments, private institutions or individual landlords.
“From a federal relations perspective, the blueprint is just that — it’s a blueprint. It has no legal standing. It has no incentives or punishments for compliance or noncompliance,” says Aaron Davis, vice president of federal relations for the International Code Council, a global source for building codes and property maintenance standards.
The executive branch doesn’t have the ability to impose laws, but it does have the ability to propose and advocate for legislation in areas that it considers important. “There’s only so much the White House can do, realistically. What we need to see is that this measure is matched in Congress,” says Owen Minott, associate director for the Bipartisan Policy Center, a think tank based in Washington, D.C.
The reason for the White House publishing any document is the ability for it to communicate a message that may be more likely to lead to action than another individual, or a federal agency on its own. “It has, perhaps, the most powerful messaging platform in the world,” Minott says.
The “Blueprint for a Renters Bill of Rights” opens up opportunities for action at all levels of government, though because much of property-related policy is relegated to the jurisdiction of state and local governments, it’s those institutions that will need to act upon the recommendations of the blueprint.
“At the end of the day it’s ultimately going to be a decision for state, local tribal and territorial leaders to decide whether the blueprint is enough of a push to do anything more meaningful with property code if they don’t already have anything in place,” Davis says.
[Related:Here’s What Rent Costs Around the U.S.]
Will People Use the Renters Bill of Rights?
If there’s no mandate surrounding the “Blueprint for a Renters Bill of Rights,” will it have any impact?
Such a communication can make an impact, says Lily Liu, CEO of Piñata, a reward and credit building platform for renters headquartered in New York. With experience working with state and local governments, Liu says she expects many policymakers to heed the white paper and take action as a result.
“They do take these policies very seriously, and the next step is to track how are state and local governments going to push this down to private businesses?” Liu says.
The proposed and planned actions for federal agencies listed in the white paper can also have a significant impact on their own. For example, the blueprint notes HUD’s launch of its National Standards for the Physical Inspection of Real Estate, which aligns housing conditions and standards inspection programs across all HUD programs. While this move from HUD isn’t a result of the white paper, it is in line with the paper’s goals. The standards were published and took effect in mid-2023 for public housing and multifamily housing programs.
“Inspection protocols are really important,” Davis says. “We’ve seen in HUD-supported housing the inspection regime has been outdated for several decades and HUD is working to implement the inspire guidelines, but that would be the most significant update for HUD inspection in probably 30 years.”
[READ: How Landlords Can Legally Raise Rent.]
How Could It Be Implemented?
The “Blueprint for a Renters Bill of Rights” is fairly vague in where it recommends direct action, largely because there are many ways to see policy passed or action taken to address the principles.
Minott notes that one area the federal government could pursue bipartisan legislation is in addressing affordable housing and national housing supply concerns. “This should absolutely be a national priority, because it’s super important but it’s not easily attainable,” he says.
One way to address the national housing shortage is by encouraging state and local governments to make it easier to build higher density housing, whether that’s apartment buildings, duplexes or single-family houses on smaller lots. “I think there’s a role for the federal government in incentivizing better planning, relaxing zoning laws,” Minott says.
Additionally, the federal government played a key role in staving off a national eviction crisis during the coronavirus pandemic, in total providing $46 billion in emergency rental assistance that was issued to state governments for distribution, according to the Treasury Department.
It took time for many individual states to build the websites and systems for rental assistance application, vetting and distribution of funds, but they’re up and running now. Minott says now is the perfect opportunity to keep eviction prevention in place.
“Now we have the infrastructure for all these programs,” Minott says. “There’s an opportunity now to keep these programs.”
State and local governments can also pursue adopting a more developed policy regarding housing conditions and property standards. The International Code Council’s International Property Maintenance Code is one such document that has “a combined goal of habitability and eliminating health and safety hazards,” Davis says.
The IPMC has already been adopted by many local governments — it’s used or adopted in 40 states and 1,000 jurisdictions, and was adopted by the U.S. Department of Defense for military housing last year. Looking ahead, Davis says any governing body looking to advance the habitability standards of the blueprint could look to the IPMC or similar existing codes for adoption.
One concern about the “Blueprint for a Renters Bill of Rights” in the rental industry is that there is room for correction where none may be needed. While high rent and housing affordability is certainly an issue, many markets see rents correct themselves accordingly, Liu says.
Rent prices in the U.S. have fallen slightly over the past year. According to Zillow, the median rent for all bedrooms and all property types in the U.S. was $2,050 as of March 2024, down $90 per month year over year.
“For the government to try to heavily control pricing is certainly a mistake for certain asset classes, because the market is adjusting,” Liu says. “Two weeks, three weeks, four weeks being vacant is expensive, and that’s something that private companies respond very quickly to.”
Implementing policy or plans for change to housing and the rental industry takes time. Whether the White House’s blueprint will have an impact, or the size of that impact, on renter rights in the U.S. and landlord-tenant law will likely play out in the coming months and years.
Federal Agencies Offer Guidance
After the release of the “Blueprint for a Renters Bill of Rights,” the Biden administration directed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to take further action. Those agencies took heed. In February 2023, the CFPB and FTC issued a request for information, seeking public comment on background screening experiences in rental housing. In January 2024, the agencies released guidance about interpreting the white paper.
The CFPB’s first advisory opinion to consumer reporting companies covered by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) addresses inaccurate background check reports and “sloppy” credit file sharing practices. It calls or reports to be “complete, accurate, and free of information that is duplicative, outdated, expunged, sealed or otherwise legally restricted from public access,” the guidance reads.
The CFPB’s second advisory opinion on file disclosure emphasizes people’s right to access any information in the consumer report when requested, along with the source or sources of the information.
“We know the CFPB has been very deeply involved in driving change to open up more access to rental housing,” says Maitri Johnson, vice president of tenant and employment at TransUnion. The advisory opinion issued by the CFPB encourages “the background screening providers in rental housing to make some very important changes,” says Johnson.
The CFPB also aims to provide clarity to renters, enabling them to better understand what’s provided in those reports while ensuring accurate information, says Johnson.
Previously, in July 2023, the FTC issued a blog post reminding landlords, property managers and other housing providers of their obligation under the Fair Credit Reporting Act to provide notice of adverse action when information in a consumer report leads them to deny housing to an applicant or require the applicant to pay a deposit that other applicants would not be required to pay.
And in November 2023, the CFPB released two reports concerning tenant background checks. “Consumer Snapshot: Tenant Background Checks” discusses consumer complaints received by the CFPB that relate to tenant screening by landlords and “Tenant Background Checks Market” looks at the practices of the tenant screening industry.
According to Johnson, if these changes are implemented, renters may notice that information is easier to read. For example, one of the changes that the agency aims to enforce is that evictions still in process are not shown on a background check without a final judgment. Johnson also notes that TransUnion already made this change last year, and the consumer reporting agency believes these changes will eventually become industry practice and will make it easier for consumers to get into rental units.
“In the near term, we believe the industry is going to be making these very important changes. We’re already seeing evidence of that,” Johnson says. “Anything that makes it easier for them to make those decisions, like this very important process of background screening that allows consumers to be able to get into a rental unit, is going to be really important.”
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What Is the White House’s Renters Bill of Rights? originally appeared on usnews.com
Update 03/21/24: This story was published at an earlier date and has been updated with new information.
