Pursuant to federal regulation (24 C.F.R. § 247.4 [2018]), a landlord must
provide notice to a tenant in federally subsidized housing before an
eviction proceeding may be commenced, the notice must state the rea-
sons for the landlord’s action with enough ‘‘specificity’’ so as to enable
the tenant to prepare a defense, and, when the basis of the action
involves the nonpayment of rent, the notice must state the dollar amount
of the balance due on the ‘‘rent account’’ and the date of such computa-
tion in order to satisfy the requirement of specificity.
The plaintiff landlord brought a summary process action against the defen-
dant tenant, seeking immediate possession of the premises solely on
the ground of nonpayment of rent. In 2010, the defendant signed a
one year lease with the plaintiff, which owns and manages a housing
development in which the rental units are subsidized by the Department
of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Pursuant to the terms of
that lease, the defendant remained in the apartment after the first year
on a month-to-month basis. In the plaintiff’s summary process action,
which it brought in February, 2015, the plaintiff alleged that, on January
1, 2015, the defendant failed to pay the rent of $1402 then due. Prior to
initiating the action, the plaintiff had sent a pretermination notice to
the defendant in accordance with HUD regulations. The pretermination
notice provided: ‘‘[Y]ou failed to pay your rent, in the total rental obliga-
tion of [$6189.56]. Your failure to pay such rent constitutes a material
noncompliance with the terms of your lease.’’ The notice further pro-
vided: ‘‘Your rental obligations will include the delinquent rent, late fees,
utilities, legal fees, any other eviction proceeding sundry cost.’’ The
defendant filed a motion to dismiss, claiming that the pretermination
notice was defective and, therefore, that the trial court lacked subject
matter jurisdiction. The defendant contended, inter alia, that the cure
amount of $6189.56 in the pretermination notice varied from the alleged
nonpayment of $1402 in rent that formed the basis for termination of
the tenancy. The trial court granted the motion to dismiss, concluding
that the notice was defective because it contained legally impermissible
and factually inaccurate grounds for termination and that the defective
notice deprived it of subject matter jurisdiction. The plaintiff appealed
to the Appellate Court, which reversed the trial court’s judgment, con-
cluding that the pretermination notice was not jurisdictionally defective.
The Appellate Court reasoned that the trial court improperly incorpo-
rated state summary process law in determining that the notice was
defective and that the notice should have been assessed solely in relation
to the requirements of federal law, specifically, that portion of 24 C.F.R.
§ 247.4 requiring only the dollar amount of the balance due on the
rent account and the date of such computation. The Appellate Court
determined that the plaintiff’s notice complied with that federal require-
ment because all of the charges listed therein were amounts for either
past due rent or other financial obligations due under the lease. The
Appellate Court rejected the defendant’s contention that the balance
due on the rent account was limited to the amount of the unpaid rent
that supported the nonpayment of rent ground alleged in the plaintiff’s
complaint. On the granting of certification, the defendant appealed to
this court. Held that the Appellate Court improperly reversed the trial
court’s judgment of dismissal, as the plaintiff’s inclusion in the pretermi-
nation notice of undesignated charges for obligations other than unpaid
rent rendered that notice jurisdictionally defective: the common meaning
of the term ‘‘rent,’’ as gleaned from dictionaries, federal housing statutes,
federal regulations applicable to subsidized housing, and the HUD hand-
book, led this court to conclude that the term ‘‘rent account’’ in 24
C.F.R. § 247.4 is limited to rent charges and does not encompass utilities,
costs for repairs, late fees, and attorney’s fees, and such a construction
of the regulation furthered the purpose of the specificity requirement
therein, which was to enable the tenant to prepare a defense, and also
reflected the fact that occupancy in subsidized housing is in the nature
of a welfare entitlement and that such tenants are entitled to basic
substantive and procedural protections; accordingly, the requirement
that the pretermination notice specify the dollar amount of the balance
due on the rent account was not met in the present case, as the notice
was not limited to unpaid rent, which the plaintiff alleged as the only
reason for the proposed termination of the tenancy, and did not designate
which of the charges were assigned to rent and which were assigned
to obligations other than rent; moreover, the plaintiff could not prevail
on its claim that any defect in a pretermination notice is not jurisdictional
and requires that the defendant demonstrate prejudice, this court having
determined that notice must be sufficiently accurate for the tenant to
understand and defend against the allegations and that, if a notice is
inaccurate to the point that a tenant’s ability to prepare a defense is
impaired, the notice is not effective.
Argued October 9, 2018—officially released June 18, 2019 Procedural History