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DRAFT FOR ATTORNEY REVIEW — NOT FINAL

Lena Robinson v. Diamond Housing Corporation, 463 F.2d 853 (1972)

Citation
Lena Robinson v. Diamond Housing Corporation, 463 F.2d 853 (1972)
Parent Document
Lena Robinson v. Diamond Housing Corporation, 463 F.2d 853 (1972)
Jurisdiction
DC (municipal)
Effective Date
1972-04-03

Other Sections in This Document (189)

Full Text

1,613 chars
Of course, if the housing market is structured in such a way that it is impossible for landlords to absorb the cost of bringing their units into compliance with the housing code, there may be nothing a court can do to prevent vigorous code enforcement from driving low-cost housing off the market.9 But the most recent scholarship on the subject indicates this danger is largely imagined. In fact, it appears that vigorous code enforcement plays little or no role in the decrease in low-cost housing stock. When code enforcement is seriously pursued, market forces generally prevent landlords from passing on their increased costs through rent increases. See generally Ackerman, Regulating Slum Housing Markets On Behalf of the Poor: Of Housing Codes, Housing Subsidies and Income Redistribution Policy, 80 Yale L.J. 1093 (1971). The danger stems not from the possibility that landlords might take low-cost units off the market altogether, but rather from the possibility that they will do so selectively in order to “make an example” of a troublesome tenant who has the temerity to assert his legal rights in court. We can be fairly confident that most landlords will find ownership of property sufficiently profitable — even with vigorous code enforcement — to remain in business. But it is undoubtedly true that the same landlords would be able to make a greater profit if the housing code were enforced laxly or not at all. There is thus a real danger that landlords may find it in their interest to sacrifice the profits derived from operation of a few units in order to intimidate the rest of their tenants.