A recent Connecticut Supreme Court ruling strengthens eviction protections for housing tenants across the state.
In TOV Realty, LLC v. Suarez, the court ruled an eviction could not proceed if the tenant has a pending case with the local Fair Rent Commission. Rent commissions are designed to help mediate rent increases and investigate general rental cost complaints filed by tenants.
Greater Hartford Legal Aid attorney Doug Butler, who represents the Hartford tenant in the case, said the court’s decision is a sweeping ruling.
“It's a great benefit to the tenants of Connecticut,” Butler said. “What it said was, a tenant has a higher interest in their ability to seek redress from a Fair Rent Commission than a landlord has in an expeditious outcome in an eviction case.”
While Fair Rent Commissions in Connecticut have existed since the 1960s, the rental and job market difficulties of the COVID-19 pandemic led to the state legislature expanding the Commissions’ power in recent years, Butler said.
“No longer can the evictions go forward, while there is an appeal from a Fair Rent Commission
decision,” Butler said. “That is a very key outcome for the state of Connecticut, for the tenants.”
In this case, the tenant complained to Hartford’s Fair Rent Commission about a proposed 64% rent increase. The corporate, New York-based landlord then sought to evict the tenant, and argued their rights to remove renters were being violated.
Neither the landlord plaintiff nor the landlord’s attorney responded to Connecticut Public’s request for comment.
The Housing Clinic at Yale Law School filed an amicus brief in February on behalf of the tenants and the team of nonprofit legal counsel.
Dylan Shapiro, a Yale Law School student who worked on the case, said the case was overcomplicated by the plaintiff.
While the case was being heard by the Commission, the defendant continued to pay his existing rent, rather than the proposed increased rent, Shapiro said. The landlord then tried to evict the tenant for not paying the increased rent.
“When a Fair Rent Commission decision is made, which happened here which found the rent
increase was harsh and unconscionable, the landlord should appeal that decision,” Shapiro said. “Instead the landlord filed an eviction action against the tenant, then appealed the [Commission’s] action, and said that because there was an eviction action, it had to go forward. No matter that there was a challenge to whether the rents that the landlord had charged and was evicting the tenant over was actually fair.”
The case set a precedent that renters cannot be evicted while their complaints are being considered by the Fair Rent Commission.
