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The Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act: Facilitation of Or Impediment to Reform Favorable to the Tenant?

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The Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act: Facilitation of Or Impediment to Reform Favorable to the Tenant? William & Mary Law Review Volume 15 (1973-1974) Issue 4 Article 6 May 1974 The Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act: Facilitation of or Impediment to Reform Favorable to the Tenant? Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmlr Part of the Property Law and Real Estate Commons Repository Citation The Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act: Facilitation of or Impediment to Reform Favorable to the Tenant?, 15 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 845 (1974), https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/ wmlr/vol15/iss4/6 Copyright c 1974 by the authors. This article is brought to you by the William & Mary Law School Scholarship Repository. https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmlr NOTES THE UNIFORM RESIDENTIAL LANDLORD AND TENANT ACT: FACILITATION OF OR IMPEDIMENT TO REFORM FAVORABLE TO THE TENANT? Three clearly articulated purposes for the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act (URLTA) promulgated by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws are "to simplify clarify, modernize, and revise the law governing the rental of dwelling units and the rights and obligations of landlords and tenants; ... to encourage landlords and tenants to maintain and improve the quality of housing; and .. to make uniform the law with respect to the sub- ject of this Act among those states which enact it."' The version of the Act to be discussed in this Note is the "Approved Draft," dated January 31, 1973.2 Although adoption of this draft with only minor variations in two jurisdictions3 may presage a trend of state action to revitalize the law of residential leases, it has been suggested that enactment of com- prehensive legislation in this area will encounter opposition from groups representing tenants' interests because "additional reforms will be achieved by court decisions, and ... such reforms would be far more extensive than those proposed to be included in this Act" 4 From the 1. Uwwonj[ REsEaNr1L LANDLORD AND TmANr Acr § 1.102 (b) [hereinafter cited as URLTA]. 2. The "Approved Draft," the fourth draft of the Act, was submitted to the Ameri- can Bar Association for its consideration. Subcommittee on Model Landlord-Tenant Act of Committee on Leases, Proposed Uniform Residential Landlord-Tenant Act, 8 REAL PRoP., PRoB. & TR. J. 104 n.4 (1973) [hereinafter cited as Subcommitteel. It sub- sequently was withdrawn, however, in the face of certain reservations and objections, relating primarily to imprecise draftsmanship. Id. at 123-24. Following joint review of these reservations and objections, the Subcommittee and the Commissioner agreed upon changes to be incorporated into the Act, which, as thus amended, was approved by the House of Delegates of the American Bar Association. PNoBaTE AD PRoPERTY, Spring 1974, at 7. This latest version of the Act was not available to the authors at the time this Note was written. 3. Aiuz. REv. STAT. ANN. §§ 33-1301 to -1381 (1973); Ore. Laws of 1973, ch. 559 (Strum, The Landlord-Tenant Relationship: 1980 and Beyond, 9 REAL PRoP., PROB. & TR. J. 24 n.56 (1974). The Act is also the basis of the Virginia Residential Landlord and Tenant Act. VA. CODE ANN. §§ 55-248.2 to -248.40 (Supp. 1974). 4. Subcommittee, supra note 2, at 123. This report continues: They [tenants' interest groups] fear that this Act, if endorsed by the Ameri- can Bar Association, would exist as a set of standards and guidelines for judges involved in these decisions, even if the Act were not passed by the specific jurisdiction. The result would be that the standards themselves [8451 WILLIAM AND MARY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 15:845 tenants' point of view, the URLTA thus might be seen as posing a barrier to more sweeping judicial reforms in landlord-tenant law. Gauging the likely effect of the URLTA on alternative routes of reform in favor of the tenant requires an examination of the judicial developments the Act may supercede, an analysis of the worth of the provisions of the URLTA itself, and an honest evaluation of the re- liance that should be placed on the continued expansion of relief for tenants from other sources such as the courts and the legislatures. In addition, this Note will inquire into the extent that ongoing judicial ac- tivism was intended by the draftsmen of the URLTA or, at least, is permitted by the Act. For the purposes of specific comparisons, certain provisions of the Model Residential Landlord-Tenant Code5 also will be examined. JUDICIAL REFORM OF LANDLORD-TENANT LAW Probably in no other area of landlord-tenant law has there been so clear a trend of judicial decisions favoring tenants as in the law govern- ing landlord obligations to deliver and maintain premises which are suitable for human habitation. To grasp the nature of reform in this area and to understand the policy underlying such reform, the common law rules in effect prior to the recent developments must be reviewed. Common Law Rules and Exceptions Three basic rules governing landlord-tenant law developed as the result of the early common law view of the lease as a conveyance of an interest in real property.6 The first of these was the doctrine of caveat emptor, absolving the landlord of any obligation to deliver premises suitable for the tenant's intended use. Delivery of unfit premises was neither a defense to an action for ren nor grounds for recovery would be relied upon by judges searching for appropriate guidelines. These standards would therefore become the limit beyond which any suggested reform would be condemned as unreasonable, if not radical. Id. 5. AMERICAN BAR FOUNDATION, MODEL REsIDENTIAL LANDLORD-TENANT CODE (Tent. Draft 1969) [hereinafter cited as MODEL CODE]. 6. 1 AMERICAN LAW OF PROPERTY § 3.11 (A.J. Casner ed. 1952) [hereinafter cited as Casner]. 7. Id. § 3.45. "There is no implied covenant or warranty that at the time the term commences the premises are in a tenantable condition or that they are adapted to the purpose for which leased." Id. at 267 (footnotes omitted), 1974] URLTA in tort for personal injury or property damages.8 A prospective tenant neglected to inspect the premises before execution of the lease at his peril; he was protected only if he obtained an express warranty of fitness from his lessorY A second early common law rule, logically related to the caveat emptor principle, was that the landlord, absent an express undertaldng, owed no duty to maintain the premises or make repairs during the lease term;' rather, it was the tenant who was obliged to maintain the premises during his tenancy as an outgrowth of his duty not to commit waste."I The final early rule, that the covenants in a lease were mutually in- dependent unless expressly made dependent, was founded upon the concept of a lease as a conveyance rather than a contract. Accordingly, breach by the landlord of any covenants given expressly or impliedly neither discharged nor suspended the duty of the tenant to perform under his covenants. Although the tenant ultimately could recover damages, he had to continue rental payments to the landlord, even dur- ing the pendency of legal proceedings, and he could not rely upon the landlord's breach as a basis for either abatement of rent or rescission. 3 The development of these rules was related to the fact that most leases originally involved the conveyance of land. In an agrarian econ- omy, any structures on the land ordinarily were deemed incidental to the primary purpose of the lease because land, not buildings, produced the anticipated rent.14 Application of the general rules, however, oc- casionally yielded unacceptably harsh results, and development of exceptions became necessary."' Constructive eviction, an exception first enunciated in Dyett v. Pen- dletoni' in 1826, concerned the landlord's covenant of quiet enjoyment implied in all leases to allow the tenant undisturbed use of the demised 8. Id. 5 3.45. 9. Id. 10. Id. § 3.78. "The lessor is under no obligation to the tenant to make repairs to the property in the absence of a covenant or a statute imposing such a duty." id. at 346 (footnote omitted). 11. Id. at 347. 12. Id. §3.11. 13. Clearly, the tenant could not, at early common law, force the landlord to com- ply by means of injunctive relief or specific performance, where the tenant had not performed his covenants. 14. Mease v. Fox, 200 N.W.2d 791,793 (Iowa 1972). 15. These exceptions later provided precedent for a complete abandonment of the general rules. See, e.g., Boston Housing Authority v. Hemingway, 293 NE.2d 831, 838 (Mass. 1973). 16. 8 Cow. 727 (N.Y. 1826). WILLIAM AND MARY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 15: 845 premises. A constructive eviction occurred when the landlord's failure to protect the tenant in his quiet enjoyment of the leasehold caused the ten- ant to be forced off the premises. Such involuntary removal was deemed equivalent to eviction by physical ouster and afforded the tenant the same remedies available upon actual eviction." Before a tenant could be ex- cused from his obligations under the lease, however, it was necessary that he demonstrate'8 that he had abandoned the premises within a reasonable time 9 because of a substantial interference with enjoyment or possession. In abandoning the premises, the tenant acted at his peril. 0 If he miscalculated either the severity of the interference with his en- joyment of the premises or the reasonableness of time elapsed between interference and abandonment, his obligation to pay rent continued, notwithstanding that he was no longer on the premises. In addition to the risk assumed by the tenant that he subsequently would be unable to establish the elements of a constructive eviction, the hardship in- volved in vacating generally militated against this course of action except in the most extreme circumstances.
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