Dawn Deschler is on her second lease at the Villas at Midtown apartment complex in Tulsa, and despite consistently paying her rent, she has been without air conditioning since the beginning.
“I’ve been here a little over a year-and-a-half, and the air conditioners have never worked,” Deschler said.
Anna Little Raven Chaney had the water to her Muntage apartment in Oklahoma City cut off in July. Then her electricity was cut off, taking the air conditioning with it. And now, she is without hot water.
Both tenants live in apartment complexes under the Vesta Realty umbrella, where utility problems are common, and failure to provide essential services opens the door for recourse from tenants. That recourse, however, is limited under Oklahoma law.
“This whole situation with Vesta has been really telling because as you look at the stories that are coming out and as you read Facebook comments and see people talking about their experiences, you quickly realize that it’s not just Vesta,” said Katie Dilks, Oklahoma Access to Justice Foundation’s executive director. “These habitability concerns, these safety concerns are happening in rental properties all across Oklahoma with so many different owners.”
Remedies for tenants
Dilks said tenants in Oklahoma lack meaningful remedies under the Landlord-Tenant Act.
Section 118 of Oklahoma’s Residential Landlord-Tenant Act outlines the landlord and tenants’ duties. The landlord must maintain in good and safe working order all electrical, plumbing, sanitary, heating, ventilating and air-conditioning appliances.
Section 121 defines the remedies available to tenants if those duties are not upheld, though not all duties in 118 are spelled out in 121, condensing the list to failing to supply “heat, water or other essential services.”
Victoria Wilson, Oklahoma City University’s Tenants Rights Clinic’s co-director, said judges in Oklahoma City typically read “other essential services” to include air-conditioning and other appliances defined in the lease agreement.
Eric Hallett, an attorney with Legal Aid Services Oklahoma, said Tulsa judges read “other essential services” the same way.
“You rented this unit with features, and now you’re not receiving them,” Hallett said. “So, especially for a person who is expecting air conditioning, it is surely an essential part of their bargain.”
Although the problems both Deschler and Chaney experienced fall under the essential service category, there are only two options: the law allows them to repair the problems themselves at a cost of up to one month’s rent with written notice to the landlord, or break the lease and leave.
Neither option works for the tenants.
Deschler, whose property is now managed by YSA Investments 1, said the new company is making progress in fixing the problems with her residence.
Despite the apartment hitting temperatures above 90 degrees recently, Deschler said the new owners have taken more steps in the past few weeks than Vesta Realty had during her whole lease. For now, she’s exercising patience.
“As long as they’re willing to take the steps,” Deschler said.
It is a completely different situation for Chaney. The 68-year-old lives in her apartment with her 66-year-old husband, Carl Chaney, and their great-grandson. Chaney’s daughter lives in the same complex. Her daughter is without air-conditioning.
The family has made Muntage feel like home with personal decor, family photos and trinkets filling the space. But the problems are still not fixed, and the complex is seeing more people move out by the day. But Chaney said moving would be too difficult.
Dilks said both remedies are too expensive for tenants. She said fixing appliances such as an air conditioning unit in a multi-family building is too much to expect from tenants, and that even if they did move, the costs are high and it’s more likely they’ll pay higher rent at their next property.
Accountability
“There are bad landlords,” said David Chapman, an Edmond real estate broker, landlord, professor and author. “There are also bad tenants. We want good landlords that hold tenants accountable for the lease, but the landlord has to be accountable for habitability.”
Chapman said repairs have slowed as corporate ownership and the use of artificial intelligence and web portals for communication have increased. Nonetheless, he said, it would be hard to defend the landlord in Deschler and Chaney’s cases.
“Landlords have to be able to make money,” Chapman said. “But they have to take care of the properties and take care of the people. These are financing issues. It would be hard to defend the landlord in this case. But legislation’s not going to help it.”
Solutions
Lawmakers proposed several bipartisan bills aimed at reducing evictions and protecting tenants this past legislative session. The most notable was House Bill 2015, proposed by Rep. Daniel Pae, R-Lawton.
Pae told Oklahoma Watch in April the bill was needed to modernize Oklahoma’s Landlord-Tenant Act, which has not significantly changed since its inception nearly 50 years ago.
Dilks said the Landlord-Tenant Act is a remnant of its time, and that meaningful remedies were needed beyond just the ability to break the lease.
The bill ultimately died, with advocates blaming election-year politics.
Dilks said the bill should be revisited in the upcoming legislative session.
“What it (the utilities situation) really paints is that the available paths that people had were insufficient,” she said.
Oklahoma Watch, at oklahomawatch.org, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers public-policy issues facing the state.
