In early February, the city of Stillwater declared the Remington Ranch apartment complex a public nuisance. It was a unique and time-consuming approach to holding the problematic Tulsa-based landlord, Vesta Realty, accountable for the lack of heat and water tenants experienced for months on end.
In several Oklahoma Watch stories detailing the conditions tenants experienced at Vesta Realty-owned properties, housing experts cited the landlord as an example of why Oklahoma legislators should pass House Bill 2015.
The bill, proposed by Rep. Daniel Pae, R-Lawton, would make an addition to the tenant remedies section of Oklahoma’s Residential Landlord-Tenant Act, giving courts the power to hold problem landlords accountable for their properties.
That bill has stalled, and other eviction reform bills failed this legislative session.
Tenant Remedies
Oklahoma’s Residential Landlord-Tenant Act has barely changed since the state adopted parts of the Uniform Law Commission’s model legislation in 1978. Oklahoma was one of 20 states that adopted a substantial part of the legislation, but when crafting state law, the tenant remedies section was left on the cutting room floor.
Remedies that Katie Dilks, the executive director of the Oklahoma Access to Justice Foundation, said Oklahoma’s neighboring states had.
“The goal of bills like House Bill 2015 and improved tenant repair and landlord accountability laws across the country is to give tools to tenants and communities to address issues before they become full-blown community-level disasters like we saw in Stillwater,” Dilks said.
She said that if no change is made to the Landlord-Tenant Act, the case of Remington Ranch could serve as inspiration for proactive municipalities to hold bad landlords accountable on their own.
“That will also only meaningfully address really large multi-family properties and challenges with repairs or habitability or safety concerns that rise to a really egregious level,” Dilks said. “The city is not in a place to go and file nuisance complaints against every landlord who doesn’t make the repairs that they are expected to do. If we put our eggs in that basket, we have to acknowledge that we are going to be leaving a lot of people without a solution.”
House Bill 2015 was not the only bill proposed this session to address eviction reform.
Oklahoma’s Eviction Timeline
Once again, the eviction timeline was in question at the state Capitol, this time in the form of Senate Bill 1209.
After Sen. Julia Kirt’s timeline extension bill was vetoed last year by Gov. Kevin Stitt, the Oklahoma City Democrat made some adjustments and again tried to pass an extension with Senate Bill 1209, which would exclude Sundays and federal holidays from Oklahoma’s eviction timeline.
Dilks said the timeline is a piece, but it is not the most actionable move to lower Oklahoma’s eviction rates. She said an increase in the $58 filing fee would be more direct.
An Oklahoma Watch investigation found that Oklahoma’s eviction process, which is among the fastest in the country, paired with the state’s low filing fee, opens the door for landlords to use it as a form of rent collection. That often results in serial evictions.
Sabine Brown, a senior policy analyst at the Oklahoma Policy Institute, said there is no one solution to driving down evictions and keeping people housed, but Oklahoma’s timeline still needs to be addressed.
“There are so many reasons why folks are experiencing housing instability,” Brown said. “This is (the timeline) part of the solution. Someone can go from being a day late to being removed from their house in under two weeks, which is just incredibly quick.”
Despite being only a piece of the solution for Oklahoma’s eviction rates, the bill ultimately failed in the House.
The Upcoming Election
Both Dilks and Brown attributed the bills' failures to the upcoming election.
“The fact that this is an election year makes it tough,” Brown said. “Landlords hold a lot of power in the legislature, and I think legislators are sometimes scared of landlords.”
Eric Dunn, director of litigation for the National Housing Law Project, previously told Oklahoma Watch that it is difficult to pass eviction reform bills in states without strong tenant unions.
“What we generally see is that landlord and Realtor associations in every state are going to have tremendous clout in state and local government,” Dunn said. “Landlords get pretty much what they want out of state and local government, and then it’s really only communities that have well-organized grassroots tenant organizations that are really able to get anything approaching a balanced law.”
He said that landlords often see such bills as attacks.
Brown said the majority of landlords would not be affected by the bills, adding that they would have been used to hold bad landlords accountable.
“What is important to remember is that these bills are not targeting landlords; they are trying to hold bad landlords accountable,” Brown said. “The large majority of landlords that are doing right by their tenants are not going to be affected by this legislation.”
Oklahoma Watch, at oklahomawatch.org, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers public-policy issues facing the state.
