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HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 11.2.4.4.6 Conduct of Others

PHAs or owners may seek to evict a family for criminal activity engaged in by certain kinds of non-household members.609 Specifically, this includes “guests”610 and “other person[s] under the tenant’s control.611 Public housing leases require tenants to ensure that no guest or other person under the tenant’s control engages in “[a]ny criminal activity that threatens the health, safety or right to peaceful enjoyment of the premises by other re

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 11.2.4.4.7 State and Local Law and Preemption

Some states and localities have enacted eviction protections for tenants beyond what is available under federal law, such as establishing a right to notice of lease violations and right to cure them,650 limiting grounds for eviction to just cause,651 establishing defenses to eviction from public and subsidized housing652 and creating the innocent-tenant defense that Rucker found was not implied in the federal public housing statute.

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 11.2.4.2.6 Disconnection of Utilities

If the lease requires the tenant to maintain utility services, the landlord may move to evict if the utilities are shut off due to nonpayment from the tenant.400 Not every disconnection will be grounds to evict, however, and courts have declined to find a serious violation of the lease for short-term utility disconnections.401 The tenant should exercise the right to cure by seeking payment options from the utility provider to restore service.

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 11.2.4.2.7 Repeated Late Payment of Rent

If a tenant fails to pay rent when due, but tenders the rent within a grace period allowed by the lease or a state law requiring notice of nonpayment and an opportunity to cure, then the late payment does not constitute a sufficient ground for eviction. This is clear under the HUD regulations for most of the programs and the Model Lease.405 Repeated late rent payments, however, may be cause for eviction.406

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 11.2.4.2.9 Absence from the Unit

Tenants who are absent from their assisted dwelling units sometimes face allegations they have abandoned the premises, or that the assisted unit is not the family’s sole and primary residence.424 HUD Voucher regulations authorize PHAs to develop policies for terminating assistance to tenants who are absent from their home for more than brief periods.425 The focus of these cases should be whether the tenant complied with the lease and whether the tenant intended to relinquish the premises as

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 11.2.4.2.10 Failure to Report Change in Income

Public housing leases oblige tenants to furnish information that PHAs may need to determine rent, eligibility and unit size.428 The regulations for HUD-subsidized projects similarly provide that failure to timely supply all required information on income and family composition or other eligibility factors, or knowingly providing incomplete or inaccurate information, constitutes material noncompliance with the lease.429 A failure to supply such information is not material unless deliberate, h

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 11.2.4.2.12 Overcrowding and Violation of Occupancy Standards

When the family size increases, overcrowding may be of concern. If a landlord attempts to terminate a tenancy because the family has grown too large and no appropriately sized unit is available, several arguments can be made. the regulations governing the particular program may not authorize the landlord to force a family to move out of the development just because an appropriate sized unit is not available.466 There may be no basis to terminate the tenancy under the lease, either.

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 11.2.4.2.16 Material False Statements in Connection with Application for Assistance

False statements on a written application or otherwise in the admissions process may be grounds for termination if material.501 A “material” false statement in this context means one that enables the family to avoid denial of assistance, whether on eligibility or suitability grounds. A false statement that enables the family to gain a preference or other benefit may also be “material” in this context.

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 11.2.4.5.3 Destruction of the Unit

Occasionally, PHAs and owners will move to terminate a tenancy or behave as if it has been automatically terminated when the unit is totally destroyed or made uninhabitable by a fire, flood or other disaster, without offering the tenant a comparable subsidized replacement unit.681 While state law may help resolve this question, the fact that a federally subsidized tenancy is terminable only for good cause supports a claim to replacement housing or benefits, as well as required procedural protections.6

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 11.2.4.5.5 “Undesirable” Tenant

In the past, many PHAs had policies indicating that “undesirable” tenants would not be admitted and would be evicted, with vague language defining the term “undesirable.”687 Despite the potential for abuse by managers, attacks on the definitions of undesirability were rarely successful.688 Now that the good cause for eviction doctrine has been well-established and codified in the regulations and statutes, PHAs and subsidized landlords have less discretion to label certain tenants as “undesir

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 11.2.4.5.7 Eviction for Business Reasons

A landlord may have business or other reasons for an eviction that are unrelated to any breach of the lease or other tenant conduct. This is more common under the Voucher program than in public housing or Project-Based Section 8 programs, where PHAs and landlords have made long-term commitments to provide housing for low-income people and tenants have greater protections upon termination.

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 11.2.4.6.1 Overview

PHAs and other landlords sometimes attempt to evict tenants because of some improper motive, such as racial or other unlawful discrimination, exercise of First Amendment rights, or retailiation. Evictions brought for such improper reasons can be defended on either of two basic grounds: either the lack of good cause (if needed) defeats the landlords’s prima facie claim for possession, or the improper motive serves as an affirmative defense.