Fair Rent: Dog’ll Cost You $150

Thanks to the Fair Rent Commission, Juana Valle and Salvador Jimenez won’t have to part with their family’s chihuahua — but they’ll still need to fight to stay in their home.

They received that mixed result this week after bringing a dispute with their landlord to the latest regular monthly meeting of the Fair Rent Commission, a state-empowered local body established to ​“control and eliminate excessive rental charges on residential housing within the city.”

The commissioners tackled several issues of citywide importance in this case: How much landlords can charge renters to keep pets. How much landlords can raise the rent all at once, especially after delaying to make city-ordered repairs to a property. And how city fair rent proceedings dovetail with eviction cases filed in state court.

The virtual meeting took place Tuesday evening online via Zoom. The commission met on the same day that Gov. Ned Lamont signed into a law a new bill that requires every Connecticut municipality with at least 25,000 residents to set up its own Fair Rent Commission. (New Haven’s has been up and running for more than five decades.)

One of the three cases heard and voted on at Tuesday’s meeting involved a fair rent complaint filed in July 2021 by Maltby Place tenant Juana Valle against her East Haven-based landlord, Silverio Lucero. 

The complaint stated that Lucero wanted to raise Valle’s rent from $1,000 to $1,250 per month. That latter amount would have included a $150 monthly pet fee. 

Ultimately, the commissioners set Valle’s rent at $1,100 per month. And they permitted Lucero to charge a one-time, not a monthly, pet fee of $150.

The case involved not just a landlord’s bid to increase the rent to a level that the tenant found too high given the apartment’s long-standing — but now-fixed — maintenance and repair problems.

It also raised questions about how and where a tenant should be able to make their case that a landlord has retaliated against them by filing an eviction lawsuit in state court so soon after the tenant had filed a fair rent complaint with the city commission. That’s because Lucero filed a no-fault eviction lawsuit against Valle less than six months after she filed her fair rent complaint. (See more on that debate below in this story.)

New Rent: $1,100 Per Month. One-Time Pet Fee: $150

In her initial July 2021 complaint to the Fair Rent Commission, Valle wrote that she, her six family members, and their family’s dog have lived in the three-bedroom Fair Haven apartment for over 11 years.

She said her landlord sought to raise the rent — first from $900 to $1,000, then from $1,000 to $1,250 — as retaliation for her calling local government’s housing code enforcement agency, the Livable City Initiative (LCI), in March 2021. 

City housing code inspectors ultimately found a host of problems with the property, from holes in the walls to a rodent infestation. As of earlier this year, all of those problems have subsequently been fixed. 

“The only thing I want is for them to stop raising the rent and let me stay,” Valle wrote in her initial July 2021 complaint. ​“He has no right to keep raising the rent when there’s still things that haven’t gotten fixed. I don’t plan on moving anytime soon. I have lived here for 11 years and have never stopped paying the rent. I know he’s doing this out of spite because I called inspection.”

In their decision Tuesday night, the commissioners sought to split the difference between the tenant’s and landlord’s rent requests.

They voted to set Valle’s rent for her three-bedroom apartment at $1,100 per month — more than the $1,000 she’s been paying since last summer, and less than the $1,250 requested by her landlord. (See more below for how the tenant and her lawyer argued on Tuesday night Valle’s baseline rent was actually $900 per month, even though she’s felt compelled to pay $1,000 since last summer as the fair rent complaint has made its way through the commission’s process.)

The commissioners also voted to allow Lucero to impose a one-time pet fee of $150 — more than the $0 that Valle’s family has paid to have a dog in the house for the last 11 years, and less than the $150 monthly pet fee that the landlord wanted to start charging. 

“They seem very close,” Fair Rent Commissioner Wendy Gamba said during the commissioners’ deliberations on the matter towards the end of Tuesday’s meeting. ​“They just need to land this plane. I think the middle ground is the way to go.”

Fair Rent Commissioner Doug Losty said that the landlord deserves some increase.

That’s because Lucero kept the rent flat at $900 for the first decade of Valle and her family living in the apartment. He raised the rent to $1,000 in the early summer of 2021, then sought to raise it again soon thereafter to $1,250. ​“That’s extraordinary in this day and age,” Losty said about the rent not changing for the first 10 years of Valle’s residency in the apartment.

Gamba said that $1,100 per month struck her as a fair rent to charge ​“based on the size of the unit and the additional services, the storage and water that are included.” 

“Given that there is a pet on the premises,” she continued, the commission should ​“allow the landlord to have a pet fee of $150. Period. Not per month, just one pet fee.” The commission should allow that pet fee to be paid in three installments, she said. ​“I think that creates a middle ground between the two parties.”

Gamba then offered one more criticism of Lucero’s initial proposed pet fee before voting with her colleagues in support of $1,100 per month rent and a one-time $150 pet fee. She said that a $150 per month charge to keep their dog in the house was an ​“unconscionable” proposal by the landlord. ​“You could live at EconoLodge for that,” she said. (As a comparison, a new luxury apartment complex in Wooster Square charges renters a $350 deposit and a $25 monthly fee to have a pet in their apartment.)

With that, the commissioners voted unanimously in support of Gamba’s motion.

On Wednesday afternoon, Valle and her husband, Salvador Jimenez, told the Independent that they weren’t happy with the commission’s decision. They said that the landlord had done a bad job of fixing up the property, and didn’t deserve the rental increase. They also pointed out that they had lived in this apartment with their kids for over a decade without having to pay the landlord anything to have a dog. (They said their long-time family dog recently passed away. They’ve had Bella the chihuahua for roughly a year.)

Now, all of a sudden, the landlord wants $150 in the form of a pet fee? Valle asked.

“I think that’s retaliatory,” she said.

"She Paid In Good Faith"

Presiding over her second commission meeting since taking over the city department in early March, Fair Rent Commission Executive Director Wildaliz Bermúdez kicked off the hearing in Valle’s case by reading from a May 12 memo prepared by Fair Rent Commission Field Representative Tanice Doman.

Valle first filed the fair rent complaint against her landlord on July 2, 2021, ​“based on unsafe and unhealth housing conditions in addition to a proposed increase in monthly rent,” Bermúdez said.

On Sept. 30, 2021, Valle received an eviction notice from her landlord.

On March 28 of this year, the Fair Rent Commission received an update from LCI, letting it know that all of the problems with the apartment that a city housing code inspector had found a year ago have now been fixed.

The tenant currently pays $1,000 per month, Doman’s memo reads, and the landlord is looking to increase the rent by $250.

New Haven Legal Assistance Association (NHLAA) attorney Amy Marx represented Valle at Tuesday’s hearing. With Spanish-to-English translation help from Unidad Latina en Acción’s John Lugo, Marx dove deeper into the history of this case — and detailed Valle’s exact requests of the commission. 

On March 3, 2021, Marx said, Valle filed a complaint with LCI. On March 8, 2021, LCI sent a letter to Lucero, ordering him to fix a host of issues with the Maltby Place apartment, including missing smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, holes behind the stove and in the bathroom ceiling, and a rodent infestation, among other problems.

Marx said that, on June 21, 2021, the landlord sent Valle a letter, telling her that he wouldn’t be renewing her lease. That same letter said that Valle’s rent would increase from $900 to $1,000; that her rent would increase by 5 percent each month; that she would have to pay a $150 per month pet fee; and that she would lose her access to two on-site parking spaces and storage space in the garage. 

At long last, Marx said on Tuesday night, Lucero has fixed all of the housing-code violations identified by LCI. She said those fixes came only after LCI applied to state prosecutors for an arrest warrant for the landlord. 

“The $1,000 is fair now, because $900 was trending low,” Marx said said about Valle’s rent. ​“The $1,000 is fair now that the repairs have been made.”

She asked the commissioners to set Valle’s rent at $1,000, to scrap the proposed 5 percent monthly increase, to keep all of the services around storage and parking the same, and to grant Valle a refund of $1,000.

That refund, she said, would be for the 10 months since July 2021 that Valle has been paying $100 more than she ought to have — that is, $1,000 per month rather than $900 per month. She said Valle felt compelled to pay that $100 monthly hike while her fair rent complaint was being considered by the commission. ​“She paid in good faith,” Marx said, and she should now get that money back.

During the landlord’s time to make his case to the commissioners, Lucero and his attorney, Ori Spiegel, pushed back on every one of Marx’s and Valle’s requests. 

They argued that the commission should set the monthly rent for Valle’s three-bedroom apartment at $1,250, which would be inclusive of a $150 monthly pet fee.

“My client is not a big landlord,” Spiegel said. ​“He does not own a lot of properties. He’s been very fair with Ms. Valle since she moved in. He has never increased the rent until 10 years after she took occupancy of the property.”

During that time, he said, city taxes have increased. Water bills have increased. He said that Lucero only makes $1,000 a year in net profit off of the apartment.

“There were problems with the house,” Spiegel admitted. He said that the landlord has subsequently fixed those issues, and that he ​“takes pride” in the service he provides his tenants.

In defense of a higher rent for Valle, Spiegel said that the second-floor tenants currently pay $1,100 per month. He said the third-floor tenants pay $960 per month, and have a smaller, two-bedroom apartment.

Lucero’s request of $1,250 per month is ​“way below market value for that area and for the particular apartment she is in,” Spiegel said.

Spiegel said that his client is no longer seeking the 5 percent monthly increase in rent. ​“I’m not sure my client even understood the implications of that request,” he said. ​“He’s not making that request now.”

He also said that Valle would continue to have access to the back garage for storage and to two on-site parking spaces — if she agrees to pay the full rent requested by the landlord.

Commission Punts On Retaliation Complaint

Up for debate Tuesday night was not just the fair rent complaint that Valle filed against Lucero in July 2021, but also a retaliation complaint that she filed against her landlord on Monday. 

As Marx explained Tuesday night, Valle filed a retaliation complaint with the Fair Rent Commission because she wanted the commission to issue a ​“cease and desist order,” telling the landlord to stop a lapse-of-time eviction lawsuit that he first filed against Valle and her family last fall.

Lucero had filed that eviction lawsuit in state court within six months of Valle filing a fair rent complaint against him. Marx claimed that that is retaliatory action, in violation of city and state law. 

City Assistant Corporation Counsel Blake Sullivan asked both Marx and Spiegel to make their cases to the commission at the top of Tuesday’s hearing — not in regards to the substance of Valle’s retaliation complaint, but as to whether or not the Fair Rent Commission can hear that complaint at all.

Sullivan’s concern stemmed from the fact that Marx and Valle have already raised a retaliation complaint with the state court in the ongoing eviction case. And, in an April 5 order denying Valle’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, state Superior Court Judge John Cirello ruled that Valle will have a chance to offer any arguments that the eviction was retaliatory at a trial in June.

“I have asked that the attorneys for both the landlord and the tenant present their positions on whether the Fair Rent Commission has the authority to issue any ruling or orders on the retaliation complaint,” Sullivan said Tuesday night, ​“given that the housing court is already hearing essentially the same complaint between the same parties on the same facts.”

Marx argued emphatically that the Fair Rent Commission can, should, and must hear Valle’s retaliation complaint.

Per city law, she said, tenants who claim that they are victims of a retaliatory eviction action are specifically empowered to file a notice of that claim with the Fair Rent Commission.

“This really, really matters for the Fair Rent Commission,” she said. ​“It matters for you all to do your own work. If a tenant files a fair rent complaint and the landlord can go ahead and file an eviction in immediate response, that landlord is going to undermine the very essence of your institution. Eviction is not the same process and is not the appropriate place to be dealing with fair rent.”

Furthermore, Marx said, this is a ​“no-fault eviction” that Lucero brought against Valle. 

That is, he doesn’t claim that she stopped paying rent, or that she’s a serious nuisance and danger to her neighbors and the property. 

Rather, he’s claiming that her lease has expired and that he won’t renew it, and therefore she has to leave.

She told the commissioners that hearing a retaliation complaint by a tenant who was hit with a no-fault eviction lawsuit so soon after filing a fair rent complaint gets at ​“the essence of who you are and what you do.”

Marx stressed that Valle’s retaliation complaint is not calling on the court system to stop an eviction. That’s a separation of powers issue. Rather, she said, it’s calling on the landlord to stop prosecuting the eviction he has filed. That’s well within the purview of the commission, she said.

Spiegel disagreed. For one, he said, his client did not bring the eviction lawsuit as retaliation. He said he can clearly demonstrate that if given the chance.

As to the question of whether or not the Fair Rent Commission has jurisdiction to hear such a retaliation complaint, he said, he believes the answer is: No. 

That’s because Judge Cirello has already ruled that the defendant ​“will have her opportunity to present any defense for retaliation at trial.”

“That is the sole province of housing court,” he said. ​“That, I believe, is what this case stands for. The retaliation defense and claim is the sole province of the housing court.”

Sullivan ultimately sided with the landlord’s attorney.

“My concern is, ultimately, that this body is subordinate to the housing court, and any order that the Fair Rent Commission issues is ultimately subject to review by the housing court,” he said. ​“If it goes there, my understanding is that the retaliation matter and the fact that there’s a fair rent complaint pending has already been raised as a defense in the housing court, and the housing court has directed any arguments on retaliation to be made at a later hearing.”

Sullivan said that, while the Fair Rent Commission does have the authority to hear retaliation complaints, ​“once a summary process action has been filed with the Superior Court, with the housing session, the housing session has exclusive jurisdiction over those claims.”

Marx protested that the very nature of a retaliation complaint is that it will come in response to an eviction lawsuit being filed.

Sullivan still sided with the landlord’s attorney’s interpretation of the law.

“It is my recommendation to the commission that the commission does not have jurisdiction to hear the retaliation claim, and I would recommend a vote consistent with that recommendation,” Sullivan said.

Losty agreed: ​“I see a real legal dichotomy if, for example, one body, the housing court, finds that there was not retaliation, and we find for retaliation. There’s a dilemma I don’t know how we would solve.”

The commissioners voted unanimously in support of not hearing Valle’s retaliation complaint.

“We were very disappointed that Corp Counsel sua sponte advised the board against even hearing the retaliation case,” Marx said after the hearing. ​“The power to hear retaliation cases is one of the most important powers of the Fair Rent Commission and one that must be exercised if the Fair Rent Commission is to reach its full potential and be an example of the statewide rollout of Fair Rent Commission. We look forward to talking further with the mayor, counsel, Director Bermúdez, and the chair of the commission about this issue.”

Other recent stories about New Haven eviction cases working their way through housing court so far in 2022.

• Rent Trumps Repairs In Elliot Street Eviction
• Though Sympathetic, Judge Blocks Eviction
• Family Feuds Fill Eviction Court
• Rent Help Winds Down. What’s Next?
• Eviction Withdrawn After Rent Catch-up
• Hill Landlord Prevails In​“Lapse” Eviction
• Landlord Thwarted 2nd Time On Eviction
• Church Evicting Parishioner
• Hard-Luck Tenant Hustles To Stay Put
• Eviction Of Hospitalized Tenant, 74, Upheld
• Judge Pauses Eviction Amid Rent-Relief Qs
• Amid Rise In​“Lapse-of-Time” Evictions, Tenant Wins 3‑Month Stay
• Leaky Ceiling, Rent Dispute Spark Eviction Case