One of our favorite attorneys came in recently, and talked the housing counselors through some murky legal issues. One of the topics that blew my mind was: folks in small claims court can ask the other party (as they sue/are being sued/are one of the people in a small claims case) for the evidence that they are using. Since small claims court is the place of last resort for many tenant-landlord issues, finding out there is a way to make that process be clearer/better/more in line with the facts is kind of amazing. Now, I'm not a lawyer, and I had secretly kind of believed that "discovery," the procedures used to obtain disclosure of evidence before trial, were something that were: A. Only used on tv, B. Especially only for criminal trials and C. Something only lawyers can do. Turns out none of those things are true! Discovery is the tool of the masses! Here's how to do it. Continue reading

I have theories about why summer is our busy season here at the TRC: temperatures go up and so do tempers. Many leases end here in Madison in August, leading to that sense of I-only-have-one-month-left-and-it's-unbearable. But whether or not I'm right, it seems like the folks we talk to are a little feistier than the rest of the year, and we have more conversations about what to expect if you end up in Small Claims Court. Since that's the last resort for many tenant-landlord disputes, and since more cases look like they're headed there.  Today, I'm talking about a strategy (a way of structuring your trial) that some folks use if they're headed to Small Claims Court - who knows, it might work for you! Continue reading

Generally, the best piece of advice that we give to tenants and landlords is to get things in writing. Getting things in writing is the best way to prove that something really happened, and that it happened the way that you remember. It's the way to have that all-important paper trail. But what about the moments where the other person doesn't want to sign an agreement, where they are not interested in negotiating the nitty-gritty? Where the most that you can get is a quick verbal conversation? Then you should send this letter. Or something like it - keep it polite, write down the details, and make sure you write down that last line (that you'll assume this is correct unless you hear otherwise in writing).  Short and sweet today, folks. Continue reading

We get a bunch of phone calls here at the TRC. Right now, we've had some staffing changes, and we're a little bit behind (side note: do you want to volunteer for the TRC???). However, most of those piled-up calls are not folks who want to pick up the phone and connect about how great their tenant-landlord relationship is. It's tenants, landlords, roommates, friends, all struggling with a problem, and needing some information in order to resolve it. We love helping people, and we're glad to do this work. But it's a nice change to go out into Wisconsin, teach the seminars, and help landlords and service providers who are trying to improve their skills. While they may have complex examples in mind, usually these folks that sit in our seminars do not have emergency-level concerns; rather, they are thoughtfully attempting to improve their skills. I love to see that. And I learn a lot from them. Here are some tips from the landlords at this set of spring seminars. Continue reading

So, déjà vu, guys. The Matrix has been altered. You know how 2013 Wisconsin Act 76 gave landlords new rights to tow vehicles on the rental property? We had Parking I, Parking II, and Parking III on this blog to explain those changes, especially as the Dept. of Transportation guidelines lagged behind?  A new round of emergency DOT rules went out on April 30, so here we are, looking at short-term changes, once again, to vehicle towing rules at rental properties. I don't want to give away the ending, but since this is another round of emergency regulations, it looks like we'll be back here again before this is done with. (To be clear, we're aware that not everyone is dying to know about parking rules, but we've heard juuuuust enough stories of tenants waking up one morning to find their car, which they need to get to work, is gone without a trace, that we think this is the stuff that folks really need to know. Check out the tips at the bottom.) Continue reading

Each Spring and Fall, I get the privilege of helping to teach seminars across the state. The crowd of participants is usually a smattering of landlords, social workers and attorneys. I'm always nervous to start - they ask really good/tough questions! But I'm so glad that people come, participate, and take the knowledge we have to spread out into their communities. I always come back with a new appreciation for the difficulty of being a landlord. We serve landlords year-round (our daily clients are tenants AND landlords!), but walking a newbie through nuances of an the course of an entire tenant-landlord relationship really demonstrates the level of skill it requires to be a careful landlord. Good landlords are hard to come by, and we meet a lot of great landlords at our seminars. So, today I'm taking on the landlord's perspective in a situation where a tenant has a long-term guest. Continue reading

When tenants come in to talk to us about non-renewals, it seems like one of those things, where everyone knows non-renewals are a possibility, where they are a recognized fact of rental life... but when it happens to you, when you get non-renewed, it feels kind of like a car wreck. Unexpected. Damaging.  I've written before about the amount of notice required for choosing not to renew a lease, but here we talk about the why. What reasons can a landlord use to choose not to renew a lease? What does it look like for those tenants? How can you respond if it happens to you? Continue reading

The kids and I drove around Wisconsin in a Spring Break Road Trip a couple weeks ago, and it's beautiful out there! We saw sandhill cranes all over, a fox skirting the highway, and cranberry bogs getting their season started. Springtime has pizzazz here in Wisconsin, where seasons always feel full force, whether cold or warm. We're getting a full load of springtime complaints, too, from around the state, and a lot of the concerns that clients are voicing to us are things that we've written about before, in other parts of this website. So, here's a roundup for tenants for lots of the common Spring issues. Continue reading

So many of our waiting emails and calls have a sentence something like this: "my landlord wants to renew/not renew my lease, and it's causing me problems." Sometimes tenants signed the lease renewal before they really thought about it, and they really want to move; some tenants don't want to sign because their landlord is not awesome, but also aren't sure where they are headed. Some folks won't have a place to live after next month. But the common denominator is: how do I look for housing? Here's what we can't do: tell you whether it's a good idea to sign your lease or not tell your landlord to tear up your lease renewal (that renewal that you signed without thinking and then realized that you want to buy a house/live in a place where the repairs get done/can't stand your roommates/etc) tell you if you'll be able to find a new place to live or not find housing for you - you'll have to sift through these resources and find what works for you Here's what we can do: show you resources that are helpful in finding housing. Continue reading

In some ways, there are a lot of similarities between looking for rental housing and beginning to date someone. You have those first-date jitters, perhaps, and try to imagine yourself with this person for a while. You make yourself look as pretty as possible, and try to figure out if the person you're dating is also that pretty when they're hanging out in their jammies. (Or if that rental home is as warm in the winter as it is in the springtime. Or if it has mold, that the landlord just bleached off.)  There's a lot to think about as you prepare for your housing search. Here's our guide for being a sassy and fabulous renter. Continue reading