Five must-know rules for DC landlords. 🏡
If you’re a homeowner thinking of leasing your property in DC, you’ve likely heard the city is very tenant friendly. Unfortunately, that also means DC is notoriously difficult to navigate for landlords.
The city has deep roots in protecting tenants from predatory behavior, and for good reason; DC also has a long history of discriminatory and exploitative practices against renters. In recent years, however, local landlords will tell you the DCHA’s and DCRA’s policies have made it increasingly difficult to legally and profitably lease their homes.
We say it here often. Leasing your home in DC can be a great investment, but if you’re going to do it, you need to know the city’s tenant and landlord laws like the back of your hand. These are expansive and technical laws, so that’s not easy to do.
To help, in our pursuit to to build the best property management company in DC, we put together a list of the top things we obsess about when leasing homes:
5 things DC landlords need to know
You need an active Business License for every property.
It’s risky to rent your home in DC without a Basic Business License (“BBL”). Without one, you don’t have the same legal standing to sue in DC Landlord & Tenant court as a licensed owner. You might find yourself without legal recourse in a situation where a tenant stops paying rent and remains in the property for an extended period of time. Learn more about getting your BBL here.
You need rigorous security deposit accounting.
You’re required to hold security deposits separate from other funds, and in interest-bearing accounts. You must also record the interest earned on those deposits each month at your bank’s prevailing rate. Deposits and accrued interest must be returned to tenants within 45 days of their departure, along with a detailed reconciliation of any deductions you’ve made for repairs. It can get complicated, so we built a free tool to make it easy for landlords to keep track of their deposits. You can download it here.
You need to respect DC’s expansive tenant rights.
Tenants have it good in DC. We love that, but sometimes it can be unintentionally problematic. Things take time should a tenant ever be hostile or break their lease obligations. Tenants have 30 days from receiving formal notices to vacate to rectify their behavior, and they can request a trial by jury or judge. They can also stay indefinitely on a month-to-month basis after their lease expires until they either fail to pay rent, break their lease, or decide to renovate or sell your home.
You can’t sell your property without first offering it to your tenants.
If you want to sell your property, you must offer tenants right of first refusal before marketing it elsewhere. Depending on the number of units in your property, tenants have anywhere from 22 to 30 days to provide their intent, and additional time to negotiate and secure financing. Only after that timeframe, or if you’ve received refusal from all tenants, can you market your home for sale. Once you find a buyer and have an offer in place, tenants have an additional 15 days to counter. In all cases, at a minimum you must provide tenants 90 days from your intent to sell before you can legally ask them to vacate the property.
You must maintain basic habitability standards.
This should go without saying, but your property must be well-cleaned and free of peeling paint or major damages before tenants move-in. If a tenant doesn’t have access to a thermostat, you must maintain rooms at a minimum of 68 degrees. You must also maintain the grass around the walkway, clear the walkways of litter, insects, or DC’s famous rats, and provide tenants with waterproof trash cans. Besides these things being the law, a happy home makes a happy investment and we highly recommend going above and beyond for your tenants.
We know; it’s a lot to keep track of. That’s why we’re here to manage it for you.
Why we started Homebox.
Let’s be honest. Property managers have a bad reputation.
They’re unresponsive. They saddle homeowners with hidden fees and mark-ups. They treat tenants as a means for collecting fees, which leads to higher turnover for their homeowners, and ultimately lower ROI.
We’re changing that.
We’re reimagined what the experience should look like for owners and tenants. For half the cost of traditional PMs, we provide the best property management experience, period.
For just 8% of rent collected, you get all this:
24/7 tenant and maintenance care
28-day rapid-rent guarantee
Quarterly property inspections
Utilities management
Security deposit management
Eviction support
Financial reporting
DocuSign®, PayPal®, Slack integrations
New tenant placement for 50% of one month’s rent
Wha you don’t get are renewal fees, vacancy fees, maintenance reserves, invoice mark-ups, or locked-in contracts.
We started this company because we’re as dedicated to the places we call home as we’re passionate about helping people find their way there. We’re bringing property management into the 21st century, and we’re putting people first doing it.
