Breaking News from the Rental Property Association of Wisconsin's website and Blog: Wisconsin Supreme Court rules on CCAP eviction records 04/16/2024 11:30 AM The Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected Legal Action’s bid to make eviction judgments disappear in one year instead of the statutory 10-year retention period. The industry and good renters owe a large thank you to Attorney Heiner Giese, Rick Van Der Leest of the Green Bay and Appleton Associations, and Chris Mokler of the Wisconsin Apartment Association for making this happen. Rick and Heiner received mention by the Court at the hearing tod ..read more

Hi Everyone - I hope that you are all well on this rainy Friday afternoon.  I just wanted to alert those of you that use the Landlord-Tenant forms that I draft for Wisconsin Legal Blank, that I recently re-wrote the Nonstandard Rental Provisions (NSRP) form for clarity and legal conformity.  I recommend that you update your NSRP form accordingly to better protect yourself and your rental property. Thanks T ..read more

I apologize for getting on my soapbox here, but most of you are either landlords or spend more than 40 hours a week representing landlords or working with them. If you don't fall into one of the above categories, you probably will not want to read this blog post. I recommend that you read this recent article about Matt Desmond, the author of Evicted and now the author of Poverty. It is called "Princeton's Matthew Desmond Gets Everything Wrong About Poverty's Root Causes" authored by Aaron Brown. It points out that Desmond's analysis of statistics is poor, his conclusions are overly simple (for ..read more

Earlier today a client emailed me and asked whether or not his property management company could charge a rental applicant an application fee, over and above the cost of a consumer credit report, to cover the company's time and energy reviewing and vetting the rental applicant. Based on my review of Wisconsin law, a landlord may charge an application fee but it must be refundable.  So while a landlord can charge an application fee, its probably not the kind of application fee that the landlord envisioned, because that application fee must either be returned to the tenant or appl ..read more

Below is a summary of the many Landlord-Tenant law bills that were drafted in late 2023 and are hoping to move forward in 2024.  You will note that many of these bills are trying to undue the many laws that were passed between 2012-2018 (i.e., Act 143, Act 76, Act 176, and Act 317).  Whether or not these bills have any real possibility to become law now, it is clear that there has been a lot of work behind the scenes and that these bills represent what some in Madison are hoping to get passed sometime in the future.  If these are not the type of laws that you want ..read more

By Atty. Gary D. Koch of Petrie + Pettit S.C. A tenant's filing of a bankruptcy, whether it is a Chapter 7 or a Chapter 13, stops your eviction cold under most circumstances! Evictions are typically matters handled exclusively through the state court system, in whichever county the property is located. Every now and then, though, we have to make a trip to federal court to assist a landlord. This most frequently arises when a tenant files for bankruptcy protection. Bankruptcy is authorized by the United States Constitution and is codified in Title 11 of the United States Code. There are 15 “cha ..read more

Drafted by Attorney Jennifer Hayden of Petrie + Pettit S.C.  Identity theft or fraud for the purposes of renting an apartment is growing issue. We have heard there are social media pages dedicated to selling fraudulent identities to individuals specifically to rent apartments as well as sites that will produce fake paystubs, bank account information, credit reports and checks or money orders, along with the more traditional methods such as friends and family members posing as a current employer or former landlord to give a good reference. With all of the available options, it is likely th ..read more

There are only a few days left to sign up for Landlord Boot Camp which will take place this Saturday, November 4th from 8:30 am - 6 pm I will be covering everything that you need to know about residential landlord-tenant law in Wisconsin.  We will be covering the all important basics like: Screening and Qualifying the Prospective Applicant and Fair Housing Issues Rental Documents ATCP 134: Residential Rental Practice Rules and Security Deposits Causes for Evictions Notices Terminating Tenancy The Judicial Eviction Process, and Collection of Your Money Judgement Post pandemic a lot of ne ..read more

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Yesterday was a busy day for those legislators that are not fans of landlords or what we do as a profession.  As if the rampant sealing of eviction records that is prevalent in Milwaukee County was not bad enough (so that future landlords will not be aware that an applicant had a recent eviction), below is a list of proposed legislation from Madison that is being passed around by the authors trying to get co-sponsors. If this isn't a reason to become a member of the Rental Property Association of Wisconsin (RPA) which was formally known as the Apartment Association of Southeastern Wiscons ..read more