Recent Court Rulings

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Facts: In June 2011, a resident signed a one-year lease to rent a unit. The resident was initially approved for rental assistance that reduced her rent to $199 per month. She paid that amount until her next certification in January 2012, when her subsidy was increased to an amount that effectively lowered her monthly rent to $0 per month. Also as a result of this recertification, her lease was renewed for another one-year term, set to expire at the end of January 2013.

Facts: In the summer of 2012, a resident began to engage in bizarre and, at times, alarming behavior with fellow residents at the site. One resident, who considered the troubled resident a friend and expressed her concern for his well-being, complained that he repeatedly showed up at her unit without invitation. She wasn’t bothered by his daytime visits but didn’t want him coming over after 9 p.m. She told him so, but he continued to make unannounced nighttime visits and would sometimes try to open her locked door without her permission.

Facts: A local PHA claimed that a resident violated his lease by using marijuana. One of the site’s security officers testified at the eviction evidentiary hearing that he smelled marijuana coming from the resident’s unit during his routine patrol of the building. Although the resident denied using marijuana that day, the court found the security officer more credible. Thus, the court determined that there was a “preponderance of evidence indicating that there’s drug activity.”

Facts: An owner’s site has had a history of “unsatisfactory” HUD audit reviews since 2005, and in 2009 and 2010 HUD refused to pay more than $700,000 in subsidies due to the site’s violations of HUD regulations. To satisfy HUD, the owner hired a HUD-approved managing agent in 2010, and subsidy payments to the owner resumed. According to HUD, during the approved management company’s tenure managing the site, the owner’s submissions fully complied with HUD requirements.

Facts: A resident with diabetes lives in a Section 8 building. The lease expressly prohibits dogs or cats as pets. At some point while living in her unit, the resident got a dog. The owner allowed the resident to keep the dog as an accommodation for unspecified reasons. In July 2009, the resident took in a second dog without notifying the management. The resident also signed a recertification of her lease in December 2009, in which she stated that she didn’t have a second dog in the unit.

Facts: A resident was convicted of second-degree theft. The resident’s crime involved misappropriating “Resident Participation Funds,” which were to be used “to generate programs for the residents within the community to gain either employment or anything to make them become self-sufficient, or to provide anything that would be a benefit to the residents within the community.”

Facts: The sole source of income of a resident of a project-based Section 8 site is public assistance from social services. Her share of the rent amounted to $312 per month as of her last recertification on March 1, 2012.

Facts: The local PHA initiated termination proceedings against a resident with five children, two of whom are minors. Police had recovered from the unit a significant amount of marijuana, a bottle of oxycodone pills, and a loaded and operable firearm. The resident wasn’t present at the time of the search, and there was no evidence that she had specific knowledge of the presence of the weapon or the drugs, which apparently were brought into the unit by her older children and their friends.

Facts: A disabled resident had been living at a site managed by the local PHA for over 20 years. Her 25-year-old grandson resided with her for years. And the lease agreement stated that the resident agreed: “[n]ot to destroy, deface, damage, or remove any part of the premises or property. Not to allow my family or guests to do this.”

Facts: After a Section 8 resident became delinquent in her payment of rent and after the owner made demands for payment, the resident notified the owner of complaints she had regarding the unit. County Housing intervened in the dispute, and the owner and resident signed a mutual termination agreement acknowledging that the lease would terminate on June 30, 2011. County Housing assistance payments ended on July 1, 2011.