OSTA: Empowering Park & Marina Residents

OSTA Update:The Power of Forming A Tenants Organization

• Bill Bateman • Season 1 • Episode 17

Share episode

Send us a text

For the full Video version Click Here

Explore the essential role of tenant associations in protecting tenant rights with Bill Bateman, Ken Pryor, and seasoned tenant attorney Matthew Johnson from Eugene, Oregon. Our discussion sheds light on the stark power dynamics between tenants and landlords, particularly as corporate ownership transforms the housing landscape. Matthew's insights into the financial motivations of landlords and the constraints faced by renters reveal why tenant associations are more important than ever.

From the nitty-gritty of tenant association rights to the intricacies of forming effective groups, we cover it all. Learn about the varied structures tenant associations can take, including unaffiliated groups and the statutory Committee of Seven, as well as their vital function in advocating for tenant rights and even pursuing legal action when necessary. We underscore the importance of understanding the Oregon Residential Landlord Tenant Act, offering guidance on how tenants can collectively assert their rights and challenge neglectful or profit-driven landlords.

Delve into the often-complex eviction process as we discuss compliance with legal statutes and highlight the limited protections available to tenants under Oregon law. Our guests offer valuable insights into landlord-tenant relations, with practical advice for navigating challenges and connecting with local representatives to drive meaningful change. Stay informed about legislative efforts, community engagement opportunities, and resources that empower tenants to protect their rights and foster stronger communities.

Join OSTA Link
Comments or Questions for the Podcast
Email: bbateman@oregontenants.com

Copyright OSTA2045,2025 Not for rebroadcast w/o express written permission. Please share and download for educational purposes with attribution.

Music POND5
Item: 103334712
Format: Music
Title: Make An Impact (Stinger Intro) - Upbeat Corporate Inspirational Uplifting
License: Individual License, Commercial
Composer: juqboxmusic
Stock Music provided by inspiringaudio, from Pond5
Produced by Retired Guy Productions

Info Logo 6 (Breaking News) 196306063 Sound effect TTSynth 2025-01-25 Individual Info Logo 13 (Breaking News) 210545139 Sound effect TTSynth 2025-01-25

Bill Bateman:

Okay, we're rolling and recording.

Bill Bateman:

Good morning everybody. I'm Bill Bateman. I'm going to start things out and then turn it over to the dynamic duo we have here today. I'm going to introduce Ken Pryor. Ken is the program coordinator of the Oregon Housing and Community Services Department and thank you, ken, for being here today. For being here today.

Bill Bateman:

Also joining us today and presenting is Matthew Johnson. He's a private solo attorney in Eugene, oregon. He's been practicing for about 30 years. He's been involved with OSTA, the Oregon State Tenants Association, since the late 90s. His primary practice over the years has been representing tenants, including facility tenants, tenant association and state courts around the state, though he's now limiting his practice to Lane County these days. He's also practiced in the areas of fair housing and employment discrimination in federal court. He's made a lot of presentations on tenants' rights to tenants, tenant groups and tenants associations around the state. He lives in Eugene with his family a daughter, a high school junior and accomplished dancer, and his wife, a well-known appellate attorney. So welcome both of you.

Bill Bateman:

Gentlemen, I am going to step off, even turn off my picture. I'll be following chat and trying to deal with any technical questions that come up. I'd ask if you got anything in the background, like a ringing telephone, a barking dog like that, you mute your microphone, as I'm going to do, and, with that said, I'm going to turn it over to Ken and to Matthew. Good morning, gentlemen. Thank you for being here. I'm going to turn it over to Ken and to Matthew.

Ken Pryor:

Good morning gentlemen. Thank you for being here. Good morning Bill, and glad to be here. Welcome everyone Again. I'm Ken Pryor, the program coordinator for MMCRC. That might pop up afterwards that are maybe too lengthy or too specific for Matthew to dwell on, or if you have questions afterwards, don't call Matthew. Matthew will refer you to myself and he does make a living and that's what I'm paid to do is to assist, and if I can't get a question answered, I'll go to Matthew directly. So with that I'm going to share the slides and put Matthew on screen.

Matthew Johnson:

Well, hello everybody. As you know, my name is Matthew Johnson, I'm an attorney here in Eugene. And just a disclaimer here the opinions I express today are mine, mine alone. I don't represent OSTA, I don't represent the MMCRC, and nothing I say is meant to be legal advice. If you need legal advice, see your own attorney. Again, that's just kind of warnings we have to give because we're attorneys.

Matthew Johnson:

Anyway, I represent tenants. That's what I've done for most of my career and that includes tenants in facilities. I must say that among the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of tenants I've represented over the years, I have represented a handful of landlords, probably five. I've never represented a facility landlord, but I do a lot of representing people who live in apartments and stick houses and those sorts of other rental situations other than in parks. So before I get started talking about the tenant associations, I want to make sure that you understand exactly how important tenant associations are and why you should either form one in your park or join one whichever.

Matthew Johnson:

So, despite what the owners of your facility might tell you, they are not in the business of providing you with a nice place to live. They are in the business of making money. And I'll tell you. These facilities make money hand over fist. As one park owner once said, they are gold mines. And they're especially lucrative when you don't invest, or you invest almost nothing, in the upkeep or repair of the facilities.

Matthew Johnson:

You are what is known as captive consumers, and this is not like in the old days where you could hitch up your trailer to the back of your caddy and drive down to the road to the next facility. You're stuck there and the landlord controls how much you pay. And if you want to get out of there, the landlord controls who you can sell it to. They're the landlord controls who you can sell it to. It's like being locked in a restaurant where you have to eat but you can only eat what they serve and you've got to pay whatever they charge you. You can't bargain with them and you can't go somewhere else. So if you want to leave the facility, you're going to have to leave your home and any investment or equity that you thought you might have in that. And it's not like in the old days when a verbal agreement and a handshake was good enough If those old days ever really existed. There's an incredible power imbalance between an individual tenant and the landlord. Nowadays, the typical rental agreement is 20 pages, with 30 pages of rules and regulations attached. And I must say it's my experience, often both those rental agreements and those rules and regulations are filled with unenforceable provisions that are put in there knowingly, merely to intimidate you as tenants, and so it's very difficult for you to figure out which of those sorts of things in there may or may not be enforceable by a landlord. And so again, um, reasons why you should have an attendant association.

Matthew Johnson:

And finally, I'll tell you I remember some, some of the old days I I started doing this back in the 90s and back then, um, a lot of parks around here were. The owner of the park lived in the park. That owner had built that park. That owner took very good care of that park because they lived there. They knew all the residents, they took care of them. They'd mow the lawns for the old folks who couldn't mow their lawns. They'd take people to the drugstore to pick up their meds. I remember a park where every few years the owner would go around and he paid everybody's carports.

Matthew Johnson:

But it's not that way anymore. These days the owner of your park is probably some investment corporation, maybe out of California, maybe out of Illinois, maybe out of Portland, and they don't know you and they don't care about you. You're just a number, you're just an income, you're just a check every month. That's all they are to you. This is why you need tenant associations. As an individual, the landlord is not going to listen to you. But if you have half the park saying we're going to withhold the rent, they'll listen. They won't listen if you just say I'm going to withhold the rent until you fix all the sidewalks in this park, it's like, yeah, we'll go ahead and we'll evict you. But if half the people in the park say we're going to withhold our rent until you fix, that's a significant financial hit and they're going to pay attention. So I'll say these tactics are becoming increasingly necessary.

Matthew Johnson:

I had a representative tenant at a park recently and it was just an individual, but basically that's what he did. He said I'm not going to pay rent until you fix this and they tried to evict him twice and it ended up costing the park close to $40,000. They got the message they need to take care of the park. They got the message they need to take care of the park and withholding rent is is an extreme and scary and dangerous proposition, but it works. So this is why you need tenant association. So let me, let me talk about what they are. So first slide wake up, ken I'm trying, it's okay it's not cooperating here.

Ken Pryor:

Uh, oh, thought we practiced this. There we go, you got it. I don't see anything. You don't see anything. No, well, that's ugly. Did you have anything through this entire?

Matthew Johnson:

Well, while Ken's working on putting that first slide up here, I'll tell you what it is. It says it's the five basic types of tenant associations, looking promising. Well, we're getting there. The first, and I will talk in depth a little bit more later on as we get there but the first type is what I call unaffiliated tenant associations. These are just independent groups in a facility formed by the tenants in that park, just about their own issues and just in that park. The second type of tenant association is an association that is affiliated with a larger organization. There we go. These would be OSTA chapters. The OSTA is the only statewide organization I know of currently, and they charter tenant associations in parks. And so the third type is what's called Committee of Seven. These are set out in the statute specifically. They have specific rules about how they're formed and they have very, very, very limited rights, which I'll talk about that and the problems with that later on which I'll talk about that and the problems with that later on. Then there's what's known as a purchase committee, and that's a committee formed on the possibility that the landlord or owners might want to sell the facility, and you know, they have basically just the right to be notified of a potential sale. And then we have what I call social associations, and those are associations that are. Their purpose is just social stuff Garage sales, bingo games, whatever Next slide, bingo games, whatever next slide. Here we go.

Matthew Johnson:

So as a tenant association you have a lot of rights, and so you should know these. The first is, of course, the right to exist. I've known where managers would tell people you can't form a tenant association here and give all kinds of excuses and reasons and tell people that you have the right to exist as a tenant association. You have the right to solicit participation by other tenants in the facility. That means you have the right to go door to door and knock on people's door and say, would you like to join our group? And if they say no, then you got to leave them alone. But you have the right to at least make that initial contact with everybody in the park, and a manager cannot tell you you can't go door to door soliciting their participation. Because you have that absolute right and it is in the statute you have the right to pursue joint common interests. So again, you have a problem just because it's the sidewalk in front of your particular premises. That's an issue that the entire tenant association can take up and take to the owner.

Matthew Johnson:

And this next one is important you have the right to be free from interference or retaliation from the landlord or retaliation from the landlord. And that includes, when I say facility landlord, that includes the manager, because the manager is the agent of the landlord. Anything the manager does, it's the landlord doing it and the landlord is responsible for that. Any obligation that the landlord has, the manager has that exact same obligation. So you have the right to be free from interference, retaliation of from interference, retaliation. Of course retaliation. They can't, you know, try to do something because you participate in a group or they can't go after the members that's of the committee or association because that's illegal. But more important is the right to be free from interference. That means that when you hold a meeting you can absolutely exclude the owner, the manager, any of the agents of the owners, and you know they can't tell you oh, I'm the manager, I get to come, I can do this, I can do that. And you know they can't tell you oh, I'm the manager, I get to come, I can do this, I can do that. And you know to be free.

Matthew Johnson:

And the statute again says exactly these words free from interference. And interference would include trying to video or audio record your meetings. I had this issue come up recently in a park. The park manager had a camera in the in the rec room and and the park manager wanted to turn it on and record the meeting. And I told the people, the tenants in that park, that you tell them to turn it off and if he doesn't turn it off, you put a piece of tape over the camera and you hold your meeting. If you know if it becomes really contentious, you just hold your meeting somewhere else. I remember one park didn't have a rec room, they just used to meet in someone's living. So again, you have the right to be free from interference and that includes recording in any way your meetings or insisting on attending. You can exclude or insisting on attending. You can exclude anybody you want, anybody you want. Even you know the park hires somebody who just lives there to do maintenance part-time. That's an agent of the landlord, it's your tenant association. You can exclude whoever you want. So just keep that in mind.

Matthew Johnson:

And again, number five, sort of the same thing. Next slide you have the right to take the. Whatever the tenant concerns are, you have the right to go to the landlord with those concerns, any and whatever. And that's part of what the point of a tenant association. You should know that you also have the right to bring legal action against the landlord. I recall years ago there was a tenant association over on the coast and they successfully sued their landlord and they successfully sued their landlord. It was an unaffiliated association. Like I'll say when I get a little further along, the unaffiliated associations have traditionally been the most effective groups out there. So you can sue your landlord. There was a case I'm not too familiar with and it wasn't the tenant association. It was a tenant took the landlord to small claims about an issue. It was about, I understand, eight hours of mediation. Eventually the tenant got what they wanted.

Matthew Johnson:

So as an individual, as a tenant association, you have the right to sue your landlord. You have the right to be treated with good faith. Your landlord, that's just. In any dealings with your landlord, the landlord must treat you as an individual tenant and the tenant association in good faith. And good faith means when you go to the landlord and you have a list of concerns and you'd say we'd like you to address these concerns. Good faith is not saying, oh, you can all go to hell, I'm not going to respond to this. That's bad faith and that's illegal. It's right there in the statute. It says the landlord must act in good faith. So again, you know. Come back to legal action. You know landlord doesn't act in good faith, you can take that to court.

Matthew Johnson:

Finally, as a tenant association you have the right to provide a one-page summary and that can be two-sided about your group, your contact information, what you do. You give copies of that to the landlord. The landlord must distribute that to any new or prospective tenant. So anybody that comes by the park and says, hey, I'm looking for, maybe I want to buy into your park, landlord has to give them an application, the rental agreement copy, the rules and regulations and a copy of your one page summary of your rental agreement. And finally, back in the old days, back when the owner lived in the park and everybody knew each other, it was fairly common that a park would publish a directory with everybody's names and addresses and distribute that to everybody in the park. That was a fairly common thing. It's fairly uncommon these days, but if a landlord does that, they're required to include in that directory a copy of your one-page summary. So next slide. So how many and who can be on the tenant association. So your facility can have as many tenant associations as people want. You know, I've known big parks that had three. I don't know if I've known of any park that had more than that, but you could have as many as you want.

Matthew Johnson:

Each group will have its own set of rules and requirements who can participate, who can be on the committee, who can vote, what their function is. And unless the specific rules for the committee prohibit it, you can be on any or all of the tenant groups. Um, some groups, you know there are preset rules. For example, uh, osta chapter. They have rules about voting. You have to be a member of osta, uh, those sorts of things.

Matthew Johnson:

The Committee of Sevens the statute talks about. There's a limit. It can only be seven, up to seven. You can have a committee other kinds of anything but Committee of Seven. Can be 25 committee members, as many as you want, but the Committee of Seven is listed to seven and there's specific rules about who can vote. Only one committee of seven per park.

Matthew Johnson:

Okay, so let's talk about each of these different kinds of associations, moving right along to slides. So oh, that was the second part of that last one. Okay, so unaffiliated I mentioned those. Those are just groups that are independent. They're formed within the association, within the facility. They're sometimes very small, sometimes they are very transitory. They are often initially formed in response to a particular issue. You know the pool hasn't been cleaned in two years and it's sort of this pea green color and it's got some dead mice floating in there and the manager hasn't gotten around to clean it in two years. So you know a one issue kind of thing and you know they come together, they form, they start whatever they're going to do and eventually the manager cleans the pool out and you know there's no longer people believe a need for a tenant association. They lose interest and it goes away.

Matthew Johnson:

Those associations that last are ones that have a broader focus and you know they often include a social aspect as well. They understand that they have a lot of ongoing functions and obligations and they're willing to fight for their rights and understand that you don't always win, you know, and that's no reason to quit, no reason to stop having a tenant association just because one particular issue you weren't successful with. That. An unaffiliated association makes its own rules who can serve how long, who can vote. The best and usual practice is to allow one vote per space and allow any tenant in the park to serve.

Matthew Johnson:

On the group. Historically these have been the most effective groups out there because when they're, when they're not a single issue group and when they include a social aspect which again the successful ones sort of generally have two functions they they organize the garage sales and the bingo games, and but they also deal with tenant issues, landlord, tenant issues and what. What keeps them going is the social aspect, because they might have an issue. It comes up, they deal with it, that goes away, but but they're still having the weekly pinochle game, they're still having the monthly garage sale, and so they don't just disintegrate when that one issue goes away. And that's why they tend to be more effective and more long-lasting than any other type of tenant association, long lasting than any other type of tenant association.

Matthew Johnson:

And I would urge you to form such an association and to keep in mind that the broader your focus, the more participation you can get. I mean, some people will join purely for the social aspect and pretty soon they see. Well, you know, man, you guys got those sidewalks fixed. Let's see what else we can get done. So that's the best kind of tenant association out there. I urge you to do that kind.

Matthew Johnson:

So next slide the other. The next sort of association is an affiliated association, and that's one. Whoops, I think the slides are in the wrong order. Uh-oh, did I skip a slide? Well, these two were in the wrong order, I think. Ah, and then the next one should be the affiliated organizations. So there we go. These are tenant associations that are affiliated with a larger organization like. Osta is the only larger organization out there these days.

Matthew Johnson:

Osta is a statewide volunteer organization for tenants, provides support, education, information, advocacy for tenants. We keep close tabs on the legislative stuff so that we can keep people informed about that. There are, and it's a great organization. I urge everyone to join it. The chapters have some limitations. You have to be a member of OSTA to vote, and so it can. You know, unless you have a really high number of OSTA members in your park, it can be limited in its appearance of its representation. On the other hand you know they are they do have some support on a statewide level for information and organizing stuff like that. So you know, I think that individual members can bring that support to an unaffiliated organization. That might be more effective that way, not to discourage you from forming OSTA chapters. But I think that model in the past worked better than it does these days. So I would urge you to join OSTA. I would urge you to form some kind of tenant association.

Matthew Johnson:

Okay, the next kind of association is what's called a committee of seven, and the parameters for setting up a committee of seven are SETA, are in the statute. You know one tentative record for each space. And then these tenant committees have, you know, two rights they can request a meeting with a representative of the landlord and the landlord is supposed to meet. There's really no consequences if the landlord refuses to meet. I think the statute talks about mandatory mediation, but again you're back to suing them in court if you want them to get them to do that. And then, if you get them to meet with you, then you give them a written summary of your concerns, put a letter, mail it to them and they're supposed to write back to you. But you know, again the issue there is you say these are all our concerns, and they write back and say well, you know what you can do with those concerns. There's a dumpster over in the back of the facility. You can put them there. That's the end of it. That is one of the major problems with these Committee of Sevens. Again, they're like a single issue, unaffiliated committee. The single issue is oh, we can force the landlord to meet with us once, and then you do that and you get nothing. And then the Committee of Seven says okay, well, that's it. We did our one meeting. It didn't do any good, let's all go home. And that is, I mean, that's sort of I hate to say human nature, but that's just what happens. I see it. I've seen it happen over the years so many times.

Matthew Johnson:

I do not encourage the formation of a committee of sevens because again, you form a tenant committee. You ask for a meeting with the landlord. The law requires that the landlord act in good faith. So you have a committee. It's not a committee of seven, but it's a tenant committee. You formed it in your park. You asked for a meeting with the landlord. The landlord says go fly a kite. The landlord is not acting in good faith and you have legal reason to then take that to court. So you don't need this statutory requirement that a landlord meet with you. You've already got a requirement that the landlord act in good faith.

Matthew Johnson:

So what happens again is that people form these committees in seven. They get focused on one and one thing only, and that is we're going to force that landlord to have a meeting with us. And you know most landlords would do that. I know a lot of some landlords. I know some landlords who have just blown them off and again, there's really no consequences for doing that, but you know. So you get that meeting and then you get the landlord saying we don't care and then that's the end of it.

Matthew Johnson:

And what has happened? And there's been some part of the tenant advocacy community out there that has been pushing really hard for these communities of seven, these committees of seven, and so what landlords have started doing is they say oh well, we're not going to meet with you because you didn't follow the exact statutory rules about forming this committee and or you can't prove to us that you did, so we're not going to meet with you. And so the whole focus becomes about that, not about tenant concerns in the facility. It becomes about whether you formed your committee of seven correctly or not. And this is a tactic of the landlords to distract the tenants. And so then again the focus becomes all about oh well, we got to make sure we did this right. And we got to go back and we got to do it and it's like no, you're a tenant committee, you asked for a meeting with the landlord. The landlord is required by statute to meet with you to act in good faith. So, whether you formed your committee exactly the way it's required in the statute, whether you didn't do it all like that, the landlord is still required to act in good faith. And this focus on oh, we have to spend hours and hours and days trying to make sure we do this exactly the way the statute. No, it's just a waste of time, it's a waste of focus.

Matthew Johnson:

I urge everyone to you know, don't worry about a committee of seven. I mean, if you have a large, unaffiliated committee that a lot of participation, a lot of people willing, you have a social aspect to it. You got people doing the bingo games, sure, go ahead and organize and create a committee of seven, but don't do that until and unless you already have a viable organization in your park, because it's just a waste of time otherwise. Anyway, moving on, a couple more kinds of committees out there.

Matthew Johnson:

The next is what's called a purchase committee. That's also in the statute and it just says you know, you form a committee and you notify the landlord that we want to be told if you're going to sell it. Landlord's supposed to notify you if the landlord is going to sell the facility. The importance of that is not the notification but just to be ready, because this stuff happens really fast and if people in the park are really interested in purchasing a facility, you you need to have a committee already up and going before that happens, because the timelines are really quick and it's really you know. You don't just say oh yeah, we want to buy the park, let me call my banker and we'll arrange, you know, a loan for 10 million dollars. All that takes a lot of time. It's good to have something already set up so that you can get the notice that it's for sale. You can start the wheels rolling.

Matthew Johnson:

I suggest that you make the purchasing committee, you make your unaffiliated, whatever other kind of tenant group you have, you also make it a purchasing committee and you just do that by saying we've got this committee and we are purchased, among other things. We are the purchase committee. You need to notify us if you're going to sell. So that's purchase committee. You can see there on the screen requirements. Um, so finally the last.

Matthew Johnson:

The last type of committee is a social committee, social association, and this is a group that's focused on social activities. And I think if you have any kind of committee in your facility, it should also be a social committee, because that's how you create solidarity, that's how you create cooperation, that's how you get to know the other people in the park, that's how you learn the issues going on. I mean, maybe the manager has started picking on a particular tenant in the park because they don't like that tenant. Maybe that tenant is Catholic, maybe that tenant is non-white, maybe that tenant has some alternate lifestyle, whatever, and the park park managers decided that they're going to pick on that person. That's how you learn that issue.

Matthew Johnson:

Maybe there's somebody in the back of the park that you know I keep talking about the sidewalks and maybe I won't have time to talk about that in a park, but maybe it's somebody in the back of the park, way in the back corner. The sidewalk is all messed up and you know there's only three of the 200 people in the park that ever go back there. So how do you know? Well, because when you're sitting around sunday afternoon playing pinochle and that person who lives back there says, oh you know, I don't know what to do, the sidewalk in front of my house is, like all you know, broken up and sticking up and it's a real tripping hazard. I have a hard time getting by it and other people say, oh, we didn't know, that you know, because we never go back over there.

Matthew Johnson:

So the social aspect is really important and I urge you to again make that part of your committee and you know, maybe that's a subcommittee of the main committee that does that and it helps in so many ways. It makes those connections. It's a way informal way that a lot of information gets shared. It makes people feel less isolated. It's just good. And you know I'll say that I know again over the years, a number of committees that started out just as social committees, just a group of people that get together and let's have a bake sale, let's have a bingo game, let's do this stuff, and then the people get together and they start talking and they're like, oh what, the landlord did this, the manager did this to you Wow, that's not right and you know it moves on from there. So I urge you, whatever kind of committee you have in your park, make part of it social, because, again, that's where you make the connections, that's where, that's where you get the information, that's where you share, share stuff, and that's you know, you get to know the people, you get to understand you have. You all have a common interest. You know you're not. There was a. There were people a few years back who were, who were focusing on, oh, you know, people in parks.

Matthew Johnson:

You're homeowners, you're not tenants. You're homeowners. Well, you are tenants. You may own your own home, but you are tenants and that means you are at the whim of your landlord and you'd be surprised kinds of things that landlords do because they don't like you, they decide they don't like you and they can. You know you've got 30 pages of rules and regulations and somewhere in there there's going to be a technical violation and you know you're going to get a termination notice. So you know you need to understand that you are tenants and you need tenant associations and you need to stick together. You know the old saying you know you can stand together or fall apart. I love that, and so it's important. So see the last slide here. It's important, so see the last slide here.

Matthew Johnson:

So, as I said, your landlord has an obligation to act in good faith and it's right there. You know the Oregon Residential Landlord Tenant Act, that's the statutes that contain your rights. We call them Chapter 90. You'll see on the screen it says ORS 90, point whatever. So that's Chapter 90. And they start with 100 and they go up to 90.8 something.

Matthew Johnson:

But I want it's important not only this obligation of good faith, but notice the number 130. So, like I said, it starts at 100, you know there's 110, 125, 127. So it's right at the beginning of the statute it talks about this obligation of good faith and so I want you to know that and remember that. Finally, again, even before that 90.125, any obligation declared in this chapter is enforceable by action. So that's where it talks about you have the right to take your landlord to court if they don't do what they're supposed to do. And just to further explain what an action is it talks about recoupment, counterclaim, set off stuff, suits and equity, all that stuff. And what that means is that when a landlord doesn't perform their duties, you can counterclaim, you can withhold rent, you can do a set-off. I talked earlier about a park where I, you know, a hazardous tree that the landlord refused to do anything about fell on my client's home and destroyed it. They refused to the park, refused to pay him.

Matthew Johnson:

So he had it hauled out, got a new one, put it in there and he said I'm not going to pay any rent. And so they brought an eviction action against him for non-payment of rent and one of his defenses was set off. Um, you know that having a tree destroy his house meant that the premises, the rental, the lot that he was renting was uninhabitable, and so he didn't have to pay rent. You know if it's uninhab rent because there was no value to that lot, the hazardous tree there, anyway. So that was a set-off. So they claim he owed X number of dollars rent. He claimed no, I don't, it's a set off because it's damages. You owe me damages, anyway. So just understand these things Obligation of good faith and anything.

Matthew Johnson:

Any obligation of a landlord is enforceable in the courts and you can't be afraid to go after your landlord if you have to. And it's becoming increasingly necessary, as parks are more and more owned by some corporation that doesn't know you, doesn't care about you, you're just a number with dollar signs after it, or a dollar sign with numbers after it. It's all you are. They don't care about you and they're not going to fulfill their obligation unless they're forced to. And so as an individual that's really hard to do, and you know this case I said about this particular individual. His house was destroyed. You know he had my help. I helped him through the process. That actually brought two eviction actions. Two eviction actions. The first one I didn't bring any counterclaims because I thought maybe we'll send them a message, cost them. You know they lost because they hadn't done it, filed the paperwork correctly, and they lost, and so it cost them 5,000 bucks and I thought, okay, now they'll talk to us about paying him for destroying his home. They just brought another one. So then they lost that one and we had thirty thousand dollars worth of counterclaims for his destroyed home and and after a two-day trial we won. So you know it was a lot of work, it was scary for him and and legal action is always a crapshoot Depends on the judge you get more than anything else, but you can't go through life being bullied by landlords because you're afraid to stand up. So I urge you all again, join your tenant association. If you don't have one in your park, form one. And you know, take this stuff to heart. I promised to say something about sidewalks.

Matthew Johnson:

There's a park here in Eugene sidewalks. This is a park here in Eugene. It's about, I don't know, 20 some odd years old and maybe it's older than that, maybe 30. But after a few years the infrastructure needs to be taken care of. And this was a park that for many years the owner lived in the park and he took very good care of the park. We used to have one of our, jane Capron, who was our secretary, treasurer, newsletter editor for many years. She was awesome, she lived in that park, she was good friends with the owner and everything went great in that park. That was one of those parks where they they're, you know, they pour a foundation and then they bring in uh parts and they assemble these houses. They're expensive, they're on anyway. Um, eventually, after, anyway, eventually, after 25 years, sold the park to a big corporation, moved to Hawaii, and it was about then when the infrastructure started to fall apart. So that was a smart move on his part. I guess he didn't have to fix it.

Matthew Johnson:

So the sidewalk started buckling and causing issues and again, like many, many parks, a large portion of the sidewalks. I'm sorry, there we go, whoops, whoops, there we go. There you are. A large portion of the people in the park were elderly, and so, you know, buckling sidewalks was an issue. A couple of years ago.

Matthew Johnson:

A tenant went to the manager and said hey, there's some buckling in front of my house, would you please fix it? And the landlord said oh, read your rental agreement. You're required to fix that. So rather than fight with the manager, the guy just went out and hired somebody and had the work done. But it started happening around the park, various places, and the manager's response was nope, it's in your rental agreement. You have to fix the sidewalks. And so the tenant association came to me and they said this is what's going on. And I said it doesn't matter what your rental agreement says. The law says a landlord is required to maintain the common facilities. The sidewalks are common facilities.

Matthew Johnson:

So I wrote a letter to the this is one of these big corporate entities and I sent it to their you know, regional man or whatever manager, whatever sort of the first level of their bureaucracy, and of course the response was no, no, no. It says they have to do it. It says it in the rental agreement, and it's like okay. So then we sent a copy of my letter to I don't know his boss and the president of the organization and lo and behold, a couple of weeks later. Oh well, you know, we, we don't. We don't have to fix these, but we're gonna fix. Please give us a list of all the, all the places in the park that need to be fixed and we'll fix them all.

Matthew Johnson:

So you know, I mean, when the individual went to the landlord and said, hey, this is buckling in front of my house, you should fix it. And he was bullied because it was just him. He didn't know what to do. So he went and hired a contractor and had the sidewalk fixed, um, but when there was a tenant organization and you know they, they tried, they, they actually sent an initial letter and said, hey, you need to fix this. And they were told nope, um, but because they were tenant association, they had a bunch of people, they took up a collection, they got some money, they hired me, um, and I gave them, you know, a discount and I don't know why, who keeps turning my video off? It's not me. So they came to me and they had more resources than an individual might have had and they were able to meet with me, give me some money, and I wrote the letter and we eventually moved it up the chain of command and we got something done and something that you know.

Matthew Johnson:

I suppose if an individual in the park had come to me and was paid my fee, I would have written the same letter. But again, people tend to be afraid because this is their home and they could easily it's not that hard to come up with some fake reason to threaten to terminate someone, threaten to terminate someone, and so when it's the tenant association, it's no particular tenant is risking that sort of bullying, retaliation, and so again, I just urge you to all of you, join or form your own tenant association, and there's just powers in numbers and for all of the reasons I've said, and I think probably again, I don't know why my video keeps turning off. Somebody doesn't like my face, it's my computer that's doing it, apparently, anyway. So, ken, do we have questions?

Ken Pryor:

There were a couple in the agenda we talked about, okay, a couple of areas where, let's see, people are being backcharged for water bills, those kinds of things, and I guess, in general, I like to remind folks that the MMCRC is there to assist you in understanding what these rights and what these statutes say. We're not attorneys, but we do have a lot of resources. As a matter of fact, we do have one contracted, a single contracted attorney that handles some of our cases and you're invited to contact myself and we'll get in touch with the proper parties. But that's our role in this whole process. But one of the other issues Matthew was trying to tell people what the difference is between eviction court and small claims.

Matthew Johnson:

Yeah, so basically so small claims court, so that we have circuit court, which is the trial court, and we have small claims, which is also, you know, a mini version of the circuit court, sort of an abbreviated circuit court. You know, you have the right to a jury and you know all the very formal rules of evidence and that sort of stuff apply Small claims. It's a little looser. The idea is to resolve issues quickly. The idea is you have a neutral judge who's going to hear both sides and recently dealt with someone who had gotten a judgment against a landlord in small claims court and the landlord was refusing to pay it. And so one of the things you can do with a small claims judgment is you register that in the circuit court, and any judgment in the circuit court is automatically a lien on any property that person might own. And so you know. That's again, a difference between circuit court and small claims court is that, um, you know you're on your own as followers, collecting a judgment small claims court. But if you again, if you, if you register it in the circuit court, the collection stuff is available. Um, you can garnish wages, you can garnish bank accounts, you can seize property. Um, otherwise, with the bank accounts you can seize property. Otherwise, with the small claims, you just can call them up saying give me my money. So an eviction court evictions occur in the regular circuit court. Evictions occur in the regular circuit court and they are a special process but they are essentially a civil lawsuit in circuit court. That's what an eviction is. A landlord is suing you for a judgment that says I get possession of this property, I get possession of this property and then when you get that judgment saying I have possession of this property, you can take that to the sheriff and then the sheriff will go out to the property and remove whoever doesn't belong there. But eviction court is is the. It is in the regular circuit court. All the rules, regular rules of evidence and all that apply. It's very formal. So we have the Chapter 90, the Oregon Residential and Landlord Tenant Act and it has some limited protections for tenants in it, unlike some other states on either side you know California, new York, possibly Washington, have a lot more protections for tenants. Other states, particularly the South, have absolutely no protection for tenants. It's interesting a number of these big student housing that have been built in recent years here in Eugene are owned by. One of them was owned by a Tennessee company who had this rental agreement that they used in Tennessee, in a state where tenants have no rights, and it was interesting when they first started using these and then just all kinds of draconian measures. So anyway, so my point here is that we do have some limited rights and, like I said, I've been practicing representing tenants for 30 years now and often a tenant's only defense was some technicality, and that's the thing about circuit court.

Matthew Johnson:

If you don't cross all the T's and dot all the I's exactly how it says to do it in the statute then you haven't complied with the law. You lose. I've got a trial coming up in a week. Landlord gave a termination notice and the law requires that any termination notice contain information for vets, information about rental assistance programs and some other kind of information. So if the termination notice didn't include all that and it's a defective notice, it gets thrown out, so it'll be a short trial because it didn't include that. So again, the eviction court is a regular lawsuit. The only difference is sort of the timelines in a regular lawsuit you file a lawsuit, the other side has 30 days to file an answer and you have 20 days to file a response and they have 10 days to file a reply. What's the general cost for small claims? Days to file a response and they have 10 days to file a reply and so-.

Ken Pryor:

What's the general cost for small claims?

Matthew Johnson:

Small claims is around 50 bucks Again. Another thing about small claims is different from circuit court. No attorneys can represent you in small claims. That doesn't mean you can't go to an attorney and get advice, and I often talk to sit down. I charge people some money, I spend a couple hours with them, explain the process, how it works, how to present evidence Though, again, it's not the formal rules like in circuit court, but still you need to.

Matthew Johnson:

You know you're going into court, you're going to present your evidence to a judge, you need to have it in order, you need to have a copy to give the other side. You know just small things like that. You need to focus on what's relevant and not spend a lot of time. Because I tell you, there used to be a judge who judges used to hate small claims court and so people would stand up and he says I'm going to give you two of you 15 minutes and then I'm going to decide. And if he didn't like you, he'd just cut you off and say okay, other person, what's your story? And you know, fortunately, that judge is long gone. There were two judges like that when I started. They're both long gone and so you know again, it is the timelines. You know, like I was saying, the circuit court, the timelines you can. You know it's a year before you actually have a trial In small claims. It's more like 30 days days, you know you, you file your small claim thing, serve it on another party. They have 20 days to respond, you know, and they set a trial date 10 days out. I mean you have your trial, eviction stuff, the the difference between a regular lawsuit and an eviction lawsuit is, again, the timelines.

Matthew Johnson:

The point is to chime in is the essence. You know, if someone's not paying rent, a landlord's not getting money, they want to get that money, so they want to. You know, if there's no excuse for this person not paying the rent, they want to get out so they can get somebody else in there and pay the rent. So time is of the essence. The eviction stuff goes very quickly, with the pandemic and all of that happening. The times a little bit so that it can be maybe up to a month between filing the eviction and actually getting to trial, but usually not quite that long. So so the difference is so there's eviction is is regular circuit court and and those are, you know, I often again I go. The tenant wins, I get an attorney fee award in the circuit court. That becomes a lien on the facility or on the landlord's property. They pay me off pretty quick. I like that.

Matthew Johnson:

Small claims again you get a judgment unless you register it with the circuit court. You're kind of on your own as far as collecting it. So that's a difference. Small claims a landlord doesn't evict you. In small claims they go to regular circuit court.

Matthew Johnson:

Another thing you might be interested in and people don't know is that while a tenant can counterclaim for money in an eviction proceeding, a landlord saying you owe me $1,000 rent, you didn't pay it, I'm going to evict you. You go to court. Landlord proves you owe the money, proves you didn't pay it, the landlord gets an order for possession. Landlord does not get a judgment for money. And it's a very interesting work about evictions that you know millions of dollars in rent but you know eviction is just an eviction, it's not a judgment for money. On the other hand, you can bring counterclaims for habitability issues or you know failure to meet their obligations as a landlord and and you as a tenant can get a judgment for money.

Matthew Johnson:

Um, so, um, let me just so. I'm going to look at this, so we don't have any coming. I'm just going to look at the. We have some questions on the agenda.

Matthew Johnson:

Um, landlord refuses to acknowledge tenant committee or schedule a meeting and again I sort of talked about that. They have a legal obligation to act in good faith. Refusing to meet with a tenant organization is not good faith and you know, the problem with the Oregon Residential Landlord Tenant Act is that there's no enforcement of these things. There's no enforcement of landlord's obligation to maintain the premises, to maintain the facility. You know the law says they're supposed to do it. But if they don't do it, as a tenant your only recourse is a lawsuit. You know there's no enforcement out there. So landlord is required to acknowledge and meet with you. How do you force them? Well, you know, maybe you have to go to court. I talked about privacy during meetings, so the park has no right to record your meetings and, like I said, you tell them to turn it off put a piece of tape over the camera or if that gets too contentious, you just meet somewhere else.

Matthew Johnson:

A tenant committee can exclude. The next issue is can park employees attend a tenant committee meeting? Well, you know what You're the tenant committee meeting. Well, you know what you're, the tenant committee. You can say who attends and who doesn't. Um, if, if someone is an agent of the landlord, I would say that, and and they're going to want to attend, I would say that's interference, that's intimidation. You don't have to allow it.

Matthew Johnson:

You know I talked about fixing the sidewalk in your home. You know it's common areas. That's absolutely unquestionably the landlord's obligation to maintain the facilities in good repair and safe. So you know how do you enforce these rules. You know, again, we're back to back to me filing lawsuits, and that's actually not something that I do. I may have done it once or twice in my career, but I don't. I I save the claims against landlords.

Matthew Johnson:

Um, the easiest way to do that is by forcing a landlord to bring an eviction action and then you make counterclaims. You make counterclaims for failure to fix the sidewalks, for interfering, failure to act in good faith, interfering with the meeting. You know that's the quickest, easiest way to do that. What else is on here? Your claims there's a statute of limitation, claims one year, of course, if it's a, you know, if it's a sidewalk that's buckling, you know it's not one year from the date that it first buckled, it's one year from when it's like that. So that's often not an issue, though sometimes, you know again, with stick houses, there's a refrigerator that's supplied with the house. It breaks. Landlord is required by law to repair that refrigerator. Somebody lives there for a year, don't get it fixed. And then you know, after a year landlord replaces it and files for an eviction. Replaces it and files for an eviction. You can't bring a counterclaim for failure to fix the refrigerator because it was over a year ago. So anyway, that's something to keep in mind. Here's one that there's two. These last two here are important.

Matthew Johnson:

So landlord obstructs the sale and purchase of the home. That one I used to encounter more than I haven't seen or heard of that recently. But what used to be a common practice, especially in smaller, older parks, was that someone would want to move out and so they move out, they put their home up for sale and you know we're talking. You know, 20 years ago there's a single Y. They put it up for sale for, you know, $10,000. And the landlord has to approve a buyer before you can sell it to them if, if they intend to leave it there, which is, you know, nobody moves homes out of parks. You can't, it's just not, it's not cost effective and it's especially older ones that just fall apart if you try to move them.

Matthew Johnson:

So, um, so you're trying to sell this home. Meanwhile you've moved somewhere else. Maybe you bought a new home in a new park? Um, you, as long as that home is still there and you still own it, you still have to pay the rent. And again, way back in the old days it was a storage fee and they still call it a storage fee, but it would be, you know, order of the rent, um, and then parks learn that they can charge whatever they. You know they can charge up to whatever the rent was, and so that's, it's just become standard now the storage fee is whatever your rent was.

Matthew Johnson:

So you're trying to sell that and the landlord or the manager, one or both have, absolutely, have, absolute control over who can move in. So they have absolute control over who can buy that home from you and they'll just continue to refuse. You find a buyer or park says oh no, we don't, we're not gonna allow them to be a tenant so that buyer goes away. They can keep doing that. Meanwhile you're paying rent every month on that trailer. You know trailer you're trying to sell for ten thousand dollars and you're paying, you know, five hundred dollars a month rent. You know that starts to get expensive and park owners know that and what the practice used to be used to be a really common practice is they would just do that and do that and do that and pretty soon you know you've paid in rent almost what you would have got if you'd sold it. And then they say well, I'll tell you what. We'll give you two thousand dollars for it. You know you're trying to sell it for ten. You've just lost, you know, five thousand dollars in rent because it's been sitting there for ten months. They're offering you two thousand dollars cash right now you're going to take it. And then they turn around and they call up those people that they that buyers you'd found and they say hey, you want to buy this, sell it to you for twelve thousand dollars. Um, and it was quite a racket. Um, I haven't seen that much um, but that's something to keep in mind.

Matthew Johnson:

Um, here's another one, and and this was how how I put a stop to it a number of times. So the last one talks about landlord delays a response to an application. Well, the thing about that is there's a statute about that and it says if the landlord doesn't respond within 10 days, that applicant automatically is approved as a tenant in the park. And so you know, that was a tactic. They just, you know, you find a buyer, the buyer fills out an application and instead of rejecting that application, they just did nothing. Application and instead of rejecting that application, they just did nothing. They would just never get back to that buyer. And you know, eventually the buyer would lose interest and walk away. Um, you know, that way they would do that when, if they couldn't come up with an excuse not to approve the buyer, they just say well, you know, we'll just, we'll just ignore it and they'll lose interest and go away.

Matthew Johnson:

But what I did a number of times is I pointed out to the seller and the buyer the statute requires the landlord to respond within seven or 10 days there's different circumstances there and if they don't respond in writing within that time period that potential buyer is automatically approved and can move in.

Matthew Johnson:

And owners didn't like that and I don't know if I'm not sure why.

Matthew Johnson:

I just haven't seen that much lately, though a number of times what happened is that the buyer would say but you know what, they don't want me and I'm not going to force myself on them because you know, just because I can and you know the buyer walks away.

Matthew Johnson:

So you know that sort of forcing a facility to accept a buyer when they don't want to can potentially be problematic, you know, because then the manager might want to target that person, try to bully that person. But it is a good thing to know, if you're going to sell, that if you give 10 days notice that you intend to sell days notice that you intend to sell, as I haven't looked at this statute in recent years but if you give 10 days notice that you intend to sell, then landlord has seven days to respond in writing to an application. If you don't give 10 days notice that you're going to sell, if you don't give 10 days notice that you're going to sell, then the landlord has 10 days to respond to an application. Anyway, with that, that's sort of the questions that were on the agenda?

Ken Pryor:

Sure, I just want to remind everyone that MMCRC is not an enforcement agency, but there are other agencies, such as DEQ and Fair Housing, that will assist you in your efforts to gain your rights. And give us a call and we'll direct you to the proper agency. And with that I'm going to turn things over to Bill to speak more about OSTA and their plans to move forward.

Bill Bateman:

Well, thank you, gentlemen. Very good presentation. Matthew, I appreciate your time and your efforts. And Ken, glad you could join us and make folks aware of the things that are available. I see we have Rochelle here. Rochelle's our vice president. Welcome, man, Glad you could join us.

Bill Bateman:

As far as what's coming up for the next thing, on the 21st 21st of this month at 2 o'clock I'm going to have an update on all the latest information I can gather on HB 3054, the new bill by Pam Marsh. I'm getting 100 emails a day easily, folks wanting to know what's going on. That is because it's changing rapidly. For example, on the 13th new members were seated so new email addresses became available, that type of thing. So please join me on the 21st for that. We'll try and find out some more about the bill as I'm looking at it. I'm seeing some questions raised and I'm sure maybe some of you have those as well, and we'll be in touch with Rep Marsh and the committee on that.

Bill Bateman:

And what else is going on? Well, the good things keep happening at Osta. We've kind of put it on, gotten an AED and brought it back. Rochelle's doing a great job on newsletters, on getting text messages out, on getting chapters organized. There's a lot of things happening on getting chapters organized. There's a lot of things happening. Matthew, as a board member, has contributed greatly. So thank you, guests who came.

Bill Bateman:

What you can do as far as the bill, right now we need to begin talking to the committee members other than Rep Marsh, who obviously knows all about it. That list will be shortly available on the OSTA website of the committee members. You write to them and then we're going to. I have approached the I always call them board of supervisors. It's counselors, community councils, whatever it is they call it here in Oregon for a proclamation for February, which is Senior Independence Month, County commissioners. There we go, and I've called Colleen and asked if she will talk to me about that. Haven't heard back yet but that was only a couple of days ago and they're pretty busy. So the idea will be getting proclamations at the city level, at the county level, and show a strong support or strong base for this type of action. Other than that, unless anyone has anything else, I don't know, I heard a quack.

Matthew Johnson:

Hello, Nope, Okay, I would like to mention real fast that on our website we'll have a way to come and search for your house district and to find who you need to contact. We'll have the email addresses of the committee members up on the website today as well, so you can go there to find that.

Bill Bateman:

Yay, thank you. All right, other than that it's a sneaking up. On lunchtime I can hear my stomach, so that's not the dog. Thank you very much. You've been a wonderful audience. Do try this at home. We look forward to seeing you again at our next Zoom meeting or at any of the events around your community. We're always happy to reach out and to help you. Thank you Ken, thank you Matthew, thank you guests, and thanks for Shell for popping in and keeping us up to date.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Bill Bateman

Host