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Tenants' Rights: The Real Story

By Brett Glass

One of the most contentious issues in the 2024 City Council race is tenants' rights and how to protect them. And no wonder: More than half of Laramie residents are renters! Unfortunately, some candidates are trying to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt regarding this issue in the hope that it will get them elected. Here's the straight dope on tenants' rights and landlord-tenant relations in Wyoming, and what I (as both a tenant and a rental property manager myself) believe we can do to make things fair to everyone.

Not legal advice

Before I begin, let me say upfront that nothing I write here should be considered to be legal advice. I am not a lawyer, and therefore I'm not authorized to give situation-specific advice to anyone. However, I do have experience dealing with landlord-tenant issues from both sides, and in fact have gone to court as both a tenant and a landlord. So, please treat this document as general public information and policy advocacy. If you need help with the legal aspects of a landlord-tenant dispute, consult a lawyer. There are some good ones in Laramie, and the UW Law School's Civil Legal Services Clinic  and the nonprofit Legal Aid of Wyoming offer free aid to those in need. Equal Justice Wyoming, a state funded civil legal services program, can also help you locate inexpensive or free legal help. Full-time UW students can seek help from the University of Wyoming's Student Legal Services office.

Wyoming Landlord-Tenant Law

Every Wyoming tenant and landlord, and every policy maker concerned with landlord-tenant issues, should be intimately familiar with Wyoming's landlord-tenant law. It's Title 1, Chapter 21, Article 12 of the Wyoming Statutes, and the 2024 version is available at this link. It's an easy read and does not require a law degree to understand.
It lays out the rights and responsibilities of both landlords and tenants. And, contrary to what some advocates of stringent local rental regulation claim, it does require all residential rentals to be "safe, sanitary, and fit for human occupancy" and that the landlord maintain "electrical systems, plumbing, heating and hot and cold water" and "other appliances and facilities as specifically contracted in the rental agreement." It specifically allows the tenant to terminate the lease if this isn't done. It also provides for the tenant to be awarded damanges by a civil court (which in Albany County would be the Circuit Court, which is also a Small Claims Court) if the landlord doesn't fulfill his or her duties. Finally, it gives tenants specific rights with regard to security deposits and property left behind after a move-out. Article 13, which immediately follows it, allows a tenant to terminate a lease if the tenant is fleeing domestic abuse or sexual violence.

Laramie's Controversial Rental Property Ordinance

At its January 4th, 2022 meeting, the Laramie City Council adopted a "Rental Housing Code" which is intended to very strictly regulate residential rentals in Laramie. This controversial ordinance requires all rental housing (even rented to family members) to be registered and licensed; imposes a tax (euphemistically called a "licensing fee") on every rental; limits who can do repairs (which delays them; a landlord's handyman can no longer pull a permit and just fix something); demands that landlords make tens of thousands of dollars of unnecessary changes to perfectly safe and attractive rental units; and imposes a complaint procedure that - confusingly for tenants - is completely different from the state statute and distracts tenants from pursuing effective remedies via the Circuit Court. Enforcement of the City ordinance is subject to the whims and opinions of city bureaucrats, whose decisions cannot be appealed by the tenant (a violation of due process).

Once the City ordinance was adopted, a landlord with a very good reputation, Bell Leasing, sued the City, claiming that parts were illegal and conflicted with state law. The judge agreed that some parts of the ordinance did violate state law. The City amended but did not repeal the ordinance, leaving some disputed provisions in place. At this point, Bell Leasing realized that it didn't have the financial resources to go back to court against an opponent which had infinitely deep pockets and was using taxpayer money (including some of its own!) to defend an ordinance that was likely still illegal. Bell Leasing decided that rather than pursuing its legal fight against the new version, it would instead give up on doing business in Laramie and began to liquidate its holdings. Laramie lost a good landlord.

To this day, many problems remain with the City ordinance. As of this writing (September 2024), the legality of the new version has  not yet been tested. According to a report made to Council by the City Manager in June of 2024, the majority of Laramie rentals are not registered or licensed. (Finding all of them would require intrusive searches that would likely be unconstitutional.) After 32 months, fewer than half of all tenant complaints were even accepted by the City, and of those, fewer than half - a total of only 21 - were resolved by the City. This track record hardly merits taking more $160,000 out of the pockets of Laramie tenants, via taxes on their landlords, and applying it to raises for middle managers rather than using it for any public benefit.

The Laramie Ordinance Has Made Rentals Scarce and Expensive

While the Laramie ordinance cannot help tenants with the common problems mentioned above, it has been successful at doing much harm to Laramie renters. Since Laramie passed its Rental Housing Code, the owners of many of Laramie's most affordable rentals have removed their properties from the market rather than make unnecessarily expensive modifications that do not improve their habitability or safety. Others have sold their properties to out-of-state private equity firms that have hiked rents. The result: rentals have become harder to find and less affordable. (I recently posted a reasonably priced one bedroom rental on Craigslist and received a dozen calls during the first hour - from prospects who told me that they were desperate to find a rental.) The ordinance has also made rental maintenance and repairs difficult by requiring that they be done only by specific licensed contractors rather than by a landlord's handyman. This, ironically, has led to tenant complaints that repairs have been slow... when it's not the landlord's fault but rather the city's.

The Laramie Ordinance Does Not Solve Tenants' Most Common Problems

As if these negative consequences were not concerning enough, the City ordinance is also unable to achieve positive solutions to most of the problems that tenants face:

A Wyoming city cannot grant tenants rights. The Laramie ordinance, if it is legal (a question which has not been settled since it was revised), at most allows the City to go after a landlord for failure to obtain a license or for having a rental that doesn't meet its very specific requirements. But it confers no rights upon the tenant. Only the state government has the power to grant rights. And to exercise those rights, the tenant must still go to the Circuit Court.

Cities can't get a tenant monetary damages. In Wyoming, municipal (city) courts are only criminal courts; they aren't civil courts. That means the city cannot award the tenant a refund of rent, a refund of the security deposit, or compensation for other financial damage. Those claims must still go through the Circuit Court.

Cities can't terminate a tenant's lease. Only a civil court can terminate a lease as per Wyoming law. The city licensing ordinance therefore creates an awkward conflict between the City ordinance and state law. The City - by revoking a landlord's license to lease a unit - may declare that a landlord may not rent to a tenant, while state law dictates that the landlord must  continue to rent to them.

Cities can't stop evictions. Many landlord-tenant conflicts involve evictions, lockouts, and "constructive evictions" (situations in which a landlord attempts to force a tenant out by making the unit unliveable). Unfortunately, because evictions are civil matters, and cities do not have civil courts, a city doesn't have the power to stop a landlord from evicting a tenant. However, as mentioned above, it may try to force a landlord to remove a tenant by revoking their license to rent the unit. Thus, involving the city in a landlord-tenant dispute can actually do the tenant harm.


Going to Court

You're not required to be accompanied by a lawyer when going to court to resolve a landlord-tenant dispute, though it doesn't hurt to seek advice and coaching from one of the organizations mentioned above, or from a lawyer, especially if you've never been to court before. The fee to file a civil suit in Small Claims Court is $10; there is a separate fee to have the Sheriff serve the defendant with papers. Both fees can be recovered as part of the judgment if the court rules in your favor. If you're requesting the court to take action other than awarding money damages, or are suing for more than $6,000, you can file a Circuit Court suit. The fee is higher - $70 - but the court can do more for you. And again, if the court rules in your favor, you should be able to get the money back as part of the judgment.

What's the Solution?

Housing is already regulated by Federal law, multiple Federal agencies, state law, and several state agencies. An additional layer of onerous, badly written regulations (the Laramie ordinance was copied from a city in Oregon where it was not working) that unnecessarily burden landlords and make housing scarce and unaffordable is not the solution. Landlord-tenant disputes are often messy, with disputes over facts, details, and timelines. There are usually contradictory "he said/she said" accounts of what happened. An experienced, no-nonsense judge in a civil court (which the City does not have), with the power to order financial restitution and "specific performance" (fulfillment of a contract), is needed to sort them out. Enforcing tenants' rights at the state level, and perhaps modifying state law if the public feels that the statute is not sufficiently explicit, is the only way to do this effectively. What's more, it is fairer, because it gives exactly the same rights and remedies to renters who live outside the city limits as it does to those who live within them.

The City claims, in the preamble to its ordinance, that its goal is "to help renters and owners communicate with each other so they can resolve their issues without further city involvement." It can best do this by providing services that actually facilitate communication, such as an ombudsman, and informing parties of their rights and responsibilities under state law. Thoughtless, destructive overregulation is not the answer.

Brett Glass, Candidate, Laramie City Council Ward 2

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Credo: Democracy, not bureaucracy