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URLTA in Operation: An Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

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Abstract

The following articles examine the impact of legislation modeled after the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act (URLTA) in Portland, Oregon, and Cleveland, Ohio. Their conclusion is that the legislation has been only marginally effective, benefiting primarily middle-income tenants in the suburbs or in the cities' better neighborhoods, while largely failing in the aim of helping the inner-city poor and upgrading the quality of slum housing. The general lesson is an old one: law reform attempts at rearranging basic social-legal relationships often fail to achieve their intended effects, particularly when their effectuation is left to the initiative or ingenuity of those individual private parties who are least likely to possess or display these traits.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 1980 

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References

1 See, e.g., Richard E. Blumberg & Brian Quinn Robbins, Beyond URLYA: A Program for Achieving Real Tenant Goals, 11 Harv. C.R.-C.L.L. Rev. 1, 3-4 & n.6 (1976). Informal counts today give a figure somewhat higher than 16 as the number of states having adopted the act, but the problem with all counts is lack of information on what legislation is considered similar enough to the act to be counted as an “adoption.”Google Scholar

2 See Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act § 1.02, Comment [hereinafter cited as URLTA].Google Scholar

3 Id.§ 2.104.Google Scholar

4 Id.§ 3.101.Google Scholar

5 All prohibited by id.§ 1.403.Google Scholar

6 Id.§ 5.101.Google Scholar

7 Id.§ 4.201.Google Scholar

8 Id.§ 1.303.Google Scholar

9 Id.§ 4.103.Google Scholar

10 Id.§§ 1.304, 4.101, 4.102.Google Scholar

11 Id.§§ 4.101, .102.Google Scholar

12 Id.§§ 4.101, .201.Google Scholar

13 Hirsch, Werner Z., Joel G. Hirsch, & Stephen Margolis, Regression Analysis of the Effects of Habitability Laws upon Rent: An Empirical Observation on the Ackerman-Komesar Debate, 63 Calif. L. Rev. 1098 (1975); see also Meyers, Charles J., The Covenant of Habitability and the American Law Institute, 27 Stan. L. Rev. 879 (1975).Google Scholar

14 Marilyn Mosier & Richard Soble, Modern Legislation, Metropolitan Court, Miniscule Results: A Study of Detroit's Landlord-Tenant Court, 7 J.L. Ref. 8 (1973).Google Scholar