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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowIndiana’s long-struggling tenants-protection movement counts an unlikely potential champion among its ranks: Republican Attorney General Todd Rokita, who has led multiple legal battles on behalf of “severely mistreated” renters, with mixed results.
Republican state lawmakers have long resisted taking up legislation strengthening tenants’ legal rights, making Rokita an outlier at the state level—but a possible ally for advocates who’ve struggled to advance such changes.
And it’s a departure for an attorney general who has focused much of his efforts on hot-button “culture war” topics like abortion, transgender rights and more.
“We will not hesitate to hold any landlord accountable that seeks to deny tenants equal protection of our laws,” Rokita wrote in an August 14 post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
He was announcing a new legal victory: commitments from the Indianapolis Housing Agency to “rectify miserable living conditions” at the Lugar Tower Apartments, according to a news release.
The public housing agency, he said, had “severely mistreated its tenants.”
It was the latest of numerous battles Rokita has waged against purveyors of badly kept rentals. And he’s taken his efforts to the Statehouse: this session, a legal mechanism his office asked for flew through the Legislature, although a separate move failed.
The Office of the Attorney General didn’t respond to numerous requests for comment from the Capital Chronicle.
Prosperity Indiana—a statewide group that has worked for housing improvements—said Indiana’s housing affordability and stability crisis continues to be a top concern.
“We’ve seen evidence that the lack of enforcement of Indiana’s habitability standards artificially decreases the state’s stock of affordable and available housing and endangers the health, safety, and economic freedoms of the most vulnerable Hoosiers,” said Policy Director Andrew Bradley. “We’re encouraged by the steps that Attorney General Rokita has taken so far to address Indiana’s significant substandard housing problem and look forward to learning more about future legislative efforts.”
Legal landscape
Indiana’s rental laws are largely landlord-friendly.
Owners need only provide a 10-day notice prior to removing tenants, and have 45 days to return deposits.
Indiana Code also bars tenants from paying into court-approved escrow accounts to force their landlords into making critical repairs. Tenants also cannot withhold rent, then obtain landlord reimbursement, to pay for the repairs themselves.
And state lawmakers have acted to prevent local maneuvers.
When, in 2020, Indianapolis approved tenants rights-and-responsibilities and landlord anti-retaliation provisions, the Legislature removed that authority—and reaffirmed its will over a veto by Gov. Eric Holcomb.
Housing advocates want the reverse: habitability standards enforced through rent-witholding or repair-and-deduct mechanisms, and greater local control.
That may include Rokita, to some degree.
“Our state lawmakers seriously need to update and strengthen our housing laws to make it easier to hold abusive landlords accountable,” he posted on July 31. But his office declined to specifically outline how legislators could act.
Attempts at change
Tenant protection efforts have generally failed at the Statehouse.
Sen. Fady Qaddoura, a Democrat representing Indianapolis, has filed multiple bills with habitability standards, repair-and-deduct, rent escrow and other provisions.
They are among many such bills that haven’t advanced—usually without ever having been heard by their assigned committees.
Qaddoura’s and Rokita’s public advocacy originates in the saga of an infamous not-for-profit housing provider operating in the Indianapolis area. New Jersey-based JPC Charities faced utility shutoffs, lawsuits and ownership changes over dangerous living conditions and rent payment mismanagement at multiple former properties.
“We assembled a strong alliance around the issue,” Qaddoura said, which he said included nonprofit organizations, Indianapolis’ police and fire departments and Rokita’s office.
But, he noted, “It took three years to address one negligent out-of-state landlord.”
Rokita’s office asked lawmakers for legal changes related to the JPC case.
Senate Enrolled Act 114, which allows utility companies to ask courts to appoint receivers over certain landlords behind on their utility bills, passed easily.
But language in House Bill 1075 authorizing the attorney general to take action against “public benefit corporations” mismanaging assets or committing other “breach(es) of duty” didn’t become law. Rokita posted in February thanking Rep. Chris Jeter for authoring the bill.
Neither did the original language in Qaddoura’s Senate Bill 202, which would’ve set habitability standards and empowered the attorney general to take action. Lawmakers instead turned the bill into a commitment to study remedies, but it still died.
Uncertain future
Since JPC, Rokita’s office has touted its efforts in two more Indianapolis-area cases: that of public housing complex Lugar Towers and Willow Brook Apartments.
“We are here to protect Hoosiers,” Rokita said in a July 12 news release announcing a civil lawsuit against Willow Brook and property manager Beztak Properties. “That’s why we regularly take action against businesses doing harm to consumers through either negligent or willful misconduct.”
“This case represents just one more instance in which we are defending the rule of law and standing up for the little guy,” Rokita continued. “This case represents yet another example of out-of-state real estate investors seeking to put their heel on the neck of working-class Hoosiers. Our office will not allow that kind of conduct to continue.”
Some advocates aren’t sure yet if Rokita’s office will take on the full gamut of bad landlords, or maintain a focus on government, nonprofit and non-local providers.
Qaddoura said he appreciated the office’s work when it came to housing.
“There are many policies that I fiercely oppose … that come out of the attorney general’s office. And I’ve made my opinions very clear on many of his politically motivated statements, actions, behaviors and programs,” Qaddoura said.
“However, on the issue of going after negligent out-of-state landlords such as JPC, all I asked from the attorney general’s office was to perform their professional duty of … protecting Hoosiers against criminals,” he continued, calling the office’s Homeowner Protection Unit “very professional, very responsive.”
The Indiana Capital Chronicle is an independent, not-for-profit news organization that covers state government, policy and elections.
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Wait…pinch me…..Rokita coming to the aid of tenants?
Do his donors know this?
Any action is welcome, but curious that he’s only targeting some classes of landlords instead of others. Then again, Indiana Republicans at the Statehouse made it quite clear they’re on the side of landlords.
Given that the overwhelming majority of landlords are people with 1 or 2 additional properties using it as an alternative investment/revenue stream, I am quite happy that so many Indiana politicians are “on the side of landlords”. These are not the super-wealthy cutthroat corporatists, and if they cannot evict a derelict tenant because “equity and inclusion”, in no time at all they are wrecked financially.
In fact, most politicians of both stripes are “on the side of landlords”. Both only one party claims to be on the side of tenants while passing “tenant protection laws” or moratoria on evictions (through the CDC, of all things!) in a way that will override landlord rights to their own property and essentially leave them trapped with a squatter. And the reality we all know is, the party that engages in these “tenant protection laws” will only use it to the point that it punishes small-time landlords…because if it ever became so onerous that the corporate landlords can’t maneuver around it, these legislators would change their tune immediately. Wouldn’t want to upset their deep-pocketed donors.
Given Rokita’s own questionable past, he may actually be taking a cue from his friends across the political aisle, and creating the illusion of tenant protections, precisely engineered in a way that ultimately screws the smalltime landlords but protects the property management mega-companies that donate heavily to our two parties to help maintain the establishment status quo. Rokita is, in the end, a very establishment guy.
Yet again, you’ve got no clue what you’re talking about. Maybe do your own research on the Indianapolis laws that were pre-emptied next time and stop thinking about Portland for five seconds.
The Indianapolis laws were designed to protect tenants who reported inhospitable living conditions to their landlords from being evicted for doing so. There are numerous cases in Indianapolis of out of state landlords taking advantage of renters.
The laws and the effort in Indianapolis was stopped thanks to Aaron Freeman who represents the Indianapolis area. Apparently, Freeman feels those out of state landlords who can’t maintain decent living conditions should be protected… or maybe the only person allowed to “protect” renters should be Todd Rokita, when Todd isn’t busy using our tax dollars to try to refurbish his political career.
Either way, another strong effort from Freeman, who would come in third in a two-man race for Indianapolis mayor if he wasn’t such a coward. He spends his legislative time and taxpayer salary not figuring out how to help his constituents, but instead figuring out ways to tell Indianapolis what not to do. Because, by golly, if he thinks it’s a bad idea, he’s smarter than everyone else in Indianapolis – just ask him!
Hey Lauren, are renters just another of those classes of people that need to be punched down on?
Oh yeah – one more thing. Freeman’s bill was vetoed by the governor. It got passed into law anyway.
Always the reliable leftist Joe–oh shoot–I’m sorry, not a leftist, just a centrist who steps up to defend neo-lib pieties 100% of the time. And, if the neo-lib position gets a sound rebuttal from populism (as it increasingly does), you don’t concede an inch; you just go farther left…just like the uniparty to which you are beholden.
This might be a rarity where we don’t entirely disagree, and where, while you leave out important details–understandable since the media you devour selectively reports–the essence that you’re arguing is correct.
The goal to protect tenants exploited by absentee or out-of-state landlords is commendable. There is an undeniable and growing presence throughout American cities of slumlord companies “managing” older homes/apartment buildings to the ground (often from the 1950s and 60s, so not too old) much the same way venture capital companies drain the remaining assets from once successful corporations. The Eddie Lampert solution transposed to real estate, to put it crudely.
But why has this become so prevalent? Why–especially when it comes to rental single-family homes–does this seem to be happening more and more? Could it be that there’s already an excessively onerous regulatory environment, overwhelmingly pro-tenant, that increasingly disincentivizes middle-class people from purchasing a low-cost property 5 miles from their home and leasing it out themselves, where they truly have skin in the game?
I mean, if middle-class Joe and Jane are stuck with a scumbag squatter that it takes 18 months to evict (who is destroying their property while refusing to leave), is it any wonder why fewer small-time landlords are taking up the opportunity?
From the other perspective, if the tenant is dutiful and rent-paying but of moderate income (can’t afford better in the area), isn’t it easier for the arrangement to continue if the landlords are an out-of-state faceless corporation, much harder to sue? All the better if the tenants are illegals, because the out-of-state derelict landlord can exploit the heck out of them–they will tolerate awful conditions more than an American would and won’t sue (cause they’re not here legally).
You’re welcome to fling out particular instances of Freeman and Rokita’s behavior to reflect my obsession with Portland and how little I understand things. But really–is that the issue at hand?
If Joe and Jane landlord with a household income of $75K are saddled with a non-paying, destructive tenant who they can’t evict or fat blue-haired activists will tar-and-feather them, I’d say let’s punch and kick the living daylights out of that renter. It’s not punching down. The fat activists can take them into their homes.
If renter is struggling to pay because negligent landlord from Arizona keeps raising the rates while stiffing the tenants on maintenance and upgrades, all while dragging them along on a string with the hopes of responding but leaving them increasingly trapped in a lease in which only one side fulfills their end of the bargain, then I’d say it IS indeed cruelly punching down on renters.
There’s nuance that I try to observe, and part of that means looking at where a top-down solution fails to yield the bottom-up results we want. Perhaps tenants need to be able to break leases more easily. But landlords need to be able to give derelict tenants the boot. The fact that both of these actions gets hamstrung by regulations helps explain the proliferation of out-of-state slumlords for a growing portfolio of marginal properties that, 40 years ago, middle-class households would have purchased and refurbished as part of a secondary income stream.
And neither Freeman nor Rokita are likely to ultimately do anything about it…on that we can agree.
Yes, always defending liberals. Never begging for Republicans to do things like, I dunno, maybe try to run any kind of effective campaign for mayor of Indianapolis?
And not punt on ideas like, I dunno, one of the few things we can all agree that only the government can do is maintain roads? And not throw up your hands and say “sorry, you’re screwed?”
But I digress.
I need evidence this of “majority of landlords are small timers getting screwed in Indiana.” Even Todd Rokita, who’s right maybe once a decade, is asking for increased legal authority to deal with landlords. And you’re going to claim they need less regulation?
“But the CDC!”
Look, this all went down before COVID. When Indianapolis was #2 in the number of evictions behind New York City. So, not at all relevant.
I don’t care if you’re an out of state corporation or a Mom and Pop, if you can’t maintain a property that’s habitable or can’t paying the utilities as specified, your empathy from me is very low.
Maybe mold is really popular with populists. I could see where maybe breathing unhealthy air in basements could lead to some crazy thinking.
“Why is this happening more?”
You’re the man of the people. Explain it to me.
My theory is that middle class folks don’t have the income to own one house, much less two, even if they rent one out. And the market of individual people who can afford that house? Getting smaller all the time. I’ve had two previous houses that I owned snapped up by out-of-state corporations that tried to rent them out for more than I was paying on the mortgage. One has been empty for months and the other was sold after it became apparent the business model would never work.
One more thing. I still can’t wrap around my head how someone who claims to be a populist is on the side of big business and the corporate interests on this issue. Funny, that.
https://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2020/02/28/indianapolis-renters-landlord-bill-lawmakers-have-real-estate-ties/4881756002/