In October 2016, as Robert Enzel was in the process of buying the rent-controlled Adams Morgan apartment building where I live, he emailed real estate broker Marty Zupancic asking for some advice. I had requested to move to a different unit in the same building, and Enzel wanted to know how much he could increase the rent if I left my apartment.
“If we agree to the move what can we advertise her apartment for? The $1360 she pays or the $3000 market rent?” Enzel asked in an email provided to me.
Zupancic appears to advise Enzel that he could essentially ignore D.C.’s rent control law because the Department of Housing and Community Development, which is in charge of administering the law, wouldn’t bother to check.
“You can ‘do whatever you want,’ weighing the risk versus reward, and also depending on if you do work to the unit, etc.” Zupancic replied. “By right/law, you can add 10% immediately to her $1360 … or $1496. In reality, unless your new tenant complains to DHCD (not likely that a tenant at $3,000 will care one way or another), its between you and your tenant. We can talk about strategies that other investors implement all the time.”
Zupancic’s response is half right. The law allows landlords to raise the rent by up to 10 percent in vacated units. But his advice that “you can do whatever you want” provides a window into the role that real estate agents and investors can play in evading D.C.’s rent control law (officially called “rent stabilization”), due in part to a lack of enforcement from the DHCD’s Rental Accommodations Division. (DHCD representatives did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Suzie Amanuel over at Washington City Paper
