Milwaukee County Board Considering Ordinance on Rent Abatment

[Sean O'Gorman]

Hello my fellow Milwaukee landlords, it been some time since I have posted on the forums but I thought this is a situation where a post is needed. As I am sure many of you are probably aware, one of the best resources for staying connected to Milwaukee/Wisconsin's changes affecting landlords is Tristan Pettit's Landlord Tenant Blog (http://petriepettit.com/blog/landlord-tenant). If you haven't been there already I would suggest you take a stroll over there, I believe you will find it every insightful, straightforward and overall a great resource.

That being said, it was because of Tristan's RSS feed that I was informed of this new Ordinance on Rent Abatement that is being considered in Milwaukee. 

Link to the article (http://petriepettit.com/blog/landlord-tenant/milwa...) 

I am not going to try and summarize the article but I copied over the beginning to hopefully give you an idea of the importance of the situation. A meeting to discuss this will be held this coming Monday (7/17). Details in the original post if you follow the link. 

"The Milwaukee County Board is considering a proposal that would permit your tenants to abate rent for maintenance issues not addressed within 24 hours.

For example, your tenant calls on Friday morning to say the bathroom faucet is not working correctly. You go out and fix it on Sunday, 50 hours after the call came in. This proposal would allow that tenant to deduct $200 from the rent - Yes! Under this proposal, the tenant can deduct TWO HUNDRED dollars even though you made a timely repair of a minor item that does not affect health or safety."

[Dawn Anastasi]

The above was an example, that you got to this repair in 50 hours but since it wasn't 24 hours, the tenant can deduct a huge dollar amount.

The Apartment Association of SE WI is fighting this. I'm all for getting rid of slumlords, who just don't fix things, but this is going overboard.