Tenants of 1460 Euclid v. D.C. Rental Housing, 84-1408.

• Decision Date: 31 December 1985
• Docket Number: No. 84-1408.,84-1408.
• Citation: 502 A.2d 470
• Parties: TENANTS OF 1460 EUCLID STREET, N.W., Petitioner, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA RENTAL HOUSING COMMISSION, Respondent.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

502 A.2d 470

TENANTS OF 1460 EUCLID STREET, N.W., Petitioner, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA RENTAL HOUSING COMMISSION, Respondent.

No. 84-1408.

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Argued September 13, 1985.

Decided December 31, 1985.

Richard A. Hannibal, with whom John K. Lunsford was on brief, for petitioner.

William J. Earl, Asst. Corp. Counsel, with whom Inez Smith Reid, Corp. Counsel, John H. Suda, Principal Deputy Corp. Counsel, and Charles L. Reischel, Deputy Corp. Counsel, Washington, D.C. were on brief for respondent.

Before NEBEKER, NEWMAN and TERRY, Associate Judges.

NEBEKER, Associate Judge:

Petitioner, a tenants association, seeks reversal of the District of Columbia Rental Housing Commission's decision that a voluntary agreement of the tenants to adjust the rent ceiling at their housing accommodation was valid. We hold that the necessary assent of seventy percent of the tenants was not obtained because the spouse of a leaseholder may not, absent express authority, sign the agreement as the leaseholder's agent. Accordingly, we reverse.

I

Petitioner is the tenants association of a rent controlled housing accommodation, the landlord of which is N & R Associates. On December 21, 1981, N & R Associates implemented a twenty percent increase in the rent ceiling pursuant to a written voluntary agreement that was assumed to have been signed by seventy percent of the tenants.¹ One of the tenants who signed the agreement, is the wife of the leaseholder of the apartment in which she and her husband reside. Petitioner argues that under D.C. Code § 45-1526 (1981), the only individual who can voluntarily agree to a rent ceiling increase is the tenant obligated to pay rent, i.e., the leaseholder. Thus, petitioner challenges the validity of the voluntary agreement by questioning the spouse's authority to agree to the rent ceiling increase because she is not the leaseholder, and the leaseholder did not expressly authorize her to sign as his agent. Without this signature, N & R Associates has not secured the agreement of seventy percent of the ten, ants that is a prerequisite to the rent ceiling increase.

The Voluntary Agreement provision, D.C.Code § 45-1526 (1981), requires that "70 percent of the tenants of a housing accommodation" sign the agreement approving a rent increase. In a related section, a tenant is defined as any "person entitled to the possession, occupancy, or the benefits thereof of any rental unit owned by another person." Id. § 45-1503(30). This definitional provision recognizes the tenant's entitlement to such status; it, therefore, confers a legal right "to the possession, occupancy, or the benefits thereof. . . ." Reading the Voluntary Agreement and definitional provisions together, as we must, the Voluntary Agreement provision requires the signature of those individuals who derive certain legal rights from the lease of a rental unit that is owned by another. Clearly, the tenants entitled to and capable of enforcing such rights are leaseholders.

Section 45-1526 also requires that the voluntary agreement specify the "amount of increased rent each tenant will pay" (emphasis added), Because the obligation to pay arises out of a...