Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Fair Screening topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Committee advances amendments to strengthen Montgomery County 'ban the box' housing enforcement
Summary
Sponsor Council Member Sales and staff won committee approval for amendments that require a uniform tenant addendum, landlord retention of signed addenda for one year, quarterly randomized audits of 10+ unit properties by the Office of Human Rights, and multilingual sample materials; the committee voted 3-0 to recommend Bill 8-24 to the full council.
Council Member Sales, sponsor of Bill 8-24, presented amendments intended to strengthen enforcement of the county's Housing Justice Act (the earlier "ban the box" measure). The changes the committee adopted would clarify that landlords must provide a standard, director-prescribed addendum about criminal- and credit-history screening as part of lease agreements and retain copies of completed addenda for one year.
Sales said the amendments respond to implementation gaps since 2021 and include operational steps to improve accountability: DHCA would add a dropdown question to the annual rental survey for landlords to record the date an addendum was provided to the occupying tenant (rather than requiring the county to be the repository of addenda), and the Office of Human Rights would perform quarterly randomized inspections of multifamily properties with 10 or more units to verify compliance.
Council staff explained the approach seeks to balance enforcement with administrative feasibility. "The rental survey check-off is for the occupying tenant; the inspection is a general oversight of application records," staff said. Director Stowe (Office of Human Rights) said an audit would involve selecting a sample of properties and reviewing files to verify addendum use and signatures; DHCA director Scott Bruton agreed he could request production of documents during investigations. Sponsor and staff also agreed to post model addenda in commonly used languages and to coordinate reporting between DHCA and the Office of Human Rights.
Committee action: The committee approved the sponsor's friendly amendments and the staff-recommended language and voted 3-0 to recommend Bill 8-24, as amended, to the full County Council for consideration.
What's next: The bill, with the committee's amendments, will go to the full council for action.
