Abstract
Like other cities across the nation, Milwaukee utilizes a mix of regulatory,
statutory, and common law tools to address the problem of substandard rental
housing. This Comment examines the efficacy of those legal tools, in the
process demonstrating that existing remedies offer insufficient protections to
tenants in need of habitable housing. This Comment then proposes a novel
legal strategy that is designed to ameliorate the problem of low-quality,
overpriced rental housing: amending Wis. Stat. § 66.1015 to permit
implementation of a “rent-value correlation rate”—giving municipalities the
option to cap monthly contract rent as a percentage of the assessed property
value. Tenants could use the rent-value correlation rate as an affirmative
defense to eviction. And because tenants would finally owe a financial
obligation commensurate with the substandard quality of contracted housing,
landlords might be motivated to maintain or improve the quality of the premises
in order to restore or increase profit margins.
Repository Citation
Ellen Matheson,
Alleviating the Harms of Substandard Housing to Wisconsin Tenants: Correlating Rent with Assessed Property Value,
105 Marq. L. Rev. 463
(2021).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/mulr/vol105/iss2/7