Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last month signed into law an industry-backed bill that wipes out certain tenant protections established by local governments in Florida.
That includes two local laws established earlier this year by the Orange County government, which aimed to strengthen renters’ rights and protect renters from some of the predatory practices of bad landlords. For example, discriminating against renters with housing vouchers, or hiking up a tenant’s rent an absurd amount with little notice.
In Orange County, and across Florida, there are no limits on how much a landlord can increase your rent. Even more, Florida lawmakers this year banned local governments from even trying to.
After HB 1417 got the final nod of approval from DeSantis, a spokesperson for Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings told Orlando Weekly that the mayor “ha[d] no response.”
A wave of local tenant protection laws, like Orange County’s tenant bill of rights ordinance, rose during the COVID-19 pandemic, propelled by housing justice activism.
As rents and home sales skyrocketed, leaving more Floridians at risk for unstable housing or homelessness, burgeoning tenants unions and advocacy groups such as Florida Rising and the Miami Workers Center pushed local leaders for strong protections for their communities.
“It feels like our city is being handed over to corporations,” Karla Correa, a 20-something activist and organizer with the St. Petersburg Tenants Union, told In These Times last year.
More than 30 communities in Florida have enacted local landlord and tenant policies in recent years in an effort to address rising housing costs, increased homelessness, and to reduce housing instability.
Of those passed by local communities, more than 40 will be wiped out by the new law HB 1417, per the bill’s House sponsor.
In Orange County, for instance, elected leaders passed an ordinance restricting landlords’ ability to raise rents more than 5% without at least 60 days’ notice. They also banned discrimination against renters based on their source of income — a form of discrimination that’s not protected under state or federal law.
Orange County's new local law — a “tenant bill of rights” ordinance — also required landlords to provide tenants with a Notice of Tenant Rights prior to move-in, as well as a list of other rental fees.
Now, that’s gone. As it is in at least seven other cities and counties in Florida, according to a tracker from the Florida Apartment Association, obtained by Seeking Rents.
Backed by the Florida GOP, the new state law — titled the “Florida Landlord Tenant Act” — strips more than 1.5 million Florida renters of various renters’ rights, affecting residents of the state’s seven largest counties.
State Rep. Tiffany Esposito herself admitted during early discussions of this bill in House committees that the bill largely affects urban areas — like the major metros — more than rural.
When asked by Democrat Ashley Gantt in a March committee meeting whether her proposal provided any direct relief to renters facing housing affordability issues, Esposito responded, very curtly, “That is not addressed in this bill.”
The bill preempts local regulations on landlord and tenant issues to the state (essentially, tying the hands of local governments) and offers very little.
As of July 1, HB 1417 is in effect. So, Orlando Weekly put together an explainer of what it means for local readers, and what’s next.
What will change under the new law?
Statewide, the law wipes out over three dozen local tenant rights ordinances (“ordinances” is the term used for local laws).
According to Amy Michaels, administrator of Orange County's Office of Tenant Services, there are two ordinances in Orange County that are no longer enforceable, under HB 1417:
Orange County’s tenant bill of rights ordinance
Orange County’s fair notice requirements ordinance
Both were initially discussed by the Orange County board of county commissioners last year, and fully adopted earlier this year.
What were they meant to do?
Under the tenant bill of rights:
Landlords could not explicitly reject tenants based on their use of a housing voucher or any lawful source of income to pay rent (more on this below — because surprise! This is actually still enforceable. Read on to learn how.)
Landlords were prohibited from retaliating against tenants who sought tenant services
Landlords were required to provide renters with a ‘Notice of Tenant Rights’ prior to the rental term (or prior to renewal for tenants with pre-existing lease agreements)
Landlords were required to provide tenants with a list of tenant fees, to be agreed upon prior to the rental term
Under the rent notices law, landlords in Orange County were required to give tenants a minimum 60 days’ written notice of lease termination and rent increases above 5%.
The city of Orlando did not have any local housing policies in place affected by HB 1417, nor did any other neighboring city or county, as far as Orlando Weekly is aware.
Is there anything else the new state law does?
As a crumb for some tenants, HB 1417 did increase the notice period for terminating month-to-month agreements from a minimum 15 days’ notice to 30 days’ notice.
Rental agreements for longer leases also now require between 30 to 60 days’ notice, replacing the former requirement of not more than 60 days.
Plus, there are other local regulations not pursued by Orange County leaders that the new law also preempts. That is, they're now off the table.
Under the new law, local governments can’t establish regulations superseding state law on security deposits, the screening process for landlords, rental applications and fees, terms and conditions of rental agreements, fees charged by landlords, and the rights and responsibilities of landlords and tenants.
What’s not going to change?
Let's break this down by category:
State and federal tenant rights
Floridians still have some basic tenant protections under state and federal law.
Although, as the Miami Herald editorial board aptly noted last year, Florida law already leans heavily in favor of landlords.
Chapter 83 of Florida Statutes outlines those general landlord and tenant laws, while federal housing laws can be accessed through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Landlords can’t discriminate against you based on your source of income
There’s also another key takeaway from this: Under the new law, landlords, property managers and realtors in Orange County are still barred from discriminating against renters based on their lawful source of income.
“Source of income” can refer to income earned from a job, as well as things like alimony, social security income, a housing voucher, veterans’ benefits, and more.
Source of income discrimination — a national issue that disproportionately affects renters of color, women, and people with disabilities — is not banned statewide in Florida.
Just a handful of cities and counties in Florida have actually implemented this anti-discrimination protection, specifying that it’s NOT OK (and also, well, illegal) to reject tenants based on where their rent money comes from.
Alana Greer, lawyer and director of the Miami-based Community Justice Project, previously told Orlando Weekly that she believed the new law would not affect source of income discrimination protections in Orange County.
That’s because that anti-discrimination protection — established as part of Orange County’s “tenant bill of rights” ordinance — was embedded in the county’s human rights ordinance.
“Human rights ordinances are mirrored in another part of state law, not [Chapter] 83,” Greer told Orlando Weekly in a text message.
Meaning, it’s not affected.
Michaels, the administrator of Orange County’s Office of Tenant Services, confirmed this.
“I don’t know if they did that in other jurisdictions,” Michaels added, referring to a handful of other municipalities that have banned source of income discrimination. “But I know that yes, we did do it here in Orange County.”
We get to keep our Office of Tenant Services
While the new law does strip Orange County’s new Office of Tenant Services of its ability to enforce the county’s tenant bill of rights and fair notice requirements, the office itself — established earlier this year — will not be affected.
“We still have work to do,” said Michaels. Still in its early stages, the office officially launched just four months ago, and has assisted over 1,200 landlords and tenants.
Through seminars and other community events, Michaels told Orlando Weekly that, all in all, they’ve made contact with 3,000 locals.
The office offers mediation for landlords and tenants, education on tenant and landlord rights, and referrals to code enforcement, legal aid, community organizations, and other relevant county agencies.
From the start, Michaels said, “a big part of this office was to educate the public of what their rights were under Florida law, and to get them the resources they need before the situation got to a dire strait.”
Not a single citation has, or had, been issued for violations of the county’s now-dissolved tenant bill of rights and fair notice requirements, Michaels added.
Mediation they offered between landlords and tenants who came to them for assistance was enough.
Although, she admitted, in some cases, it was also a matter of tenants or landlords not responding to follow-up from her office.
Depending on the type of case — whether it’s a referral for securing rental assistance, or a landlord issue, for instance — they make an effort to follow up within 10 to 14 days of that initial contact.
But, she says, “we can’t force you to use the resources we provide.”
Can Orange County landlords still provide tenants with a list of their rights anyway?
Yes. Michaels says that she’s heard from a number of landlords who have continued to provide tenants with a list of their rights, even though it's no longer required by the county.
“What I found here in the last couple of weeks is that landlords are still using that document to give to their tenants because it does protect them in a way,” said Michaels.
“They are useful documents ” she added, “and so far, most of the landlords that I've talked to, they’re continuing to give that to them [tenants], so that they’re aware of what their rights are.”
However, the Office of Tenant Services is currently working on updating their webpage to remove what they can no longer enforce, as well update their brochures, describing local tenants’ rights.
Orlando Weekly asked Michaels if she believed this would be confusing for locals.
“No, I don’t think it will, no.”
Who supported this new law — and why?
HB 1417 was backed by the Florida Apartment Association and Florida Realtors Association — two powerful industry groups that donate generously to Republicans and Democrats.
Both are affiliated with deep-pocketed national organizations that spent millions to halt the national eviction moratorium in the early years of COVID-19, and lobby against tenant protections in various pockets of the country.
The Florida Apartment Association and Florida Realtors also sued Orange County to block a rent stabilization ordinance supported by over 225,000 — or 59% of — county voters last year.
Their reasons for backing HB 1417? They didn’t like the local tenant laws communities had put into place anyway. It created confusion and inconsistency across Florida, they said.
The groups also expressed concern that it’d disincentivize further development.
“Given a choice of metro areas with different rental regulations, builders often opt for the less regulated environments,” the Florida Realtors said in a statement after DeSantis gave final approval to the law.
“Under HB 1417, residential tenancies regulation will fall under state law. There will eventually no longer be a patchwork of local regulations that drive away builders and cause confusion between landlords and tenants.”
So, less of a headache for developers. Got it.
As for Florida politicians, all voting Republican lawmakers in the Florida legislature, and just a single Democrat (Orlando’s own Linda Stewart), voted in favor of the law — before changing her vote to "No" after the roll call.
Two Democrats in the Florida House and three Democrats in the Senate were simply absent for the vote.
Beyond the same arguments voiced by industry groups, Republicans just reiterated their opposition to rent control, even though they'd already voted to ban that statewide just weeks before.
Is this just a Florida thing?
No. In fact, Texas lawmakers OK’ed an even broader preemption law this year, gutting not just local housing policies but various local regulations, including mandated water breaks enforced in certain parts of the state.
According to a 2022 report from the Urban Institute, state preemption of housing policies first really emerged in the 1980s.
This prevents local governments such as cities and counties from adopting new or stronger policies.
As of 2021, most states, even Democrat-controlled ones, had some sort of housing-related preemption policy on the books, according to a tracker from the Local Solutions Support Center.
Authors of the Urban Institute report note that preemptive policies are more likely to be adopted by conservative legislatures (like Florida’s).
What’s next?
The Florida Landlord Tenant Act is a state preemption bill. Meaning, it bars local regulations on landlord and tenant issues that run counter to state law.
This means any added protections for Florida tenants will need to be determined by state lawmakers.
When this new law was up for discussion and alterations by state lawmakers, several Democrats did file amendments in an effort to establish new tenant rights under state law.
For instance, Rep. Yvonne Hinson, D-Gainesville, filed an amendment to exempt local laws that established a tenant bill of rights and fair notice requirements.
Another, from Orlando Rep. Anna Eskamani, sought to establish a statewide task force “to investigate tenant abuse and illegal housing practices,” such as market manipulation and monopolies.
First-term Rep. Rita Harris (also from Orlando) tried to protect local regulations concerning security deposits, rental applications, and fees from preemption.
But Republicans (who have a supermajority in the Florida legislature) shut those efforts down.
Easily. With a string of roll call votes in succession.
Welp. Are there any other options?
Otherwise, beyond what can be accomplished in Tallahassee, some communities in Florida have also turned to tenant organizing.
Some renters have begun organizing independently in their own housing complexes, or with advocacy groups like Florida Rising, the Miami Workers Center and established tenant unions.
It's a power-in-numbers kind of strategy: You can accomplish more as a collective than you can alone, and you have more leverage that way.
“Part of the purpose of this law is to quell the tenants rights movement here in Florida, but it’s not going to work,” Correa, the organizer with the St. Petersburg Tenants Union in west central Florida, told Orlando Weekly in a text.
“The important thing is to be consistent and realize that this is a long game we’re playing. The important thing is not to give up hope that tenants and workers can win if we put in the work and organize.”
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“We’re continuing to organize against evictions, rent increases, inadequate living conditions, and homelessness,” she said.
In St. Petersburg, local leaders are currently considering a program that’d offer free, guaranteed legal aid to renters at risk for eviction.
Because of how they've crafted its implementation, that kind of program would be permissible even under the new state law.
Correa added that the local tenants union there is also working with labor unions. “We’re seeing more interest than ever around organizing for housing justice.”
“The important thing is to be consistent and realize that this is a long game we’re playing. The important thing is not to give up hope that tenants and workers can win if we put in the work and organize.”
This post has been updated to clarify that Sen. Linda Stewart changed her vote on HB 1417 after the roll call from "Yea" to "No."
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