STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2753

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 2132

S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2024

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Commerce and Consumer Protection, to which was referred S.B. No. 2132 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO THE RESIDENTIAL LANDLORD-TENANT CODE,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to:

(1) Amend the deadlines related to the repair of conditions that constitute health or safety violations and the payment of past due rent; and

(2) Increase the amount deducted from a tenant's rent for the tenant's actual expenditures to correct health or safety violations and defective conditions.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from Waipahu Safe Haven Immigrant/Migrant Resource Center, Hawaiʻi Workers Center, and one individual.

Your Committee finds that under existing law, if a landlord, after receipt of notification of a condition on the leased premises that constitutes a health or safety violation, fails to commence repairs of the condition or otherwise fails to comply with the provisions of the Residential Landlord-Tenant Code, a tenant may recover not more than $500 in reimbursement for any necessary work that was completed by the tenant to cure the condition. This limitation on the recovery amount for tenants is often far below the actual costs and expenses required to cure the condition, forcing tenants to pay out of their own pockets for the repairs to return a property to a habitable condition. Therefore, this measure increases the statutory maximum recovery amount for tenants to $1,000 or one month's rent, whichever is greater, for the tenant's actual expenditures for work done to correct the defective condition.  Further, this measure amends certain deadlines related to the repair of conditions that constitute health or safety violations, to provide more time for landlords to address the conditions.  

Your Committee has amended this measure by inserting an effective date of July 1, 2040, to encourage further discussion.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Commerce and Consumer Protection that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2132, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2132, S.D. 1, and be placed on the calendar for Third Reading.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Commerce and Consumer Protection,

________________________________

JARRETT KEOHOKALOLE, Chair