The Supreme Court on Tuesday turned down a major property-rights challenge to rent control laws in New York City and elsewhere that give tenants a right to stay for many years in an apartment with a below-market cost.
A group of New York landlords had sued, contending the combination of rent regulation and long-term occupancy violated the Constitution’s ban on the taking of private property for public use.
The justices had considered the appeal since late September. Only Justice Clarence Thomas issued a partial dissent.
You must log in or # to comment.
… violated the Constitution’s ban on taking of private property for public use.
Do they think that regulating the usage of private property is the same as having it taken away? Was their argument really “As long as it’s on my property, I should be able to do whatever I want, whenever I want, to whomever I want. Anything else is a violation of my rights!”
Property can be “taken” by the government, this sometimes happens when zoning laws change. For example, if the zoning of the property was changed from residential to agricultural. Then the owner could argue that the value of the property was “taken” by by the government and they would likely win the case. Regardless of if the owner was a landlord or the owner of a vacant lot.
To be clear, I’m not commenting on the original issue, but intend to only provide information about the laws related to this issue.
Regulating can be a violation of the Takings Clause. It just isn’t here.
Unpopular opinion of the day : I think the justice needed to hear this case.
Given how rapacious landlords have been for all of history, I’d be curious to hear your reasoning.
To shoot it down and form precedent.
form precedent
That’s a big ask from the same scotus that shot down a 50 year precedent.
To get an answer as to whether or not the actions of the city are constitutional.
Have you heard of “amendments”?
Lol, we can’t even agree on equal rights for all being enshrined the constitution, no chance in hell that rent control would make it in.
Yes. What about them?
No you definitely don’t want the SCOTUS touching this until after Thomas and Alito die.
Bypass the paywall: https://archive.ph/a9Uu8
Controversial opinion, but shouldn’t capitalism allow the free market to decide rental rates and tenancy durations? Why are rental incomes regulated. I completely understand having regulations for health and safety reasons (maintenance needs to be enforced, apartments need to be liveable) but why control the prices in a capitalist society?
If landlords collectively agree to double the rent of every apartment in a city, tenants can’t simply move to a cheaper unit. There should be someone telling those landlords no.
But that’s the free market at work. Prices will continue to rise until they become unaffordable and landlords have empty properties. Where I live there is no rent control, and the prices keep rising as the economy and inflation rises. When rental properties are in high demand, rental prices increase across the board. When construction provides many new properties to buy, people buy, rental demand decreases, and rental prices stagnate. No need for regulation from some government body. I thought this was capitalism 101?
When a handful of colluding parties control the entire supply of something people can’t live without, that’s not a free market. It’s despotism. The parties in control can do anything they want, and anybody who tries to tell them no can be deprived of that resource and left to die.
until they become unaffordable and landlords have empty properties
That is precisely what is happening, by design, and it sucks. Wouldn’t it be much, much better if there was a safeguard to prevent this?
Free market doesn’t mean that all rules go out the window. Colluding over prices eliminates the natural competition that occurs in a free market. That is why it is generally prohibited, though businesses still try it from time to time and they (rightly) get in trouble for it.
They do it all the time and mostly get away with it…
FTFY
No that’s an oligopoly, not capitalism. Why are you arguing against your own best interests?
It’s very disruptive when people are forced to move due to rent increases. Rent control helps smooth over the effects of cyclic changes in the rent market on individual people.
but why control the prices in a capitalist society?
Yeah, why would we want to regulate prices on a necessity to live that requires capital to be able to own, thereby meaning that ownership will only ever be in the hands of a small amount of lords that the peasants are 100% at the whims of the owning class. Add in that it’s better for landlords to collude and drive up prices (to the point that the rental price increases can be entirely automated to better extract money from renters) it’s not difficult at all to see why it needs to be regulated.
