A group of New York City landlords is challenging the city’s rent control laws. They contend that such laws constitute an unconstitutional taking of private property. In an OpEd piece, two legal scholars argue that rent control does not physically take the landlord’s property, and therefore, rent control is not a taking. The authors go on to state:
Let’s be clear: The government has not taken your property if you still own it, control it, and profit from it.
Lawyers and jurists have long sought to justify government control of private property. And one of the primary methods they use is evasion. They look at an issue in isolation, ignoring the full context.
The authors conveniently ignore the fact that the owners of rent controlled properties do not control their property. Control means the freedom to determine use and disposal of one’s property, and this is precisely what rent control removes. Under rent control, government officials, not the owner, sets the terms and conditions for the use of the property. Under rent control, ownership is nominal—in name only.
If a tenant paid his rent on the first of the month, and three days later demanded a partial refund at gunpoint, we would recognize the tenant’s action as theft—a taking. The principle doesn’t change when the government acts as the tenant’s proxy and demands the refund up front. The fact that money isn’t physically taken from the owner doesn’t change the fact that he is deprived of property that is rightfully his—the market value for his rental property.
The authors state that landlords can’t show how rent control is a taking under any test the court might apply. Given the abundance of irrational rulings the courts, this might very well be true. But the courts are not infallible, and they have repeatedly issued rulings that defy justice. Dred Scott v. Sandford and Plessey v. Ferguson are only two examples.
Regardless what the courts may rule, rent control is a taking—it deprives a landlord of his property with no compensation.