- 1). Find out how the rent board handles appeals in your town. Ask how much time you have after the board's initial decision to file an appeal. Also ask if there is a standard appeals form you must complete, if you must send copies to your landlord or his attorney and whether you must file in person.
- 2). Call your local government and ask to speak with an official in charge of rent control. Explain to the official that the rent control board has decided to allow your landlord to increase the rent. Ask for a copy of the town's rent control ordinance. Also ask if the official has suggestions for how you might appeal the decision.
- 3). Read the ordinance to find out what kind of rent increases are permitted. Typically, rent control laws allow either annual increases, which are automatic and go up by the same percentage each year, or hardship increases, which are based on the landlord's arguments that he will not return a profit without a rent hike.
- 4). Scrutinize the landlord's arguments if he has attempted a hardship increase. Decide if he has met the burden of proof required by law. Some towns require landlords seeking hardship increases to prove the hikes are necessary to realize a "fair rate of return." Some towns even specify the formula that must be used to make that determination. Look for evidence that the landlord or the rent board did not use the proper formula for calculating "fair rate of return."
- 5). Use the ordinance to find other mistakes committed by either the landlord or the rent board. Does the ordinance require the rent control board to hold a public hearing on a landlord's request for a hardship increase? If so, and that was not done in your case, you can argue on appeal that this procedural mishap denied you the right to register a formal complaint before the decision was made.
- 6). Consider whether your landlord's actions are prohibited by a federal program. Are you classified as a low-income tenant who receives rental assistance under the federal government's Section 8 program? If so, and the landlord wants to evict you for refusing to pay the rent increase, you can argue on appeal that he is violating a key provision of this housing policy. Section 8 landlords in certain jurisdictions cannot terminate tenancies over rent disputes.
- 7). Inform yourself of recent rent control decisions from high federal courts that side with tenants against landlords. Analyze these decisions to see if the facts and legal issues are similar to your situation. The rent board that permitted your landlord to raise the rent might not know that a federal court rejected another landlord's rent-hiking scheme for exactly the same reasons.
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