New-York tribune., 1922-04-10
Miller Expected
ToSignHousin,g
Bills at Once
Those Opposed to Measures
Will Have Final Hearing
To-day; One of Nine.
Acts Already Is Law
Fight Rent Amendment
Untcrmyer and Lockwood
10 Defend Legislation;
Other Speakers Unnamed
From q stan r'or,-rSroudcut

ALBANY. April o.-Govcrnor Mil
Ter VIII sign all Of the eight housing
bills to be placed before him. accord
ing to confident belief of those who
have furthered the legislation.
Those opposed to the bills will have
last audience with Governor Miller
tomorrow at noon. The Governor al
ready has signed one Of the nine Lock
wood committee bills, which gives
friends of the various housing meas
ures confidence that hc will promptly
sign them also
Samuel Untermyer. counsel to the
committee, and Senator Charles G..
Lockwood, its chairman, Will make the
principal speeches in defense Of the
measures at tomorrow hearing. Who
Will lead the opposition was not known
here Tonight
Include Rent Iaws
The housing bills still before the
Governor extend the rent laws to
February 10. 1924; permit mutual in
surance companies to write the same
lines as stock companies; place insur
ance rate-makng bureaus under the
jurisdiction of the Superintendent Of
Insurance; forbid lnutuals from CON
verting themselves into stock insur-
ance companies. thus preventing the
insiders from pocketing the huge sur
pluses; provide for the return Of jury
fees to tenants in untried cases; per-
NIT New York City to avail itself Of
the sub-contracts where the principal
contractor abandons work under n con-
tract: permit insurance companies to
invest up to 10 per cent of their as
sets in apartments where the monthly
net rental shall not exceed 50 per
room: amend generally the so-callcd
anti-rent gouging law.
This last measure is the one which
has been fought hardest by the land
lords. The law it affects permits a
tenant to set up a special defense of
unreasonableness. The measure amend
ing this act adds six news full-grown
teeth to the statute.
device of the rent gougers for check
mating the law. This provides that n
tenant may avail himself of the un-
just and unrea sonable clause each year
of his lease unless he pays three
months rent in three monthly install
ments at the beginning of each year
at the time due. Some landlords here
tofore got around this law by compel
ing the tenant to pay three months
rent in advance, thus nullifying the
law. This change will affect thou
sands Of existing leases.
Provides 30-Day Notice
Next in Importance is an amendment
intended to stop the landlords from
blackiacking tenants into meeting their
extortionate prices by baling them into
courts. The correction of this is
clause providing that where land
lcrd sues for an increase in rent and
loses his case, costs shall be awarded
to the tenant.
Another new section requires land
lord to give thirty days notice for All
increase in rent; still another pro-
vides that an action brought in
wrong county by the landlord must be
dismissed with costs against the land
lcrd; and the last clarifies some com
paratively unimportant language of
the present law which had caused some
confusion.
The signing the bill permitting in
surance companies to invest up to 10
per cent Of their assets in low-priceo
apartm ents during the housing short
age will be taken advantage Of at once
by the Metropolitan Life Insurance
Company. which has pledged itself to
place s10O,oo0,ooo in these apartments.