Opinion ID: 2422541
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Legislative history of the 1980 Act

Text: In this case, we think it appropriate to set forth TOPA's legislative history in some detail because, in our view, that history demonstrates beyond any doubt that the language and punctuation on which the owners rely was not intended to bring about the result which they ask us to reach. Indeed, this is one of the comparatively rare instances in which the legislative history conclusively demonstrates what the statutory language was designed to mean, and it specifically discloses how it came to pass that the commas are located where they now are. The story begins in 1979, when Bill 3-222, which was to become the RHCSA, was introduced in the Council. The initial version of the proposal set forth as follows the circumstances under which owners of housing accommodations would be required to afford tenants an opportunity to purchase: Sec. 402. Existence of Tenant Opportunity to Purchase. Before an owner of a housing accommodation may (a) sell the accommodation; (b) issue a notice of intent to recover possession for purposes of discontinuance of housing use or demolition; (c) issue a notice of intent to recover possession for purposes of conversion to condominium or cooperative form of ownership; or (d) issue a notice to vacate on account of sale, discontinuance of housing use, or demolition; the owner shall give the tenant an opportunity to purchase the accommodation at a price and terms which represent a bona fide offer of sale. Bill 3-222, § 402 (Nov. 13, 1979), appended to D.C. Council, Comm. On Hous. & Econ. Dev., Report on Bill 3-222 (May 13, 1980) (Committee Report). In subsection (d), the bill thus proposed to add, for the first time, a requirement that the tenant be afforded an opportunity to purchase when the owner issued a notice of intent to recover possession or a notice to vacate for purposes of demolition or discontinuance of housing use. The text of the bill, as introduced, unambiguously provided, in sub-section (a), that a tenant's opportunity to purchase was to apply to sales of housing accommodations. The absence of any qualification or exception in sub-section (a) demonstrates, at least in the absence of a compelling contrary showing, that the proposed bill would apply to all sales. The new demolition/discontinuance language was, however, dropped from the Committee Print version of Bill 3-222, which provided quite simply: Sec. 402. Existence of tenant opportunity to purchase. Before an owner of a housing accommodation may sell the accommodation, the owner shall give the tenant an opportunity to purchase the accommodation at a price and terms which represent a bona fide offer of sale. Bill 3-222, Comm. Print (May 13, 1980). This abbreviated text focused on the provision's central purpose  to ensure that before an owner may sell a housing accommodation, regardless of his or her reasons for doing so, the owner must give the tenant an opportunity to purchase. That central purpose was expressly confirmed in the Committee Report. [20] Neither the text nor the Report restricted in any way the sales which were to be covered. When Bill 3-222 came to the Council for its first reading, however, Councilmember John L. Ray introduced an amendment which would have reinserted the language of § 402 as originally introduced. Mr. Ray proposed that after the words may sell the accommodation, the Council insert in the Committee Print version of § 402 the words  or issue a notice of intent to recover possession or notice to vacate for purposes of demolition or discontinuance of housing use.  (Emphasis added.) If this amendment had been adopted, § 402 would have read as follows: Sec. 402 Existence of tenant opportunity to purchase. Before an owner of a housing accommodation may sell the accommodation, or issue a notice of intent to recover possession or notice to vacate for purposes of demolition or discontinuance of housing use, the owner shall give the tenant an opportunity to purchase the accommodation at a price and terms which represent a bona fide offer of sale. (Language proposed by Mr. Ray emphasized.) Councilmember Ray explained his proposed amendment as follows: What this amendment does is to reestablish that principle [from the bill as first introduced] of allowing the tenants to not only purchase the building where the owner is putting the building up for sale, but also where the owner is planning on demolishing the building or discontinuing the use of the building as housing. (Emphasis added.) The text of the proposed amendment, as well as Mr. Ray's explanation, left no doubt that the phrase for purposes of demolition or discontinuance of housing use did not restrict the words may sell the accommodation, and, indeed, that it was altogether unrelated to those words. Mr. Ray's proposed language, however, did not make it entirely clear whether the words for purposes of demolition or discontinuance of housing use modified the words issue a notice of intent to recover possession, which were not the immediately preceding antecedent. Some members of the Council were concerned that the proposed amendment, as drafted, might be construed to require an owner to accord a tenant an opportunity to purchase even if the owner proposed to occupy the unit personally. D.C. Council, Legislative Session at 109-12 (June 3, 1980). Councilmember David Clarke insisted that the point needs to be clarified. I don't think we ever meant that if a guy wanted to take the unit or a single family house or whatever, to live in it that they [sic] had to offer it for sale to the tenants before they [sic] could move into it. Id. at 111. In order to resolve any perceived ambiguity, the Council's General Counsel suggested that putting some commas around `or notice to vacate' might make it clearer that the notice of intent to recover possession refers only to such notices issued for purposes of demolition or discontinuance of housing use. Id. at 111-12. Mr. Clarke proposed, as an alternative, that the Council simply strike the words a notice of intent to recover possession because the substance of that phrase was already included in the phrase or issue a notice to vacate. Id. at 112. Ultimately, however, he accepted the commas instead. Id. To implement Mr. Ray's proposal, while still accommodating the concerns of his colleagues that an owner should be permitted to occupy his or her own accommodation without first offering to sell it to the tenant, the words . . . or issue a notice of intent to recover possession, or notice to vacate, for purposes of demolition were inserted into the revised amendment. Id. at 113-14. As the General Counsel explained: [T]hen it would be clear that the notice of intent to recover possession also is for purposes of demolition. Id. at 114. This amendment, as modified, was adopted by the Council and became § 402 of the Act. It has remained unchanged ever since. Nowhere in the Council's consideration of the proposed legislation was there any suggestion that the language relating to demolition or discontinuance of housing use, or the commas proposed by the General Counsel, would affect the applicability of the statute to all sales. The drafting history thus establishes to our satisfaction that the phrasing and punctuation of D.C.Code § 42-3404.02(a) came about because the Council intended to make it clear that only notices of intent to recover possession for purposes of demolition or discontinuance of housing use (and not notices of intent to recover possession for other purposes, such as occupancy by the owner) would trigger the tenant's opportunity to purchase. Thus, the words and the commas on which the owners rely were not placed where they are in order to limit in any way sales that would trigger tenants' rights. Indeed, no such dramatic restriction of coverage was proposed or mentioned by anybody.