Opinion ID: 1540617
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Passage of The Clarification Act

Text: In December 1988, the District of Columbia filed in Superior Court its initial complaint against GWU and the Owners. The West End Tenants Association (Tenants) and individual tenants subsequently moved to intervene in the action and were granted intervenor status on July 14, 1989. In the interim, following protests from neighborhood groups and the Tenants, the Council Committee on Consumer and Regulatory Affairs proposed amending the Sale Act. As a result of a committee-sponsored roundtable conference, the Chairman of the Committee on Consumer and Regulatory Affairs introduced Bill 8-188, the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Clarification Amendment Act of 1989 on February 28, 1989. That bill was approved on August 1, 1989, and became law on October 19, 1989. See 36 D.C.Reg. 5790-92 (1989). [10] The Clarification Act, in D.C.Code § 45-1631(b) (1990 Repl.), defines sale in a manner that unmistakably mirrored the Master Lease involved in this litigation which was then pending before the trial court, i.e., to include all agreements by which an owner relinquishes control of property, gives the party in control an option to purchase with interim payments to be applied to the purchase price; obligates the controlling party to pay taxes and insurance coverage; and allows the controlling party to purchase ownership interests in the property. At the specific request of counsel for appellants, the amendment provided that it would apply retroactively to the sale of a rental housing accommodation occurring after June 23, 1988. See Section 3 of 36 D.C.Reg. 5791 (1989) (slightly more than one month before the Master Lease was executed). [11] On September 1, 1989, GWU and the Owners filed a motion for preliminary injunction to bar the District of Columbia from enforcing the Clarification Act with respect to the Lease Agreement. GWU and the Owners subsequently withdrew this motion on October 2, 1989, upon the representation by the District of Columbia that no criminal penalties would be pursued outside this litigation. The parties on the same date stipulated that the District of Columbia could file an amended complaint to include a count under the Housing Conversion and Sale Act of 1980, as amended, D.C.Code § 45-1601 et seq. as amended in turn by the clarifying amendments of 1989, and that the appellees could file a counterclaim to that count. Those pleadings were subsequently filed. In June, 1990, all parties filed summary judgment motions. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of GWU and the Owners and denied the motions of the District of Columbia and the Tenants.