Banks v. Eastern Savings Bank

Summary

The District of Columbia Court of Appeals held that a landlord’s failure to timely serve the Rent Administrator with a copy of a notice to vacate rendered the notice defective and required reversal of the judgment for possession. The court also held that foreclosure extinguished the tenant’s pre-foreclosure lease, converted the tenant to a tenancy at will, and supported filing a lis pendens concerning that tenancy. It affirmed the denial of intervention by a purported assignee because a tenancy at will was not assignable without the landlord’s consent.

Holdings

1. A landlord must strictly comply with 14 DCMR § 4300.1's requirement to serve the Rent Administrator with a copy of a notice to vacate within five days after serving the tenant; failure to do so renders the notice defective and requires reversal of the eviction judgment.
2. A foreclosure sale extinguishes subordinate leasehold estates held under the mortgagor, and a tenant remaining in possession becomes a tenant at will of the foreclosure purchaser by operation of law. The purchaser may not obtain possession by enforcing provisions of the extinguished pre-foreclosure lease.
3. A tenancy at will is an interest in real property under the applicable lis pendens statute, so litigation concerning the existence of that tenancy may support a notice of lis pendens.
4. A tenant at will does not possess a freely assignable possessory interest; therefore, an attempted assignment by a tenant at will does not confer an interest sufficient to support intervention under Super. Ct. Civ. R. 24(a).

Questions Presented

1. Whether Eastern Savings Bank's failure to deliver a copy of the notice to vacate to the Rent Administrator within five days rendered the eviction notice defective.
2. Whether foreclosure extinguished Banks's pre-foreclosure lease and permitted the trial court to base an eviction judgment on alleged violations of that lease.
3. Whether Banks's tenancy at will constituted an interest in real property sufficient to support a lis pendens.
4. Whether Banks could intervene in the eviction action concerning the second-story unit based on an attempted assignment from another tenant at will.

Disposition

reversed_and_remanded