Tenants

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development may allow five families to stay in a Westminster apartment complex owned by city Councilman Stephen R. Chapin Sr. if moving would be a hardship for them, an official said last week.The city has asked HUD to allow the tenants -- three of them elderly women -- to stay even though it poses a conflict of interest for the city.The five families receive help paying their rent from HUD under the Section 8 subsidy program. HUD rules say that the mayor and city council members cannot receive HUD money for rental properties while they are in office and for one year after they leave office.

Fed up with the collapsing ceilings, broken elevator and pools of water in the lobby, the Rev. Steven Jeter hoped the city of Baltimore would resurrect his once-elegant apartment complex on North Charles Street.But his faith in the management company hired by the city to restore the long-neglected Queen Anne Belvedere Apartments has been tested.In the six weeks since the city foreclosed on the converted turn-of-the-century rowhouses, from 1204 to 1301 N. Charles St., Mr. Jeter and other tenants have complained that repairs are slow and sloppy.

Yielding to an outcry from angry tenants, Baltimore Housing Commissioner Daniel P. Henson III has abandoned a pioneering proposal to require those who rent the city's 18,000 public housing apartments to do community work.Instead of making volunteer duties a condition to live in public housing, Mr. Henson has revised the lease to include a section that "encourages" tenants to mow lawns, tutor children or participate in other neighborhood activities."It's no longer mandatory," Mr. Henson said yesterday.

The City Council approved new leases last night for food merchants at the Markethouse at the City Dock in Annapolis that would raise some tenants' rents and leave others with shorter leases than they bargained for.In other action last night, the council granted a one-year lease to Eastport Seafood Corp. to run the now-abandoned McNasby's Oyster Co.The council also halved the hourly parking rate for all 600 city meters until March and passed an ordinance for free downtown parking during Christmas week.

Q: I recently moved my 85-year-old father from his home because he wasn't able to keep it up. It's still his home, and he won't consider selling, so rather than leave it empty, I had some repairs done and rented it out.Though I currently have seemingly good tenants, I've been told horror stories about renting. Could you advise me whom to contact regarding landlord rights? I would like some direction without having to pay a lawyer.A: Tenancy laws and landlord rights, as well as the procedures relating to them, vary from state to state.

Q: My wife and I own our house as tenants by the entireties. If one of us die, do we need a new deed to give title to the remaining spouse? Also, does the title of the house have to pass through the estate of the spouse who dies first?C. Bateman, LuthervilleA: One of the most important features of owning your house as tenants by the entireties or as joint tenants, if you are not married, is the right of the surviving spouse or surviving joint tenants to acquire automatically the interest of the deceased spouse or joint tenant.

Tenants who say they were duped into paying late-rent fees of more than $100 a month have filed a class-action suit against a Bethesda limited partnership that operates hundreds of apartments in Maryland, including a 300-unit complex in Baltimore.Lawyers for the Public Justice Center, a nonprofit public-interest law firm, claim that Monocle Management is violating tenants' rights and consumer-protection laws with a "rent-incentive program" that attracts low-income residents with deceptive advertising.

A federal judge asked yesterday that lawyers for the city and residents of the Uplands Apartments report back to her in a week on efforts to relocate the dozen or so remaining tenants at a mostly vacant, 979-unit Southwest Baltimore complex slated for demolition and redevelopment. "It is inevitable that people have got to move out of those places," U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake said. "We would like it to happen in the best way possible." The city, noting safety concerns in the deteriorating complex, had given residents until yesterday to move.

The Maryland Stadium Authority, which spent $11 million in 1991 to acquire the B&O Warehouse as part of Oriole Park at Camden Yards, plans to spend nearly that much to prepare the southern end for office tenants.Authority board members voted earlier this month to proceed with a $10.5 million plan to renovate the southern end of the eight-story warehouse, vacant since the ballpark's opening in 1992.The state's goal is to fill the warehouse with tenants such as Waverly Inc., the publishing company that wants to move its dTC headquarters from Mount Royal Avenue to Camden Yards by next January, and to use money generated by the leases to help repay the construction bonds for the ballpark.

The Housing Authority of Baltimore City has begun using a new tenant selection process, but the effects won't be felt until late this month or early next month, according to agency officials.Under the new policy, applicants who are homeless, living in substandard housing or paying a high percentage of their income for rent no longer will get an automatic preference.Bruce Smith, an agency official, said a new selection list is being generated. But because of the time it takes to process applications, those picked won't move into public housing until late this month or early next month.