The RENTAL Amendment Act of 2025: What Every DC Landlord Needs to Know

On November 13, 2025, Mayor Bowser signed the Rebalancing Expectations for Neighbors, Tenants, and Landlords (RENTAL) Amendment Act of 2025 — enacted as D.C. Act 26-199 (Bill 26-164). For DC housing providers, it is the most consequential change to the Rental Housing Act of 1985, the eviction statutes, and the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA) in more than a decade.

The headline: after years of rules that pushed almost entirely in the tenant's direction, the District has restored several tools landlords lost — a much faster nonpayment notice, a mechanism to get rent paid into the court registry while a case is pending, an expedited path to remove tenants involved in violent crime, and a sweeping overhaul of TOPA that finally exempts new construction. This post walks through every title of the Act at a high level. We go deeper on each one in the linked articles.

Title I — Public safety evictions and a shorter nonpayment notice

Two changes here matter to almost every landlord:

• The nonpayment pre-filing notice drops from 30 days to 10 days. Before you can file a nonpayment case, DC used to require a 30-day notice to cure or vacate. The Act cuts that to at least 10 days — and adds a specific service method (certified mail or a tracked delivery service, *plus* hand delivery or posting on the door). We cover the mechanics in Serving a nonpayment notice in DC correctly.
• A faster track for dangerous crime and crimes of violence. Where a court determines that a tenant or occupant committed a dangerous crime or crime of violence in the unit, the landlord serves a 10-day notice to vacate and the court holds an expedited hearing within 20 days. Read Public-safety evictions under the RENTAL Act.

The Act also softens the old rule that a court "shall dismiss" a defective complaint — courts now "may, in their discretion" dismiss or let the landlord correct the deficiency.

Title II — Court eviction procedures and rent into the registry

The single most requested reform by DC housing providers is finally here: a protective order that requires the tenant to deposit ongoing rent into the court registry while a nonpayment case is litigated (new § 16-1502a). No more watching arrears balloon for months while a case winds through court. The summons period also becomes "at least 14 days," and courts get discretion not to dismiss cases over technical defects. Full detail in Court registry rent deposits.

Title III — TOPA reform (the big one for sellers)

TOPA — the law that gives tenants a right of first refusal when you sell — was reorganized top to bottom. The most important change for owners:

• New construction is exempt for 15 years. A sale of a building that received its certificate of occupancy within the prior 15 years is no longer a TOPA "sale." See The 15-year new-construction exemption.
• Non-controlling investors can enter and exit without triggering TOPA, so bringing in a minority LIHTC investor no longer starts the clock.
• A new Notice of Transfer regime, certified tenant support providers, qualified purchasers, a public transparency portal, and new anti-interference rules. Start with TOPA's Notice of Transfer rules and Selling a DC rental under the new TOPA rules.

Titles IV–VII — LIHTC, Inclusionary Zoning, DCHA, and effective dates

The Act also clarifies the DC Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program, makes it easier to resell Inclusionary Zoning units, and restructures the DC Housing Authority board — including, for the first time, a seat reserved for someone who has held a housing voucher, plus new protections when public housing subsidies are repositioned. Voucher owners should read The new DCHA board seat for a voucher holder and Public housing repositioning and the right to return.

The Act took effect following mayoral approval and the standard 30-day period of Congressional review, with a handful of provisions phased in as their fiscal effect is funded. Confirm the exact applicability date of any specific provision before you rely on it.

What this means for voucher landlords

If you rent to Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) tenants, three of these changes are directly useful: the faster nonpayment notice and court-registry deposit make collecting the tenant's portion far less painful, the public-safety track gives you a real remedy for a genuinely dangerous occupant, and the DCHA governance changes give voucher owners a voice they didn't have. We break it all down in How the RENTAL Act affects DC voucher landlords.

The bottom line

The RENTAL Act doesn't turn DC into a landlord-friendly jurisdiction overnight — tenant protections around retaliation, source-of-income discrimination, and habitability are all intact. But it removes several of the sharpest edges that made DC rentals hard to operate, especially for small owners and voucher landlords. The owners who benefit most will be the ones who update their notice templates, lease language, and sale playbooks *now* — before their next nonpayment case or listing.