I am a renter in the District of Columbia. The buzz in the neighborhood is that if my landlord isn't licensed to rent the house, our past leases are not valid and I can get back all my past rent.

Is that correct?

Is he a bad landlord ?

Have you moved out yet?

Why would you want to do this, did you not live there and get a benefit ?

DC already has some of the worst laws on the books for landords... next to NYC. Why anyone would rent their property out in DC is beyond me.

Sounds to me like you hang around with people who take advantage of others... looking for a free ride every chance they get.

Word of warning... you NEED a recent landlords referral, I know if I was still in the landlord business... no current refferal no rental. And yeah... I would check up on it too. If you even acuused me of that, and never proved it... you kissed a positve reffferal goodbye, no matter how nice you were when you was there.

And that would limit your choices... away from the nicer ones.

No its not correct. Since you received value for your rent, you can't recover it. If the landlord doesn't have a license they can simply pay the fee and get one.

http://dcist.com/2008/08/is_your_landlord_licensed_to_do_bus.php