A months-long rent standoff in Southwest D.C. has pushed a small landlord to the edge of foreclosure and turned a single row house into a high-stakes court battle.
Veronica Hegens, a 59-year-old retired Army major, rents out the upstairs unit of her two-unit row house through a housing voucher program. She says the unit’s prior tenant, whose rent was largely covered by a voucher, died weeks before moving out. When Hegens changed the locks on Oct. 1, 2025, the person who remained in the unit sued and secured a temporary restraining order, and the fight is now tied up in D.C. Superior Court.
Documents obtained by 7News show the housing authority issued a voucher termination notice effective Sept. 30, 2025. Hegens says the tenant died a few weeks later. She told reporters she is four months behind on her mortgage, has received a foreclosure packet from her lender, and has filed a countersuit alleging more than $13,000 in unpaid rent. She also says a winter pipe burst left the home without running water and that the Department of Buildings fined her as the property owner for not providing working plumbing.
Landlords Say The Rules Leave Them Stuck
“You don't need a lease in D.C. to establish a tenancy,” Dean Hunter, founder and CEO of the Small Multifamily Owners Association, told 7News. Hunter and other small landlords say pandemic-era protections combined with broad access to free tenant legal help have made it harder to remove occupants who stop paying. While cases crawl through the calendar, they argue, owners are still on the hook for mortgages, repairs, and code fines.
That mismatch, they say, is especially punishing for small and individual landlords, who may have just one or two units and little cushion if rent checks dry up.
Policy Shifts And A Clogged Court Calendar
The Mayor's Office has warned that unpaid rent from occupied units has ballooned and that eviction timelines have stretched, in some instances to roughly 18 months to two years. That kind of lag, officials say, can threaten mission-driven housing providers that rely on steady rent to keep affordable units afloat.
As outlined by the Mayor's Office, pandemic-era changes to the Emergency Rental Assistance Program let applications pause evictions even when assistance was not guaranteed. Guidance from the housing authority also clarifies that a voucher names an individual program participant, which does not automatically turn any other occupant into one.
Local reporting has documented large rent delinquencies and emerging foreclosures among affordable housing owners, and The Washington Post has traced how mounting unpaid rent has pushed some properties toward distress and foreclosure.
How Disputes Crawl Through Court
In D.C., landlord-tenant disputes run through the Landlord and Tenant Branch of Superior Court. Judges, mediators, and diversion programs all work to resolve possession and unpaid-rent cases, often steering them toward payment plans or settlements instead of immediate evictions.
The courts provide procedures and mediation resources, and low-income tenants can access free counsel through the Landlord Tenant Legal Assistance Network. Many small landlords, however, must pay for private attorneys out of pocket. That legal imbalance, with free representation on one side and billable hours on the other, is a frequent sore spot for smaller property owners.
D.C. Courts and the D.C. Bar publish guidance on how to file, what to expect in mediation, and where to find legal help.
For owners such as Hegens, the options are stark: push for possession through a backlogged system, try court-ordered mediation, or cut losses and sell. The city has redirected emergency money and launched stabilization efforts meant to keep affordable units out of foreclosure, but both landlords and tenant advocates say more legislative fixes and funding will be needed if the rental market is going to stabilize in a way that protects residents and small owners alike.
In the meantime, the dispute between Hegens and the remaining occupant is a live case study in how policy tweaks and court delays collide on the ground. Bisnow has detailed the broader scale of delinquencies and the mounting threat to long-term affordability covenants across the city.
