Code-Enforcement Relocation Reimbursement

Conn. Gen. Stat. § 8-270a (with §§ 8-268 and 8-270)

Under Connecticut's Uniform Relocation Assistance Act, when a tenant is displaced from a dwelling unit by a municipality's enforcement of an applicable housing or building code, the landlord is liable to repay the relocation payments the town, city, borough, or state made to the displaced tenant; the municipality or state may secure that reimbursement by placing a lien on the landlord's real property (with the same priority and filing/enforcement/discharge procedures as a municipal tax lien), under Conn. Gen. Stat. §§ 8-268(a) and 8-270(a). Section 8-270a separately authorizes the town, city, borough, or state to bring a civil action in superior court against the landlord to recover such payments plus costs and reasonable attorney's fees, and provides the landlord an affirmative defense in that action that the displacement was not the result of the landlord's violation of § 47a-7 (the landlord's habitability duties); per the Connecticut Supreme Court in PPC Realty, LLC v. Hartford (2024), that affirmative defense applies only to the civil action and does not bar imposition of the lien.