Jan 09, 2004  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO JR.  | COMMENTS     

A bill pending before the D.C. Council that would give domestic partners the same exemption from a real estate recordation tax that married couples already enjoy will likely be expanded to include other “marital” benefits for gay and straight non-married couples, according to a Council staff member.

Jeff Coudriet, legislative assistant to Council member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), who introduced the recordation tax exemption bill, said Evans is leaning toward expanding his bill to include a tax waiver for domestic partners in the area of real property transfers and joint ownership of motor vehicles.

Coudriet said Evans also would most likely support giving domestic partners of tenants spouse-related rights or restrictions in cases involving condominium conversions and court appointed receiverships.

The D.C. Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance proposed the additional partner benefits and rights during a Dec. 10 Council hearing on Bill 15-462, the District of Columbia Deed Recordation Tax Amendment Act of 2003. Evans introduced the act in October, and all 12 of his Council colleagues signed on as co-introducers.

The bill would exempt domestic partners from having to pay an additional recordation tax when the name of one of the partners is added to the deed of trust of the other partner’s house. Under current D.C. law, the recordation tax paid by the initial purchaser of a house is waived when a homeowner later adds the name of his or her married spouse or a parent or child to the deed of the house.

The rate of the recordation tax is 1.5 percent of a home’s assessed value. The tax comes to $4,500 for a $300,000 house, something that same-sex couples should not be singled out for when straight married couples enjoy an exemption, Evans has said.

“I think he will support this,” Coudriet said, in discussing Evans’s position on GLAA’s proposal to add the additional partner provisions to the Evans recordation bill. “I feel the Council will also go along with the proposals,” Coudriet said.

According to Coudriet, Evans would likely add the GLAA proposed provisions at a mark-up hearing later this month and bring the bill up for a full Council vote as early as Feb. 3.

Slow path to marriage rights
GLAA has called on the Council and Mayor Anthony Williams to adopt same-sex marriage rights and benefits in the District on an incremental basis. The group retained gay rights attorney Mindy Daniels, a former GLAA president, to conduct a review of all city laws to determine which specific statutes or regulations could be changed to provide same-sex couples the same spousal rights and benefits enjoyed by married couples.

GLAA officials have said that, at the present time, they do not favor a bill calling for legal recognition of same-sex marriage or gay civil unions, saying Congress would step in and overturn such a bill and possibly pass its own law banning gay marriage and civil unions in D.C.

Leaders of the gay activist group have said the incremental approach is preferable, even though its results are less dramatic than a gay marriage bill.

“We have identified four sections of the D.C. Code which should be amended to include domestic partners for property tax relief and property rights,” said GLAA treasurer and former president Bob Summersgill, in testimony before the Dec. 10 Council hearing.

Evans called the hearing in his role as chair of the Council Committee on Finance & Revenue.

“In each of these sections of the code, domestic partners are currently treated as strangers instead of the intimate family members that they are,” Summersgill told the committee. “That needs to be corrected.”

In his Council testimony, Summersgill said GLAA is calling for these additional provisions to Evans’s recordation tax exemption bill:

• Section 47-1501.02 of the city’s tax code, which pertains to the transfer of real property, should be amended to give domestic partners a tax exemption on the transfer of real estate property, such as homes or condominiums. Under current law, such a tax exemption is limited to “transfers between husband and wife or parent and child.”
• Section 42-3404.02 (b)(c) of the city’s rental housing conversation and sales statute should be amended to give the domestic partner of a tenant the same right as the spouse or blood relative of a tenant. The current law gives the tenant in a building being converted into a condominium the right to buy his or her apartment. In the event that the tenant dies during the conversion process, the law gives the tenant’s spouse or child the ability to maintain the right to buy the apartment. GLAA wants to add ...