The Plaintiff: Tom the Landlord, who is seeking to evict his tenant over $850 of unpaid rent.
The Defendant: Vera the Tenant, who admits falling behind on rent, but says she shouldn’t
lose her home for it.
We’ll hear their stories and see what the judge has to say on Eviction Court: Two Cents edition!
A landlord can’t just kick a tenant out on a whim…
They need to get the OK from the state, and the way they do that is through a civil process
known as eviction, or “summary ejection.”
A landmark study by Princeton sociologist Matthew Desmond estimated that there are almost
a million evictions a year in America.
That’s 1 out of every 17 renter households.
There are many different reasons a landlord can seek eviction, from lease violations to
criminal activity to just wanting to sell the house.
But the vast majority are over unpaid rent.
Vera's story is sadly familiar these days.
She was working two jobs, in retail and food service, and when the pandemic struck, both
businesses closed their doors.
She managed to stay afloat with the increased unemployment benefits from the CARES Act…
until they expired in July.
Her restaurant reopened shortly afterwards, but with drastically shortened hours.
With less than half the income she used to have, she started to fall behind, and only
ten days after she failed to pay her rent on time, she found an eviction notice taped
to her door.
There’s an assumption that you have to be deep in debt to get evicted, but that’s
actually quite rare.
According to The Eviction Lab, the average amount that triggers an eviction lawsuit is
less than one month’s rent.
If Vera can’t pay her debt within a few days, she’ll be summoned to court at a specific
date and time.
She’ll have one last chance to pay her debts in full, plus late charges and legal fees,
or the court will order a sheriff to remove her from the property.
Most defendants are highly motivated to pay the money, if they can.
They’re probably already living in the most affordable unit they could find, and moving
into a new place means putting down a security deposit they almost certainly don’t have.
And that’s assuming they’d get approved.
Most landlords won’t even consider a tenant with an eviction on their record.
This leverage creates a temptation for landlords to use the eviction system as a kind of state-sponsored
debt collections agency, instead of a last resort.
Depending on the state, filing an eviction lawsuit can be pretty cheap.
There are even automated apps that streamline the process.
And the added fees mean extra profit for the landlord.
This has led to a pattern of serial evictions, where the same tenants are hauled into court
month after month, often paying more than 20% extra on their rent every time they fall
behind.
So, there’s definitely potential for landlords to abuse the system, but at least the government
stepped in this year to put a hold on evictions during the COVID crisis.
Yes, the CDC announced a federal moratorium on evictions until at least the end of the
year, because, y’know, it’s hard to quarantine without a home.
But there are some conditions.
It only applies to tenants making less than 100 grand a year, and the tenant must declare
in writing that they experienced a loss of income from COVID, that they have nowhere
else to go, and that they tried their best to find financial assistance.
The moratorium doesn’t mean that Vera’s rent is forgiven--only that she can’t be
removed from the premises until 2021.
Her landlord is still free to bring her to court before then, where he can contest her
claims, change his pretext to something not covered by the moratorium, like lease violations,
or just hope the tenant hasn’t heard about the moratorium and will leave on her own.
Tom the Landlord has opted to challenge Vera’s declaration, which may sound cold-hearted,
but let’s take a closer look at his side of the story...
10 years ago, after an injury left Tom unable to keep working as a plumber, he decided to
use his savings as a down payment on two rental properties and become a full-time landlord.
Unfortunately, the job turned out to be a bit harder than he anticipated.
Like many “mom-n-pop” real-estate investors, the rent Tom collects from his tenants barely
covers his mortgages, property taxes, upkeep and personal living expenses.
But, he figures that the increase in home values will at least allow him to sell the
properties in 20 years for enough to retire on.
And then along came COVID.
Landlord associations across the country are mounting legal challenges to the CDC’s moratorium,
arguing that it essentially forces property owners to subsidize their tenant’s housing.
The CARES Act provided some relief for owners, allowing them to defer their mortgage payments
for 6-12 months without incurring late fees, but like the tenants, those debts aren’t
forgiven.
When the forbearance period ends, Tom will have to figure out how to pay everything he
owes or risk losing his properties.
Tom’s done the math, and he just can’t afford to rack up months of mortgage debt
without any rental income.
As bad as he might feel for Vera, he doesn’t think he should be the one to pay for her
problems.
So his lawyer makes the argument that Vera hasn’t adequately searched for rental assistance
programs, and therefore doesn’t qualify for the moratorium.
We’d like to say that Vera brought evidence of her applications to numerous government
housing grants that had already run dry, and that the judge summarily dismissed the eviction
lawsuit.
Case closed!
But let’s get real.
The majority of people who find themselves in this situation don’t have the time or
information to mount a thorough defense.
They can’t afford to bring lawyers with them.
Many aren’t even aware of their rights, and most don’t show up to court at all,
meaning the landlord wins by default.
And even though “mom and pop” landlords like Tom are getting hit hard by the pandemic,
reports suggest that the majority of eviction lawsuits are actually filed by large corporate
landlords, owned by investment firms and hedge funds that are better able to weather the storm.
These firms have been somewhat restrained by the moratorium, but they’re already preparing
suits to evict thousands of tenants as soon as the clock runs out.
I suppose we could just blame the pandemic, but unfortunately, the eviction crisis began
well before COVID came along.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, hourly wages have increased only 5 to 25 percent
over the last couple decades, while the cost of renting has skyrocketed by 70 percent.
While the number of rental units in America has increased by 10.9 million, the number
of units for $600 or less in inflation-adjusted dollars has decreased by 4 million.
Essentially, all our new units are for high-income renters, while low-income renters have vastly
fewer options to choose from.
Today, the majority of renters who make less than $30K a year are spending over half their
income on rent.
So, if we’re looking for root causes of America’s eviction epidemic, a lot of the
blame goes to our lack of affordable housing.
This is no easy problem to fix, with Congress unable to agree on how to address it, and
local communities opposed to any low-income development in their neighborhoods.
It’s a cold fact of capitalism that real-estate developers can make more money building homes
for rich people than poor people, so that’s what they’ll continue to do.
But the costs get shifted to the public.
States spend money processing eviction suits, landlords have to find new tenants, cities
have to expand social services and homeless facilities, and of course, families are losing
their homes, and with them, their ability to find work.
All over debts that are usually less than $1000.
As with most systemic problems, looking for blame is less productive than looking for
solutions.
As Clemson professor Elora Raymond put it, “...is it the tenant’s fault… is it
the landlord’s fault?
...I think it doesn’t really matter.
Because this doesn’t work.”
And that’s our two cents.
If you’re caught in a legal jam because of unpaid rent or debts, there are organizations
that can help.
Check out our video guide to dealing with debt collectors to learn more!