Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: Good morning again. This is the House Appropriations Committee. It's Thursday, 03/12/2026, 10:10 a. M. We're back to talk about the landlord tenant bill, age seven seventy two. As I mentioned, we're going hear from legislative counsel first, and then our joint fiscal office, and then we'll hear from the chair of the committee and reporter of

[Michael Mrowicki, Member]: the

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: bill about it as well. And what I want you to know is that there's a good portion of this that relates to judiciary. And so the House Judiciary Committee, who is not taking possession of the bill, is working on that, and we will have an amendment to that part of it. So what you'll see today in that section, even though we go over it, a bunch of it is going to change. I spoke with the chair yesterday. They've taken some testimony. He's still going to be talking to the court administrator. His plan at this point is to come in and talk to us on Wednesday morning about that section. So what we hear, listen to it. You don't have to absorb all of the judiciary part, but I felt this was important that if we hear the bill, have time to think about it, ask questions, learn more, and at least understand all the rest of it as best we can before we come back and hear about the judiciary side of it. So we will not be voting on this bill this week. It'll be sometime next. Okay. Then we'll see where we go from there. All right. So I'm going to turn it over to Cameron from Legislative Council.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Morning. Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Council. I'm just trying to do better to share my screen. Okay, what I am looking at is seven seventy two, the report that came out of the Committee on General and Housing, so the recommendation from that committee.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: Is that draft 4.1? Yes, ma'am.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Okay. And so as you mentioned, this has also been a lot of discussion in the judiciary committee as well. And they were reviewing a proposed amendment to this report just yesterday afternoon. And I'd be happy to have any comments or try to briefly discuss that as well if the committee would like. But for now, I'll just kind of keep to this report as it came out of the General and Housing Committee. Given your time and given the depth of this bill, I'm going to just walk through the sections and mention what each section does. And I'm not going to do a line by line review, if that's Okay. That's perfect.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: We'll getting more of the high levels.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Perfect. Okay. So the bill deals with the landlord tenant relationship. And there are two things to keep in mind. First, you have in Title IX a chapter about residential rental agreements, which governs the agreements between landlord and tenant, obligations of tenants, obligations of landlords. But then it also addresses what happens when you need to terminate the rental agreement between those two parties. And it talks about what is the time frame which the landlord has to provide notice to a tenant if the landlord is going to terminate the agreement. Now, there's a lot of changes in the residential rental agreement chapter that I'll walk through, but a lot of them deal with this termination notice period, and both shortening in some instances and lengthening in others, the period that has to be provided to the tenant if the landlord terminates. Next, we go to there are changes regarding ejectments. And so you have a residential rental agreement that gets terminated. But what happens if the tenant remains in the location after the date of termination of the rental agreement? The landlord then has to bring an ejectment action in court to then receive writ what's called a writ of possession to then have that individual potentially removed from the property. And so a lot of the bill addresses the first piece, the rental agreement between the landlord and the tenant. And then there's another pretty large section of the bill or chunk of the bill that deals with the ejectment process. And then at the very end, there's a section about a credit reporting program. So I'm just trying to bucket your thoughts right out of gate.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: Okay. Did you have a question later?

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Is there any big difference in the ejectment process between what it is now and what this is? There is a proposal in this bill to create a new subchapter with a new ejectment process for certain ejectments, so ejectments based on a limited type of termination. And I would say I think the intent or the goal is to try to make that a faster process.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: We'll get to that in the second bucket. Okay.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So the first piece here is dealing, as I said, with the residential rental agreements. We have some changes to the definition of actual notice. So in order to move forward with a termination, landlord has to provide actual notice to the tenant. And so there's some alterations to what the definition of actual notice means. It would authorize delivery from sheriff service. It would authorize the notice to be emailed and mailed. So currently, it has to be either hand delivered or mailed. This is saying you could do it by sheriff service. You can mail it and email it. And then moving to the top of page two, it's saying, if the last known address is unknown, then you can post it to the door of the dwelling unit. And then it's altering there is a presumption that's created that an individual receives the notice three days after it is mailed. And there's some alteration there to extend that to five days after it's mailed. There was some concern about the current postal service and delays, etcetera. So there is an extension of that date from three to five. And as you're adding the ability to email and you're adding the ability to post it to the door, you're adding those two things into the presumption as well. There's a definition of immediate family, and I'm not going to walk this line by line. I'm going to somewhat pass over it and come back to it later on, because it has an impact when it comes to a termination for a specific reason if you want an immediate family member to take over the apartment or the location. So there's a definition of immediate family being added here. And I'll just comment, it's pretty expansive, definition. Okay. So then a few additions or alterations to the residential rental agreements subchapter. The first one is regarding rent increases. So we're moving to page three. This is saying that a landlord cannot increase rent more than once in a twelve month period. That shall not prohibit a landlord from increasing rent after the purchase of a dwelling unit. So if you're a landlord and you continuously own the property, you can only raise rent once in any twelve month period. However, if you purchase a building, so now your new landlord, even if that previous landlord had raised rents within that twelve month period prior, you can raise rent at that point when you purchase the building. Then we get to residential rental applications. So current statute says that a a landlord cannot charge an application fee in order to submit a residential rental application. That term is not defined. So there's been a lot of discussion in the committee about, well, what is an application fee? Does that include background checks or credit checks? And there's been concern about landlords charging fees, even though the statute prohibits it. So there's some language here to expand on this section. Application fee means any fee, charge, or cost to submit the application, including a processing payment. And then in the sub three, it states that the landlord may charge actual costs to conduct a background or a credit check unless the tenant provides the current provides a current credit report, and then they cannot charge for that. And then the current credit report is within ninety days prior to the application. So if you provide them a copy of the credit report that has been pulled within ninety days before you apply, you can't charge for it. If the landlord charges for the background or the credit check, then the landlord has to give a copy to the tenant. And then the last piece here

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: Yeah, good question. So I understand that it can cost anywhere between $1 and $40 for a credit check. I don't know what a background check costs, but if they charge for it, do they have to actually produce the receipt so that they're not charged $40 for something about $50

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: There's nothing in the statute or the new language that would require the landlord to provide to the tenant what the actual cost was. It just says they can only charge for the actual cost. I think a key thing here is this new subsection C, which makes violations of that section an unfair practice in commerce. And so that gives the attorney general or a state's attorney the authority to investigate. It also gives a private right of action to an individual who has been harmed. So if there was a concern or there was frequent complaint to the attorney general's office that a landlord is overcharging or charging and not conducting the background check, the attorney general's office could investigate it at that point. But the direct answer to your question is

[Mark Mihaly, Chair, House Committee on General and Housing]: no Yes, do.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: There is no receipt that has to be Yes.

[Eileen "Lynn" Dickinson, Member]: Thank you. When you do a credit check or a background check, it doesn't say anything about permission from the tenant. Is that required?

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: There is language that was added last year that talks about what a landlord can and cannot ask for from the tenant in order to conduct a background check. The landlord can request a government issued identification, a social security number, or the individual's taxpayer identification number if the individual doesn't have a social security number. But the tenant isn't obligated to give any of them. They can give one of them. So what I mean by that is if you, tenant, don't want to give the land of your social security number, you're not required to. You can give them your ID, and then they would have to do the background check based on that identification.

[Eileen "Lynn" Dickinson, Member]: How do you do that for that social security number?

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: The committee took testimony that it is possible to do a background check with name, personal last name, last known address. It may not be as complete. It may not be as comprehensive as doing a background check or a credit check based on a social security number, but it is at least possible to do that. Yes. Okay. Thank you.

[Mark Mihaly, Chair, House Committee on General and Housing]: Oh, Tom.

[Michael Mrowicki, Member]: And under this the way this is written this is separating out an application fee from a background credit check. It's not a background check or a credit check part of the application, a requirement per application?

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I think it could be.

[Michael Mrowicki, Member]: I mean if there's if I'm going for instance that agent or that landlord is going to require me to fill out an application which is fine but if it's a requirement to have a background check or a credit check is that not part of an application Should that not be considered or can that not be considered part of the application? Think that's a

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: question under the current statute like the current statutory language just says that a landlord shall not charge an application fee. And there was conversation among the committee members about, if you're charging for a background check or a credit check, isn't that just part of the application? Exactly the question that you're asking, sir. And the decision of the committee with this language was to say, we are going to not consider those two things an application fee. So a landlord can charge for that at the point of application or application. Charge a separate application fee just for filling out the application. Correct. So you could say, here's the application. I'm going to run a credit and background check for you, and it costs this much to do so. And your application won't be considered unless you pay for it.

[Eileen "Lynn" Dickinson, Member]: It says may charge actual cost to conduct a background check. It doesn't say you have to charge for background credit check. Says May.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: It's a May not a show. Yes. But nevertheless.

[Eileen "Lynn" Dickinson, Member]: May, do it as a landlord without charging anybody anything. Just do it. Just get the permission or get the name or the

[Michael Mrowicki, Member]: information. No, I understand that. Nevertheless, if it's a requirement of mean, I'm not expressing an opinion, I'm just asking the question, but that is really a deep rub, which is if it's a requirement and a fee is charged, again it has been considered an application fee. What you're saying is that the committee chose to split a hair here in verbiage.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I would say, yes, sir. They've determined that to charge for a background or a credit check is not an application fee under this language. It's not explicit in the language. So if someone was to go to court, a judge could interpret that in a different way, right? Interpret what a different way? You could write into that language explicitly that you could put language in for that. And if you leave it silent right now in the court of law, a judge might make a different decision. I think the language written is pretty clear. It's a policy question of whether you want to authorize a landlord to charge for something like a background or a credit check. And if you don't, if you think that that could be a barrier to individuals to applying, then you could take out the sub three, and you could say in the sub two, as used in a section, an application fee means any fee charge or cost, including background check or credit check. I'm not suggesting any changes. I'm just suggesting that it might be clearer if you specifically said that this is not part of the application.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: I think it's it's probably a question of semantics, and this is the legal language that does it. He's our lawyer.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yeah, I think the language is Okay. I mean, you have the prohibition. We're defining what an application fee means. But then within the same subsection, we're saying that landlord can't charge this. So you're given the legal authorization for them to do so. I understand.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: We understand you might have written it differently.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: See, I'm looking at the flip side, say they charged the fee for billing something and went to court and said this guy shouldn't have charged that fee because it was part of the application fee. And then the judge would look at this language and he'd decide whether it was or not, what's not part of the application fee Because it's not explicit, he could rule what it was. But I think it is explicit because the sub three. A judge is going to look at it and say, a landlord may charge actual costs to do it. So you've given specific statutory authorization for them to do so.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: We We are going to need to move on. For us to understand it, we don't have all data even

[Mark Mihaly, Chair, House Committee on General and Housing]: though we could. So let's Okay.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I'm going to move you to page four. The next section is in security deposits. And what this would do is put a cap, a statutory cap, on what a landlord can charge for a security deposit at an amount of two months rent in addition to the first month paid. Currently, there is no statutory cap, so a landlord can charge whatever the landlord wants for security deposit. So this will put a two month cap on that. And then the sub three is saying that separate from that two month cap, a landlord can charge a separate security deposit in order to allow a tenant to have

[Michael Mrowicki, Member]: a pet. But a landlord shall not charge

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: any amount for an animal that mitigates a disability. So you can charge a separate security deposit for that deposit. Then moving into the sub two down here, what this section subdivision is saying is, if a landlord is there's this concept that is floated around. It's not necessarily written in this language, but there's this concept that termination can be based on two things. It can be based on cause if the tenant is giving cause to terminate. The tenant's not paying rent. The tenant's breaching the terms of the rental agreement, etcetera. Or a landlord can terminate based on things like the lease expired, the lease is up, and I don't wanna renew. Right? Things that are not really within the control of the tenant, they're more in control of the landlord. What this section is saying is if the landlord is going to terminate for one of the latter reasons, so it's not for cause, it's not because the the tenant has done something, it's because the landlord is choosing not to renew the rental agreement or because the landlord needs to terminate because they're repurposing the building or or I'll get to the language here in a second, then the landlord has to give half of the security deposit back to the tenant forty five days before the termination notice. So essentially, what this means is if you're not renewing the rental agreement with the individual, you have to provide the individual later on down the road. It's extended to ninety days. The statute, recommendation, extends it to ninety days notice. At the forty five day mark, you have to give that individual half of their security deposit back.

[Eileen "Lynn" Dickinson, Member]: Okay.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Let's see. We're moving to the next section, retaliatory conduct prohibited. So this is a prohibition on conduct of the landlord. The landlord can't retaliate against a tenant for things that does, such as complaining of health and safety violations, etcetera. You can't retaliate against a tenant for doing that. Then there's language here adding that the tenant has taken any legal action authorized by law against the landlord. This was to address concerns where the landlord may be harassing or threatening the tenant directly. And if the tenant goes and files a police report associated with that or something in that that regard, then the landlord can't retaliate against the individual by terminating the rental agreement. Moving on to the next section, which is on page seven. Okay, we're on the termination of tenancy. So this is where a lot of the changes are. As I mentioned in the very beginning, you have the requirement of a landlord to terminate a rental agreement before you even get to bring the an ejectment action, you have to terminate the agreement with the tenant. And that's what this 4,467, this section is dealing with. What are the notice periods required for termination of a rental agreement based on what scenarios exist. And so what sub a is, is as it is right there in the heading on line five, termination for nonpayment of rent. If the landlord's terminating for nonpayment of rent, the proposal here is to shorten that notice period from fourteen days to ten days. Moving to the next section. Yes, question. Two questions. Ten business days or ten calendar days? It will be calendar days.

[Michael Mrowicki, Member]: And this is for a rentable agreement. There's the real world situation tends to be there's very limited number of leases that are done or a lot of cases where a lease is signed for a primary year and then in years following months and years following it tends to be a verbal lease. Under a verbal lease do tenants know? Like I can go look at a contract but in year two that contract that's written is not really it's not written so it's not viable because there might be an different I mean verbal agreement isn't as complete as a contract so are we talking about both leases and handshake rental agreements here?

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Sir. So to to the to the point there, there's nothing in the statute that requires a written rental agreement to be in writing. So I think the scenario you've outlined is probably very frequent where begin a rental agreement with the landlord, and the first twelve months is in writing. And then subsequently, nobody bothers to renew the written agreement. And then you go to month to month, essentially, is conceptually how that would work. But it's not required to be in writing. So you could begin the rental agreement based on a verbal handshake. And the sub A here would apply to either of those scenarios. If you've agreed to a rent amount on a day, then the question would become, if you're going to terminate the rental agreement because the individual has failed to pay on the day that has agreed, if you have the written agreement, you can all point to it and say, we agreed to it. Here's what it is. It's less ambiguous. But in a verbal agreement, the parties would have to prove that in court. So can you clarify then the ninety days notice on a month to month lease?

[Michael Mrowicki, Member]: There's a disconnect between those two things that it makes perfect sense on a contract that has a date certain to end. But can you just explain to us the legal reasonings of ninety six thirty six ninety days when there's a

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: month to month lease? So currently, the way the statutory framework is structured, there are separate subsections that deal with, do you have a written rental agreement? Do you not have a written rental agreement? The next question is, have you been there for two years or less, or have you been there for more than two years? And the termination notice periods currently is going to be dependent on those two questions. If you have a written rental agreement and you've lived there for less than two years, you have to provide thirty days notice before the end of the written rental agreement term if you're going to terminate at that point. If you've been there for greater than two years, you have to provide sixty days notice before the end of the rental agreement term. If there is no written rental agreement, then the landlord can terminate at any point with sixty days notice if you've been there for two years or less or ninety days notice if you've been there for more than two years. So all going to depend on those circumstances. Is it written? Is it not? How long have you been there? What this proposal does further on down is it gets rid of all of those distinctions. And it says, whether you have a written agreement or not, whether you've been there for two years or more, it's ninety days for all of those. So if it's in writing, it would be ninety days before the end of the written term. If there is no written rental agreement, then it's ninety days. So that's how this bill addresses the distinction between the written and non written. So then we get so again, A, non payment of rent. B is for termination for breach of a rental agreement. So under the B1 on line 16, this is adding in that the landlord can terminate a tenancy for current statute is failure to comply with material terms or obligations imposed under the chapter. This is adding in more provisions to say that a landlord can terminate for breach of a rental agreement if the tenant is late payment of rent more than three times in a 12 period, the tenant's refusal to allow the landlord or the landlord's agents access to the dwelling unit as required. And then it's reducing the termination period for that subset of reasons from thirty to twenty one days. And then late payment is defined as payment more than ten days after it's due. So then you get into the sub two. We're still under breach of the rental agreement terms. There's some change in the language here. I think the key things to focus on are going to be on lines nine here that I've highlighted. It's if termination is based on acts which threaten the health or safety of other residents, the landlord, the landlord's agents, or the neighbors, then the landlord can terminate the rental agreements, and then it's being shortened from fourteen days to five days. The new B and three here is stating that the notice that's provided, if the termination is under this subsection B, the notice being given to the tenant has to include an affidavit that sets forth particular facts describing the events that are leading to the termination. And then sub three is the landlord shall not terminate a rental agreement under this subsection based on a person seeking medical assistance for a drug overdose, being the subject of a good faith request for medical assistance, or being at the scene of a drug overdose within close proximity to a drug overdose. So there's a separate section in law that you all have enacted, which is kind of a good Samaritan provision, if you will. And it states that individuals cannot be criminally liable if they are seeking medical assistance from a drug overdose, subject of a good faith request for medical assistance for a drug overdose, or being at the scene of a drug overdose. You've given certain exemptions from criminal liability for people who are seeking medical assistance for those reasons. And so what that section is doing is saying, you landlord can't terminate somebody's agreement because they have sought medical assistance because of a drug overdose.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: So it isn't drugs the same way it's not the same as selling drugs. It can't be yeah, Okay.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Okay, so the remainder of this section, there's a lot of additions and strike throughs. It's a lot of consolidation of the current subdivisions regarding termination of rental agreements. So what sub C is now going to refer, termination for the tenant's notice or for government notice to vacate. And it states that when termination is based on the intent to vacate by provided by the tenant, then the landlord can terminate the agreement on the date provided by the tenants. And then the sub two is if termination is based on an order issued by a government agency, then the the landlord can terminate based on the date provided in the order from the government agency. Now we get to termination when a property is sold or repurposed. So this is current statute that if the landlord contracts to sell the building, the landlord can terminate the tenancy for thirty days. That's being extended to ninety days. And then adding a few other sections that fall under this quote repurposing of the building. So you've contracted to sell the building. You want a member of your immediate family to move into the building. That's where that definition of immediate family comes in. You're permanently withdrawing the dwelling unit from the rental market, or you need to demolish or refurbish the building. Any of those circumstances, you can terminate the rental agreement, but it's ninety days instead of thirty days. And then when we get to subsection E, moving to the top of page 11, this is what we were just referring to, Representative Stevens, as we were talking. This is a consolidation to say, whether you have a written agreement or not, it's going to be ninety days consistent as opposed to this distinction between written, non written, two years or less, two years or more. So it's ninety days across the board, and it's ninety days before the expiration of the written agreement or ninety days in the event there is no written agreement. And then we have, if it is week to week, there was testimony that there are some week to week contracts that still exist. It's extending it from seven to ten days. Then moving forward to sub h on bottom of page 11, if it's a shared occupancy. Currently, it depends on whether it's a monthly or weekly. And there's consolidation here to just say if it's a shared occupancy and sub h, it's going to be seven days on the top of page 12. Okay, I'm going keep moving unless somebody stops me. There's some statutory cleanup on page 12, the bottom payment after termination. This really doesn't have any substantive effect. It's saying that if a landlord accepts payments for anything other than the nonpayment of rent, so if you're terminating an agreement for anything other than that, and you accept payment of rent, that is not you agreeing to forego your termination. You can still move forward with termination of the agreement even though you're accepting the rent from the individual. That's what this section is for. Okay, now we're on page 13, this new subsection here. Currently, there's a separate section that allows a tenant to not pay rent if there are issues with the unit. There are serious health safety violations of the unit. The tenant has a statutory ability to not pay rent at that point in time. And what this section is being included is just to further add in that if a landlord brings an ejectment action due to you not paying rents, it is an affirmative defense to that ejectment. And the judge shall rule in favor of the defendant if there is a serious health and safety violation that the landlord key language here is going be on lines 14 The landlord has made no reasonable attempt to correct. So if the landlord's made aware of it, they've been issued a citation, you have a healthy violation, and you're not doing anything to fix it, the landlord doesn't excuse me, the tenant doesn't have to pay rent, and it's a defense if the landlord brings an ejectment action against you.

[Ted Barnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: K.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: This section here, four thousand four and sixty eight, is stating that if the tenant remains in possession after termination of the agreement, the landlord can bring an action for removal of that individual. And this is just adding in some some change to the language right here in the sub one because there is a new sub chapter four that's being created later on. So this is really more just technical cross referencing. Now we're on page 15. Okay. Now we're getting out of the residential rental agreement section. We're moving into ejectment. So individual has stayed beyond the termination date. Now the landlord is going to bring an ejectment action against the individual. This first section two is stating that for any civil action, if the court orders an alternate service of process, then that alternate service of process would exist throughout the life of the case. What does that mean? If you bring a civil case against somebody and you can't have them served, you can ask the court to provide an alternate service, which could be a tack order, for example. You tack it onto the individual's door. Currently, you have to go ask the court every time you need to serve somebody, papers throughout the court case. You have to ask if you can get a tack order. What this section would do is it says, if you ask once and the court grants it, it applies throughout the case. You don't have to ask multiple times. Will say that the judiciary committee is reviewing a proposed amendment to strike this. Okay, I'm going to keep moving.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: We're getting into a bunch of stuff that may be changed by judiciary, right? Yes, ma'am. So Let's take a few minutes. Don't need to get into all the details of what we like and don't like until we hear.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yeah, I will be a little bit even further high level here through these sections then. When you look at page 17, this is under the current objectment chapter or subchapter. A landlord can ask that a tenant pay rent into court during the ejectment case that's being brought. So during the life of the case, you, tenant, need to pay rent into court. Currently, that can be either full or partial payment. And this proposal strikes partial, so it would require full. So currently, your rent that you owe is $1,500 a month. Landlord asks for it to be paid into court. The judge can say, yes, dollars 1,500 into court, or they could do less than that. And this is removing that discretion and saying it's only $1,500 It would have to be all or nothing. So that's what the change on page 17, line two, and then subsequently striking subsection G is where the tenant can by motion apply to have a reduced amount, and that's being struck. Next is four eighty five point a, property of the tenant remaining after eviction. This is changing or reducing the time frame that a landlord has to maintain the property of an individual after a writ of possession is issued. So you go to court, you get the ejectment, the court orders, yes, landlord, you're entitled to the property. Here's your writ of possession. That writ has to be served by a sheriff onto the individual, and then the sheriff cannot remove the individual until fourteen days has passed. That's in that's in separate section, separate language. Once the sheriff has removed the individual from the property, the landlord currently has to maintain that property for another fifteen days. They have to maintain the the property of the tenant that's left behind for another fifteen days after that. So it's a total of twenty nine days. And you look at both of those time frames. This gets rid of the second half of that piece and just goes, sheriff issues the the writ of possession and wait fourteen days before the sheriff physically removes the person from the property. At the point the landlord gets possession of the property again, the landlord can get rid of all of your stuff that stayed behind. Okay, moving into this sub chapter four. So this is starting on lines 14 of page 19. Currently, there is a superior port ejectment process. What this sub chapter four is saying is operative words here on line nine. If it's for termination based on either non payment of rent for the breach of the rental agreements. So non payment or you're not complying with your obligations. The bottom of 18. Line 19, bottom of page 18. So if it's for termination of one of those reasons, you're not paying rent or because the tenant has breached the terms of the agreement or is threatening doing some action that threatens the health and safety of other people, then the landlord can bring an ejectment based on this new subchapter. And so there's a lot of language in here about the mode and service of that process in four eight six two, the answer period under four eight six three, And then moving forward on page 20, what a default is. And then this show cause hearing at the bottom of page 20 under section 4,865. What I'll say about all of this is this is shortening the current process pretty significantly for ejectment cases. So for example, in the answer section four eight six three, it says that the defendant has fourteen days to file an answer. Well, current rules of civil procedure are twenty one days. So it's shortening that time frame. And so simply saying it's creating this new process. It's creating shorter time frames to move through the ejectment process based on if you're bringing the ejectment due to nonpayment of rent or breach of material terms. And I will say that the proposal that's being reviewed by the judiciary committee is removing a significant portion of these provisions and making it consistent with what the current rules of civil procedure require and what the current ejectment process looks like.

[Eileen "Lynn" Dickinson, Member]: Just a

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: clarification. But one can't be ejected for late payment until you've been late three times in a twelve month period. Yes, ma'am. Under

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: the breach of the material terms, currently the statute's silent about that.

[Ted Barnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: If you're late if you

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: pay late, what does that mean? And so this is adding in that if you are ten day if you pay for rent ten days after it's due three times within the twelve month period, a landlord can terminate the rental agreement based on that and then subsequently bring in a check by matching. Okay. So I'm gonna bring you back to page 22. Everything leading up between what we're just reviewing, pages eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty one, 22, That was all the language about the new ejectment process, which is intended to be much it's intended to be faster. And so page 22, we're gonna transition over and talk about trespass. So the top of this, page four eight six eight is if the landlord is restored to possession of the dwelling unit, the landlord can give a no trespass order against the tenant who has just been ejected. And then you move into these next two sections. There's a purpose statement here, and it states that the purpose of section five is to overrule Vermont Supreme Court decision in State v. Dickson. Yes, ma'am.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: We can overrule a Supreme Court decision? I'm sorry. Yes,

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: because the Supreme Court's decision was based on a statutory interpretation. It was not based on some sort of constitutional And the question at issue in the court was if a landlord gives a no trespass order against someone, but the individual is at common areas of a location and they're on their way to a private individual's residence who lives there and they've been invited to that place, then the court ruled that the statute didn't allow the police to give him citation because the individual was in the common area, and they had been invited to a location that an individual had legal right to possess. And so it was more of a statutory technical issue. It wasn't based on some sort of constitutional right. So that's why this is saying the intent of this next section is to overrule that decision and make it such that and let me get to the key language is going to be on the bottom of page 22 and the top of page 23. A landlord of a dwelling unit may cause to be served an order against trespass that prohibits a tenant's invitee or licensee from trespassing in the dwelling unit or the dwelling unit's common areas if the tenant responsible for the invitee consents to the order, the invitee subject to the order is violating the terms of the lease agreements, or the invitee is violating state or federal law while on the premises. So it's adding in this specific statutory language signaling to the court that this is intended to alter the decision that we made in this case, State v. Dixon.

[Michael Mrowicki, Member]: So are you saying this is reinterpreting

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: or rejecting the interpretation of the Supreme Court? It is I don't want to say it's rejecting what the Supreme Court has issued because it's not changing the statutory language that the Supreme Court based its decision on. It's saying that essentially, notwithstanding that case that you issued, we disagree with it. And we're adding statutory language here to make it such that if the same case comes before you under those similar facts, based on this new statutory language, the trespass order would be upheld. And I'd be happy to talk offline. Sure.

[David Yacovone, Member]: Would be great. Thank you.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Sub two here adds an appeal process for that. I will say that the judiciary committee has reviewed possibly striking the appeal process. There is no appeal for current trespass orders, so there was discussion about why would there need to be an appeal for this. So there's to remove that. And then there's just definitions of the dwelling unit and the tenant, which refer back to the definitions in the residential rental agreement section. Moving to page 24, these next few sections are about confidentiality of ejectment records. I'm not going to walk through the definitions, so I'm going bring you to page 25 under the section four thousand eight hundred seventy two and four thousand eight hundred and seventy three. All records that are newly filed for an ejectment complaint have to be confidential, And they're designated confidential in there are documents that are under the control of the judiciary for an ejectment case. And then the section four thousand eight and seventy three is if the court finds judgment in favor of the landlord for an ejectment case that's brought for non payment of rents or for breach of the terms of a rental agreement. Only under those two scenarios, if the landlord wins the ejectment case and is given a writ of possession, then the court would renew the confidential status of the case 30, presumably thirty days after the judgment was issued.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: I think this is an area that Chair Lalonde was concerned about and working on. So this might change.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yes, The proposed amendment that they reviewed yesterday already makes some changes to this and there was further discussion about possibly making further amendments. So I'll just say that this entire piece here is to say if an ejectment action is filed, it's going to be made confidential. And then if the landlord wins because of a termination due to non payment of rent or breach of material terms of the rental agreements and the landlord gets possession, then the case loses its confidential status at that point. This is different than expungement or ceiling. So there are some legal issues that the judiciary committee is trying to work through. Okay. I'm going to bring you to page 27. This is a pilot program that was discussed and was in a few bills last year moving back and forth between the House and the Senate. It is a rental payment pilot program that would be administered by the state treasurer's office. And as opposed to walking through line by line, section by section, I'll just mention that it is the treasurer's office would work with a third party and they would engage with landlords and tenants to provide the fact that the tenant is paying rent to the landlord, report that information to credit reporting entities to try to help improve the tenant's credit score throughout the pilot program. The body, the general assembly asked the treasurer's office to study this a few years ago, and they came back with a report recommending a pilot program to see what the outcomes would be. And so that was, as I mentioned, in some of the bills last year. And so it's here, again, hasn't changed from what it was previously. And so again, I'm not going go through line by line of this, but it's just how the program is set up, contracting with landlords, what information has to be provided to the tenant, how a tenant can withdraw. If the tenant is failing to pay the rent as required, they can be removed from the program. The treasurer's office has the ability to cease the program at any point in time. And so then there has to be reports back to you all in this draft, 11/01/2028 interim report, and then a final report submitted in 2029. This is on the bottom of page 30 and top of page 31, the information that the report needs to include.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: You mentioned that this has been discussed before. That's what you said. Has this ever been formally proposed and either passed or rejected before?

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yes, ma'am. This similar language was in the Senate and House versions of the housing bills last year in different iterations, and then it was kind of improved upon. And I don't recall last year at what point it was dropped. It does come with a requested appropriation. And the treasurer's office testified last year without the money to administer the pilot, they can't administer it. And so again, I just don't recall at what point it was dropped, but it was discussed in both the House and the Senate and it did pass bodies at one point in time.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: Okay but it was never actually enacted or never voted on and I'm guessing that's my guess. Okay. I just have a technical question. Guess there are certain parts of the bill where we say landlords and other parts of the bill where we say property owners. And I'm just wondering, are they one and the same? Should they be uniform or Because in this section it says property owners. Anyway, I raise it as a question.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Okay, I will let me take a look at it and do a search of different PREMs and make sure that

[Michael Mrowicki, Member]: it isn't digital initiative. Okay,

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: so then we get to the bottom of page 31. There is a transition period regarding security deposits. So as mentioned at the beginning of the bill, there is a cap on what a landlord can charge for a security deposit. And so this section is saying that if a landlord has requested and received a security deposit that exceeds that cap then the landlord can maintain that security deposit until the end of the rental.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: As it was already in effect.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: It was already requested and received.

[Michael Mrowicki, Member]: Just for clarification, equal to two months security deposit that exceeds the amount of two months rent, the common phrase that people have is first lab security. This is saying that first lab security is still the status quo, capping it at three months, which is the standard as opposed to people who may have been charging more than that. But the standard I think everyone could remember signing a lease would say first, last, and security. And I think I just want to make that sure that's clear because that's still a lot of money.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yes sir, and that's how the the cap reads above. It is two months rent, you can't charge more than two months rent on top of the first month rent that you pay. I mean, the tenant is paying for the first month to live there. So I wouldn't consider that as part of a security deposit because the landlord isn't retaining that money. It's only for your first month to be there. But yes, sir, it is a lot of money. I mean, it's three months equivalent of whatever that amount is having to be paid at the beginning. And so there was discussion in the committee about what the cap should be three months, two months, one month. And they settled on two months above the first month's rent.

[Michael Mrowicki, Member]: And was the research done in neighboring states where there are no changes of amends?

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Not for me. I did not present anything. I don't know if the committee heard any direct testimony about what other states have done in that regard. I did not provide any testimony to that, and I have not done that research. Top of page 32, there's a requirement that CVOEO, Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity, provide education and technical assistance to both landlords and tenants. This can be, to kind of an expansion on their their current programs that exist, but then in the sub two, specifically providing, some some curriculum and support for landlords. And then you get to the appropriations section. So fiscal year twenty seven, dollars 100,000 to the state treasurer for contracting and administrative costs necessary for the pilot program that we reviewed. And then moving to page 33, dollars 600,000 to DCF to be granted to community action agencies to be used to support liaison work with landlords and tenants, dollars 1,200,000.0 to DHCD for the following purposes, 1,000,000 to Vermont State Housing Authority for the Rent Aware Assistance Fund, and $200,000 to Champlain

[Michael Mrowicki, Member]: County for the amount of

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: opportunity for the landlord tenant education program that I mentioned in the section of the and then effective date. Thank you.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: Thank you very much, Cameron. Feel free to stay there, I'm

[Eileen "Lynn" Dickinson, Member]: going to ask Ted to come up for the fiscal report.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: We did today.

[Eileen "Lynn" Dickinson, Member]: So, we know it's up to goody.

[Ted Barnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: Hi, Barnett. It's joint fiscal office. It feels like pretty much everything at this time of legislative session is dated today,

[Michael Mrowicki, Member]: based on where

[Ted Barnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: we are. That's right. So there we are. I'm not able to share. Definitely. Yeah, it may not be necessary. I'm simply going to review the appropriations and some contacts that received from the Vermont judiciary. Let's see.

[Michael Mrowicki, Member]: There we are.

[Ted Barnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: So put together a table. Cameron walked you through the various appropriations from the bill, adding them up. They totaled $1,900,000 There's $100,000 to the state treasurer for the positive rental payment credit reporting pilot program. We'll note right there a series of reports for that pilot program. And if the treasurer feels that that program is successful, it's possible and or likely that the treasurer would come back and ask for more money from y'all to implement a program at full scale. So I want to flag that as a future consideration. There's an appropriation to the Department of Children and Families. They will then grant it to community action agencies to support liaison work between tenants and landlords. DHTB has two appropriations will be granted. One will be granted to the Vermont City Housing Authority for rent to raise assistance fund, and that's $1,000,000, and then granted to CBOEO for the landlord tenant education work that's outlined in section nine of the bill.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: So of those, Ted, how many of those are assumed to be base or is it all assumed to be one time?

[Ted Barnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: As far as I understand, these are all one time appropriations. I believe the Rent A Race Assistance Fund last received money in that January 2024. And so that program's brought in guidance towards the end of their funding. They're looking for potentially a top up program.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: Then there's more. There's more. I checked

[Ted Barnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: in, I will admit, I am not an expert by any means on judicial proceedings and how they operate. And so I reached out to the Vermont judiciary. This is entirely their information based on their reading of the bill and how it came out. House general and housing, they indicated that because of the confidentiality provisions in the bill and expedited hearings. In order to maintain the current scheduling of the judiciary, they would need more positions. The additional confidentiality proceedings, expediting hearings would take judicial resources away from the rest of the cases on the back end of the civil division, which could delay other cases that aren't ejectment proceedings. So in order to staff up and ensure that they were meeting the additional requirements for timelines and hearing types in the bill and also maintaining the scheduling within the rest of the docket, they would need $730,000 per year, like additional judges, additional court staff in various corners of the state.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: This is part of what Chair Lalonde has talked to the court administrator about, the choices at the moment appear to be don't give them more resources and increase the court backlog, which we've been trying to reduce. And he'll be more eloquent than I am on this when he comes and speaks, or give him some resources so that we don't go backwards while we're trying to do this other stuff. But there's more conversations about it to come. Tom and Edmund.

[Thomas Stevens, Member]: The and again, I understand we're going to be hearing from the legal side. I mean, the changes in due process and the timing is pretty stressful for individuals to understand, especially in the short term. Was there any conversation either in the committee or through JFO like what potential outcomes towards homelessness would be for instance? I mean I can see where people need to get landlords, need to get people out of apartments on an emergency basis. I see that as a strong point to talk about. But I can also see this being abused in a way much the same way that the no cause eviction self was used post COVID. And there was a gross increase in homelessness, which is also an expense. And we've heard testimony about all the different agencies that are dealing with people who are going to experience homelessness. We know that homelessness can come forward through non payment of rent and in a difficult economy. So I'm just curious if there's been any ballpark figures anticipating increases in the evictions that may lead into homelessness and what that effect would be on our service providers.

[Ted Barnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: Sure. So I did in my conversations with the Vermont judiciary, I did try and understand whether there would be a change in filings or the change in the number of ejected proceedings. As far as I understand, they did not forecast and see a change in the number because that would be a primary impact on state revenues. You're, for whatever reason, the changes in the bill change the number of filings, they pay court fees. So I wanted to understand that primary impact. And as far as I understand in conversations with Cameron too, there's not really any big change in the number of actual proceedings. That said, it's really hard to understand how landlords might respond to provisions in the bill and whether that would result in more homelessness. I will say

[Michael Mrowicki, Member]: those would

[Ted Barnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: fall into more of the secondary behavioral response categories that JFOs, because it's so hard, because it requires a number of assumptions, we typically don't forecast those levels of secondary impacts. So all that to say, it was not considered in the scope of this fiscal note, but I'm not ruling it out.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: Lynn, then John. Yeah, thank you.

[Eileen "Lynn" Dickinson, Member]: You want to say something?

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I was going add, I know Lee Laid has made that concern or comment to that concern in the committee, least in the small bits that I was able to listen or be there for. But as far as how much of the committee discussion focused around that, I would defer to the chair, because I wasn't there for all

[Eileen "Lynn" Dickinson, Member]: of them. Okay, thank you. If I heard correctly, the Rent Awareness Assistance Fund was in Act 181 and is now expiring. Is that correct?

[Ted Barnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: The fund itself is not expiring. So the fund was originally created here in Act 47, which is the housing bill before the year prior to Act 181. So it was created there. It received its most recent appropriation as far as I could tell. I'm on the revenue team and I don't always track down appropriations, but the best I can figure is that it last received money in Act 181 of 2024 and that funding is close to running out of funding. And so, yes, the fund itself may live on, but they

[Mark Mihaly, Chair, House Committee on General and Housing]: may not have the resources to

[Eileen "Lynn" Dickinson, Member]: keep it. But they have done this for the past couple of years anyway. Okay, what was the success rate for this? I mean, did people actually, after the arrears assistance happened, did it actually go and have people maintain their residence in the apartment? Or did they still get behind after it was over and then eventually get evicted? Or what was the bottom line from these couple of years of work?

[Ted Barnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: I don't have that information with me. I can follow-up with folks at Hematse Housing Authority to see there may be a report that I can pick up as well. But I'll take a look at that.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: They were appropriated $2,500,000 in fiscal year 'twenty five in Act 2021.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: Applaud you for saying that. We have a lot of new people in the community. You're all welcome to stay. If you're here for age seven forty, it'll be at least 11:30, if not a little later beforehand. Again, you're welcome to stay, but if that's what you're waiting for, it's gonna be a little bit. Okay. Thanks.

[Michael Mrowicki, Member]: John. Just a quick question. So just as a follow-up to represent Stevens' question about adding to the number of homeless may stay resolved at some point in time. And you said it wouldn't change the number. Do we know what the number of proceedings are related to what's being worked? And I don't need an exact number here, and we can talk later about this if you need to look back a little bit. That's fine. Was happy to Just curious, that's all.

[Ted Barnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: Dig through my emails to pull a number, and rather than y'all watch me get

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: And maybe somebody, that would be good if you can get back, and judiciary might know. Think

[Michael Mrowicki, Member]: it's an important question, then, James Stevens.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: Yeah, okay. All right. Yes, go ahead, Cameron.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I can answer a question, at least my belief that was raised by a ranking member. I did a quick search through the bill that came out of the House General. I don't have a concern with the definition or the use of participant property owner. That term is used in the credit reporting pilot program language. It talks about participant property owner, but then it's defined as a landlord. So unless the treasurer's office raised a concern, which we didn't discuss last year, I don't have an issue with the use of that word in that ballot table.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: If you're checking That helps.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: It's just the participant property owner is then defined as a landlord. And I could pull up the definition, that would be helpful. There isn't a legal concern of using that term in the pilot program language. Dave?

[David Yacovone, Member]: I want to make sure I'm understanding this correctly, and thanks for any of your patience, but could you just walk through an example so that I can understand that no ejection or non payment, So you get three notices. Could you help me?

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So the current statute in sub a, and let me change the pages. Just wanted to be able

[Mark Mihaly, Chair, House Committee on General and Housing]: to share my screen again.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: Oh. Not sharing.

[Michael Mrowicki, Member]: I would love not to share.

[Mark Mihaly, Chair, House Committee on General and Housing]: So

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: in the sub A currently, current statute, a landlord can terminate the rental agreements for nonpayment of rent. So if you do not pay, the landlord can

[David Yacovone, Member]: terminate. Any time. I'm after that ten day window?

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Period. So that's what I was about to get to. No. Statute No. That's okay. The statute does not state how long a landlord has to wait. So conceivably, if rent is due on the first of the month and there's a separate statutory section that says rent is due when it's due and laptop

[Michael Mrowicki, Member]: died.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Rent is due when it's due, and the landlord isn't obligated to request it. Rent is due without demand. And so if rent is due on the first and you're not paying it, the current statutory section says non payment of rent. And it doesn't require there to be any time frame between one and two. So in theory, the second or third day after you haven't paid, a landlord could terminate your rental agreement. Now practically, I imagine a landlord isn't interested in that because they simply want you to pay. They don't want to have to go through the termination and the ejectment process. Within that subsection A under the current statutory language, it says that even if the landlord provides a termination notice due to non payment of rent, If the tenant subsequently pays rent for that rental period, it negates the termination notice. So if I'm terminating your rental agreement because you haven't paid rents, then you pay rent. I can't it negates my notice for that rental period. How quickly do I have to pay rent? Doesn't say

[Ted Barnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: the bill, Siemens?

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: It it doesn't say under the current statutory language. Okay.

[David Yacovone, Member]: So under the bill close.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So landlord can terminate the tenancy for non payment of rent. The rental agreement shall not terminate if the tenant pays or tenders rent due through the end of the rental period. And there is no there's no

[David Yacovone, Member]: What's the rental period? Could be a

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: month, could be a week, it depends on your it depends on your rental agreement. Okay. Okay? And so the discussion among the committee was, well, what do you do in the event that you have some sort of habitual late payments circumstance? One could argue that under the b one current statute, it says that a landlord may terminate for failure to comply with the material term of the rental agreement. If I'm a landlord, I would probably move forward with that. And I would say your continued late payment of rent is breaching a material term of the rental agreement, which requires you to pay on time. But there was question among the committee about whether that was sufficient. So the committee wanted to put in plain language that late payment of rent is a breach of the rental agreement that a landlord can terminate the agreement for. And so then there was discussion about, well, how many times if it's late payment or if it was originally drafted as repeated late payment of rent, and there was a question about, well, what does repeated mean? And so there was also a question about, well, how late does the payment need to be? Do we really want to authorize termination because somebody is late one day a few times? So the committee landed on this language, which is if the tenant is late three times within a twelve month period, and late is defined as paying more than ten days after it's due. Late payment of rent means payment of rent more than ten days after it's due. So if you're late more than ten days, three times then the statutory language proposal would allow a landlord to move forward with the termination of a rental agreement despite what subsection A says. Thank you. Yes, sir.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: I'm going to pause this for a second and let everybody know we have had to reschedule H740. Clearly, we're not done with this yet. I'm sorry. It's going to be probably at 02:00. Daryl, we'll let you know. But I think that's what we're looking for is 02:00 this afternoon. Again, everybody is welcome to stay, but I just wanted to update you because I have a feeling a lot of you are here for the next bill, and then we're going to be postponed until 02:00 so we can finish this bill. Right. You. Let's continue. Do you have more questions for council or joint fiscal at this point? Because I will also have Chair Mihaly come up. You guys don't have to leave. You can just add a third chair or however you'd like to do that. But let's get Mark's queue up here.

[Eileen "Lynn" Dickinson, Member]: Another chair.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I do have to provide a

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: few Okay, I think we have what we need from you and I think you're getting a couple things back for us and then we appreciate your time Ted and we'll have Bart take your place. All right, sounds great. Thank you.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I'll stay with your friends, okay?

[David Yacovone, Member]: I would love to. Can correct me.

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I would never listen to you, so.

[Mark Mihaly, Chair, House Committee on General and Housing]: I'm passing around a, oh, Mark Mahaly, chair of general and housing. Thank you. It's wonderful to be back in this room with you. What I'm passing around is simply a one pager, and I do wanna say procedurally one thing. Judiciary is in the midst of final stages of a flyby, and, their chair has been working very hard. We worked together over the weekend. I think their work so far is actually improving the bill, in many respects. Really done a wonderful job. What I passed around reflects actually our version of the bill as modified by judiciary to date. The remaining issue is one you heard from lit from JFO, which is that the courts have come to judiciary and said, we need an extra $700,000, which we don't have, and so what are we gonna do about that? And that's what is sort of hanging out there. What you know, how is that? And so when you hear from Martin Lalonde, representative Lalonde, that will clarify. But up to this minute, this list, I guess I wanna start by saying this not this was a rather difficult effort, in part because of some real realities that are out there. The reality is that having a home is really fundamental to happiness and living a life. And we have a problem in Vermont that when people lose their home, they're very likely to become homeless, and that homelessness has fiscal impacts in addition to its immorality. It has fiscal impacts because people end up in the motel program where you are very well aware of the high cost of homelessness. So that's a reality. The other reality is that we provide housing largely through the private sector, and they run business, a landlord is running a business. The business has to work. If the business doesn't work, the landlord goes out of business. We have the tenant advocates on one side, landlords on the other, with pretty incompatible visions of how to deal with this problem, which, you know, was something we had to deal with. There are as Tom mentioned, there's a real concern on the part of tenants that if we make it easier to have ejections, then we're going to have more homeless. We have no way of knowing whether that's the case or it's not. Landlords are filled. We were inundated with stories of landlords who have very marginal operations and would feel that they couldn't invest, couldn't stay in the business or leave the business or go with short term rentals if they didn't have some relief from the current situation. And the current situation, the landlord side, has two elements to it. One is it takes at least it takes approximately six months without a jury trial to evict someone in this state. In many other states, we are an outlier in that respect. In many other states, it is a third that time. I mean, we really are an outlier in that sense. The other major problem from the landlord perspective, which you saw our attempt to deal with it in the walkthrough, is many landlords, including the nonprofit landlords, have a real problem that they have tenants who are dealing drugs or engaged in other dangerous activity in their buildings. It may be the tenant, but it also may be a former tenant who comes back, or it may be someone who's related or a friend of the tenant who comes back, or worse, it may be someone who makes it clear to a tenant that they will harm them if they don't let them in so they can deal drugs. And so that that and and also we heard many stories of tenants who were destroying units. The problem when you're dealing with something like this is you have bad landlords and you have bad tenants, but you have the bulk of landlords are good landlords, and the bulk of tenants are great tenants. So how do you pass legislation that deals with the bad cases without making That's life difficult for everybody the problem we face. We tried to avoid this no cause, just cause, all these labels, because they are inflammatory, and actually when you look at them in many states, they are filled with exceptions. So what we did is just deal with each case one at a time. I conceptually, and I'm going to be conceptual because it helps maybe perhaps helps you think about this issue, We see two baskets. One basket is what where the tenant is the moving party, the cause. It may not be their fault, forget fault. It's they're the cause. They can't or aren't gonna pay rent, which in many cases remember, Vermont is filled with small landlords. Their business is marginal, and it doesn't take much for them to go under or not be able to make their mortgage. Okay. That's one, nonpayment of rent. A lot of the evictions are for nonpayment of rent, and a lot of those people end up homeless, and a lot of those are not their it's not their fault. They just don't have money. Okay. The second is the dangerous tenant, the one I alluded to. So that's the tenant basket. The other basket is what I'll call the landlord basket. This is where the landlord is really in control and can plan. This is where the landlord is saying, your lease is up, and I don't wanna renew, or I want my family to occupy this unit, or I want to convert it to a condominium, or I want to completely remodel it, so you gotta leave, or I wanna sell it. I mean, it's the landlord's kind of initiative. When it's the landlord's initiative, we felt, what can we do for tenants in that situation? What we did not do, to be clear, and certainly many tenant advocates would like, is we do not put rent control, rent caps, a right to stay in the unit forever as long as you pay rent. Things like that is not in this bill. There are three states in The United States and some cities that have some version of that. Although, I will tell you, I've read their ordinances, and some of them are filled with exemptions, but they're not in the bill. What we're saying is, so what did we do? These are situations where the landlord is in control and the tenant may be perfectly innocent. One, three months notice. You have to give three months notice. So that's that's one. Two, you have representative Wood had a bill that said that security deposits should be three months. Some people argued one month. We settled it two. Whatever it is, as Tom pointed out, it's a lot of money. So we said halfway through that three month period, the landlord's got to do a walk through, and if there's no damage, they've got to return half that security deposit. And the reason for that is to give people at least something to be able to have in their pockets so they can put a security deposit on the next unit. We also So those are kind of in summary what we're doing with when the landlord is in control, longer notice periods, a requirement of ninety days, etcetera. When it's a situation where it's non payment of rent, that's really the most difficult, because so many people are just I was a legal aid attorney when I was young, and I can tell you most of the people who came to me, it was some version of, I don't have any money, how long have I got? And the best We did a few things in those situations, but I do not pretend that we've done a wonderful job of it. I don't know how to do a wonderful job given the way our society is constructed, but here's what we did. First of all, the ten day grace period. You know, a lot of particularly institutional landlords, if you don't pay on day one as a protective matter, they file a notice of termination. Now they can't. It's a ten day grace period. The second thing we did is a code defense. If there is, and this is true in Massachusetts, it was actually suggested to me by legal aid, and I think it's a good idea. Basically, if there's a code violation, I don't mean a technical code, I mean a really serious code violation, that is uncured by the landlord before ejectment is filed, not after, but before it's a total defense to the eject. And we're just trying to deal with landlords who are just not, again, the bad landlord, not the good thing. But the biggest thing we can do for them is the stuff that you saw on the board of the JFO. Unfortunately, when we looked at the appropriations in this bill, and on your one page, it is very bold. The rental arrears assistance fund is a really efficient way of doing things. The rental arrears assistance fund, again, is not aimed at somebody who's never going to pay rent or is destroying the unit. In order to qualify for the rental arrears assistance fund, you have to be able to demonstrate that you can make rent. It's just something bad has happened to you, like you got sick or you you're, you know, have problem with your car or something very specific that's short term rather than long term. And then the fund, I think, can give you a can provide up to three months rent, and it goes directly to the landlord. So this program is really an excellent program. Lynn, you asked whether the results, and you know, I think Kathleen Burke probably could get those to you, but we had testimony that it's very effective. And anything that can be done like that with a small injection of money I mean, I know a million isn't small, but the individual, a small injection of money, keeping someone off from living in their car, it's worth in my mind, it's a multiplier effect financially. It means that we don't have them in motel rooms, etcetera. We I think the credit reporting thing is wonderful. I I, I hate to admit, but I do not believe it was a $100,000, madam chair. I think it was we forgot. There were two bills, one House bill in the Senate, the Senate bill in the House, then we had a conference committee. It was lost. It just got I cannot find what happened to it. I'm sorry, but it was it passed it passed both houses. I cannot recall, and, you know, I can go back through my notes, but it's passed both houses. I think it's a great idea. And the very simple reason is, and I didn't notice, paying rent is not automatically reported to credit agents. It's just not on your credit report, which means that people who don't have credit cards or don't have a lot of assets have no rental history, excuse me, no credit history. So this is an attempt to build credit history, again, aimed at the good tenant. At the bottom, where it says for both tenants and landlords, the CBOEO, we were looking for education. Again, this is preventative. We are looking for education for both landlords and tenants on their rights, their responsibilities, and their remedies, and CBO volunteered they could do this. And the 600,000 puts, representatives in the cap agencies who work with landlords and tenants for mediation purposes. It's all prevention on the theory that prevention is much less expensive for the state than homelessness.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: So let's pause on that one for a minute, because I'm back to base versus one time. It's all one time. So they they would hire some people for

[Ted Barnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: a little bit of I think

[Mark Mihaly, Chair, House Committee on General and Housing]: they have. I because we can't

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: we don't have base. No. I know we don't. They understand

[Mark Mihaly, Chair, House Committee on General and Housing]: that it's It has to be if there's to the extent their state employees would be in service, to the extent that it's private nonprofit or the cap agencies, they'd know that this is your shot this year. Can I say that you won't have people back asking for it again? Of course. But I assume none of this is based. Can't be.

[Eileen "Lynn" Dickinson, Member]: Okay. My understanding is that there have been, I don't know if it was run by the OEOs or the legal aid or something, but there

[Mark Mihaly, Chair, House Committee on General and Housing]: have been

[Eileen "Lynn" Dickinson, Member]: pamphlets, materials that did this already, gave tenants rights, handed out to people.

[Mark Mihaly, Chair, House Committee on General and Housing]: Right, there are. And there still are. And there still are. But they're not, we felt that human beings on the ground who could there's a demand for, again, I'm talking about conscientious landlords and thoughtful tenants, and these programs are aimed at keeping them from being homeless. From the landlord perspective, there are two aspects that you heard that really matter in this bill, and this is from their perspective. One is we tried to shorten the overall time. There is a provision in the bill that says that once I mean, now, it's six months the courts have testified. They aim for six months, and 80% of the cases are resolved in six months right now. We tried to shorten the time. There's a provision of the bill that says from the time you file to the time of the hearing has to be sixty days. The courts are saying, well, that's gonna be very expensive. We're just gonna see how we deal with it. But in some ways, more important than that is dealing right now, I am just hearing terrible stories about the effect on housing supply of tenants who are dangerous. We just got I think I forwarded it to the committee. We just got, for example, a letter about from Brattleboro, I think it was Brattleboro, a 20 unit program run by a nonprofit there for homeless, where they just took it offline because there was so there was crime, drugs, they couldn't deal with it. And it's very we feel, I would say, I feel, after hearing a lot of testimony, 20 witnesses and dozens of letters, that the problem of the the tenant who is violating the law or engaged in activities that's dangerous to the health and safety of others is going to decrease the supply of affordable housing over time because landlords will not stay in the business. I cannot document that. There is no way we do not have datas any more than I can document that this bill will cause an increase in the number of evictions. We don't have data in Vermont. We have stories, and that's what you hear. It's just life in the legislature. So what we've tried to do is create a special process that says, if a landlord has a tenant that is doing drugs, for example, in the building, selling drugs, or something like that, they file a complaint and eject first of all, they will give a notice of termination, it's five days. When they file a notice of ejectment, they file an affidavit, a sworn under penalty of perjury that says, I think you're dealing drugs, and here's my support for that. And then there has to be a hearing within twenty one days. And e the 10 minimum of 10, a maximum of 21, and either the tenant doesn't show up, in which case the tenant it's a default and the possession goes to the landlord for the tenant shows up and there's a hearing on whether it's true or it isn't true. And that was the best we could do.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: Wayne has a

[Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel]: question. Comments. Actually, we didn't ask a lot of questions because I was on AI looking at all this stuff.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: AI is not always the truth. Let's just remember that.

[Wayne Laroche, Member]: It is when you're looking at the bill, that's only interpreted. So what I want to say is that I think this is a really good job. I think that what you're trying to do in the conference is good. And what you were just saying there at the end, I think you can contribute to homelessness both ways, and not to forget that if these landlords are going out of business because the hassle of being a landlord is too much and they go out of business, it's going to contribute just as much to homelessness as the works the other way. So I think everybody should that's a point that could be made that might back those off that want to push one way or the other on this. I just hope the judiciary map comes up too much to try to fix it.

[Mark Mihaly, Chair, House Committee on General and Housing]: I have to say, you know, there are times when you have a compromise and everybody doesn't like it and you still feel good. It's not one of those times. It's just a dark situation because the question is, do you hurt homelessness by increasing the number of evictions, or do you hurt homelessness by decreasing the number of apartment units that are available? I mean, it's not it's not a good situation. And this bill is our best attempt at a kind of steering a middle ground here. I think I'm not gonna, madam chair, unless you so desire, I'm not gonna go through this list.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: No. I think this is helpful to have everybody. I know we have a question from, rep Maricki.

[Michael Mrowicki, Member]: Well, I just wanted to update on the Brattleboro situation. Those units were not taken offline. They were converted. They were supported housing, where three ten had a caseworker, and because of the level of crime, including a murder, the organizations decided they could not continue that level of support, so they're still

[Mark Mihaly, Chair, House Committee on General and Housing]: going be rented. And rented for people who are of low and moderate income. They still will be, they just won't be for homeless,

[Michael Mrowicki, Member]: I think. For homeless. Yeah,

[Mark Mihaly, Chair, House Committee on General and Housing]: They they support they wrote a letter who is that? Elizabeth Bridgewater? Yeah. Wrote a letter in support of this legislation because of that. I would say that that the tenant who is dangerous or engaged in dangerous activity. I will say, I wanna be fair about this, there is a concern, and one of the problems of this whole area, it's not like anybody's making things up and their concerns aren't real, all the concerns are real. There's a concern that this could be subject to abuse. You know, the landlord doesn't like somebody and they say they're dangerous, or somebody's just not a very nice person, but, you know, they're not really a danger. And I guess all I can say is, yeah, so there'll be a hearing, and we're leaving it to a court. I don't know a way around that.

[Eileen "Lynn" Dickinson, Member]: Dave?

[David Yacovone, Member]: Could you imagine the I wanted to talk a little bit about the request for 600,000 to have staff who can help people sort through this. Could you imagine our current human services workers at the parent child centers, at community action, at other organizations, as a condition of the grants they get to do their baseline work they do today, something along the lines of you'll be required to attend a one or two day workshop to learn this, so that clients you work with, who trust you, who have a good relationship with you, can get this service as opposed to new people starting it all over again. Or am I being naive or is it just not likely that people can master this in addition to their other duties?

[Mark Mihaly, Chair, House Committee on General and Housing]: Well, no, I think that, first of all, you mentioned the parent child centers and run under the cap agencies, that's where these people would be. In fact, I think two in Burlington and one in each of the others. And the feeling was that you needed new positions. Could we add it to the work of the existing staff of the cap agencies? I don't know. I think they're probably pretty overworked, But that's I can't answer that question. Thank you.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: Questions. As you know, we have more to come on this, but I think we have a good grounding in what this is. I know your committee's done a lot of work on this, Mark, so we thank you for that.

[Mark Mihaly, Chair, House Committee on General and Housing]: Sure, it was a pleasure, always.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: Always nice to see you back here. Chair Lillovone will be in here Wednesday morning. He will have had his conversations on the judiciary side and will be back. And so that's I'm

[Mark Mihaly, Chair, House Committee on General and Housing]: just gonna give For you an example, we shortened the answer time. Originally, in the very first draft of the bill, it was seven days to file an answer. We heard testimony that it takes sometimes five days for people just to get it, read it, understand it, and get to somebody much, and so we extended that to ten. Martin said, we we don't want a different answer period for this and everything else in the civil docket, so it's twenty one days. So that lengthens the time a little, but the notice periods remember counsel talked to you about, there's periods for by which a landlord can say, your lease is done. You're you're done. A notice of termination. And then if you don't leave, then they file the eject back. So on the nerdist's oaths of termination, what we did is we shortened it by four days for nonpayment of rent. We shortened it a lot for an allegation of violence and dangerous activity. But for everything else, we lengthened it to ninety days. For the reasons remember the two baskets that I described? That's not changed. Most of the stuff that's changed in the judiciary language so far is, I think, really good, bringing it to in conformance with the current code.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: So we'll hear that on Wednesday. We need to vote it out before Friday, so I don't know what day. We'll just see how things go with that. So I want to thank you all for the time we spend. And committee, I need to give you a few updates that don't have anything to do with this. This is that time of year, so we're going to continue to change. We'll text you as we need to for now. We've moved H740 to 2PM this afternoon. And then we are looking to move H660, which is the opioid bill, till tomorrow morning because TIFF still has some things to do and people to talk to about a couple of things that we haven't been able to get to. And we want to be able to look at it and vote. And we don't want to waste time. So you all have priority things to work on. The rule on that is you can't leave Friday without handing that into James. So, if you're done at 9AM, well, should go to the floor. He's hoping that he'll have them all by heat each time because it's Friday. We're still live, so we'll keep the noise down. But that's the plan, is to get it in.

[Michael Mrowicki, Member]: Can you email basically for all

[Eileen "Lynn" Dickinson, Member]: the feedback?

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: Yes, if

[Mark Mihaly, Chair, House Committee on General and Housing]: you could also yeah,

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: you can email and or handwriting that he can read. Or you're going to get lots of phone calls over the weekend. And you remember, 500-0000, five tier to 5, five to 10, 10 to 15. Go ahead, Bartage. So I have a question. I presume Ben will submit this and James is going to say, well, there are three votes for this one and five votes for this one and six votes. You're going to try to group them together and figure out which ones rise to the top based on the- We're gonna talk about that, yeah. So what we did last time was we took everybody, James and I, well, Maria and I knew who everybody's names were, but we didn't say who everybody was. And we gave everybody sort of a list of what people were talking about so we could see that. But I think we don't have to do that step because now we're asking you to prioritize first thing. Last year, we didn't ask you to actually prioritize until the second step. You're prioritizing now. So we can do something like that that says, here's what everybody's was and maybe how many they were for each of those. And we'll have a conversation about it, obviously. We won't just look at it or I won't just look at it and say, okay, there we are. So, we'll talk about it. But I assume the idea is together, there's a lot of support for this idea, not so much for that. That's right. And among the group, the main items seem to be these 10 items. Right. And so, we'll observe all those things and then, but if you know, maybe you're the only one who picked whatever. Flood relief in the in EK. Yeah, well, there you go. Right. For example. Although I can tell you there's

[David Yacovone, Member]: a couple

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: of Right, but maybe you're the only one who picked something in particular. You still get to make your case to the group. And so maybe you'll change some minds, right? Maybe you'll hear did happen. And so it's going to be kind of fluid, but we'll be, we can see that there are six for this and so maybe some are easy yeses and then some others we're going to struggle with and then people get to make their case and we'll have a way to think about it.

[Eileen "Lynn" Dickinson, Member]: Yes, I just want to ask, I think I can do this, I just want to double check. If we decide that we have a request for $1,000,000 and we say, no, no, we'll only give them 500, we can indicate that.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: Absolutely. You don't have to give And us full amount, we've done that before. We say, we know some places want two positions. Well, maybe one position is really all we can think about, but we really need that one position.

[Eileen "Lynn" Dickinson, Member]: So absolutely. And if

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: you're going to do something extreme with one of these, you might want to find out if at what point it's so, because sometimes there's that too. But most of the time it's not all or nothing. Most of the time something is okay. And then I'll be around for questions. I'm trying to give you time today to do stuff since if we're just going to start at two, that's the only bill we're going to have this afternoon. So we've got time for people to work on it. I've got to do mine too, but I'm happy to answer questions some of you said, I want to talk to you about what I'm thinking about.

[Michael Mrowicki, Member]: I'll keep rolling calls up.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: Oh, yes, there may be a roll call on at least one bill today, I think.

[David Yacovone, Member]: We believe a particular priority item is likely to have consideration from the new rural health transportation grant, do we just omit it and assume that it will go that way, or do we flag it with an asterisk?

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: I would say talk to me, or even better, talk to Nolan. Okay. Yeah, about it's likely. Oh, yes. Well, whether it's Yes.

[David Yacovone, Member]: Leave it or not. Right.

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: Right. Thank you. Yeah, I think he's the main man for that one.

[David Yacovone, Member]: Is he here? No, he would love to hear that he was the main man.

[Michael Mrowicki, Member]: Put it

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: up as he wants on our livestream. You. Alright.

[Ted Barnett, Joint Fiscal Office]: So I

[Robin Scheu, Chair, House Appropriations Committee]: think we're gonna be on 02:00, and you've got time to start to work on this.