Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Welcome back. It's still Tuesday, and it's still the House Committee on General and Housing, and we are now going to spend time going through issues, key issues with respect to July, which is residential and rental reform. So, what I'm going to plan to do is, as we work down the pages that I gave you, is just frame the issue, find you about some of the testimony and the discussion. So, first is a bunch of notices. These are generally not notices inside of litigation, for litigation. Remember, there's two parts to the statute, rental agreement and then ejectment. This is the rental agreement. So first of all, there's how you give notice generally. The And current law is delivered or mailed, seven seventy two ads posting on the door and email. I just should alert you that a number of the letters and comments we've gotten from both the nonprofit and the for profit community of landlords is that one problem is that it's sometimes hard or impossible to give notice, and that people actually avoid being notified one way or another, and that that's part of the delay. As you remember, one of the major issues for the landlord side and the tenant side on opposite views is how long the whole process takes. And so what you see here in these notice provisions are attempts under various various provisions, various bills to try to shorten these. But the first is, what about giving notice that's generally like you're not, you know, whether it's notice that I'm not gonna renew your lease or it's notice that you're not paying your rent or notice that I'm gonna convert condominiums, etcetera. What is that notice and seven seventy two ads posting on the door an email? Currently, it's delivered or mailed. Did I put it accurately? Okay, Debbie.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I'm wondering if we could include a certificate of mailing.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Like, what do you mean?

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: It's certified of mailing. You can get them at the post office.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Do you mean But but it just return requested.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: No. That's not certified mail. It's not certified mail with return receipt. It's a certificate of mailing, and you put, you know, their address and the post office puts a stamp on it. Like, this was mailed.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It's Proves that you mailed it.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: And it's just, yeah, it's proof that you've mailed it.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Isn't there a presumption?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So one thing I was gonna, for the record Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel, one thing I was going to comment, it was brought up in some of the testimony you heard last week. Currently the statutory language says actual notice means receipt of written notice and delivered or mailed. So I think there is a requirement in the statute, and I don't know exactly how courts have interpreted that, but requirement that you need to demonstrate that the individual has received it. And so that may be something you want to keep if you're moving it forward, even if you're going to add, you could I think Isn't

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: one of the bills have a presumption in it, that presumption of receipt?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It says that it's that's currently I believe it's in statute. Says

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: See, this is not a minor issue. This is important. It's the way the whole thing starts.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's a revocable presumption that the notice was received three days after mailing is created if sending party proves that the notice was sent by first class or certified mail. And that is kept in July, for example. But I do think if you're going to remove the word receipt of, you want to keep that rebuttable presumption and or maybe add something in where you must demonstrate it was actually mailed.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yes, Tom, and then, well, you were first, Gayle.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: No, he answered it.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: Okay, so I know, I've seen that I know what this turning me to a reputable presumption. Just to find out. So

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: if I take you to court for the ejectment action and I'm trying to demonstrate that I provided you actual notice of determination, if I mailed it via certified mail, it creates a presumption that you received it. The only way you would rebut that presumption is by giving evidence to the court that you did not receive it. You'd have to have But our evidence would shift to you to demonstrate that you did not receive it versus the burden remaining on me that I ensure that

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: you received it. So current law, to summarize, this is important. I know this sounds really detailed, but this stuff really matters in real life. The current law provides it sets out what notice is, and then it provides there's a rebuttable presumption that it requires receipt. Right? Yes. It does require receipt, but there's a rebuttable presumption that if it's mailed, that it's received unless something is indicated to the contrary. Is that in 772? I don't know, but I don't.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, sir.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. So both 772 and general law provide that. The only thing that seven seventy two does in an attempt to kind of modernize the situation, it actually adds specifically that it can be posting on the door or it can be emailed. So but in any case, it's still the same. In other words, it's it it has to be received, but there's a rebuttable presumption it has been received. I would assume with email, you know. Right?

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Would you? Check

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: your So I think a few things to help, I was just going to pull up the current statute so you have it all.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: You have to make it bigger.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: This is just the definition of actual notice, so this isn't the termination section, so just to bring up this piece so you have it. I mean, think a few things that you all wanna consider as you're moving it forward. First off, do you want to ensure, do you want to require in the law that the actual notice requires receipt from the tenant? That I think is the first thing you need to answer. That can become problematic if you keep receipt in, but you allow somebody to stick it to the door, does that mean receipt? Do you want to expand the rebuttable presumption in the event that somebody were sticking it on the door, etcetera? So I just think that's the first thing is figuring out whether or you want to keep that in.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Okay, yes. So with email, I am, I will be the first to admit that I will read an email and not necessarily respond because I'm like, I'll see you

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: in ten minutes

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: And then someone will ask, Did you get my email? Email is just very easy to not respond to. And so this is maybe a silly question of like, What is receipt? Because I mean, I've also sent emails of claimants returned to sender or their protections or their firewalls of nope, not having it.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And so that's what I mean is if you're going to keep in something like receipt, then you may want to expand that rebuttable presumption to include when the email is sent. Because the current law is it's mailed or hand delivered. You know that it's received as someone hand delivers it. You can prove that they have it in their hand. And then it's saying we're going to give you a rebuttable presumption if you mail it, that they get it three days later. So you're kind of clever. You know that there's receipt. You're either hand delivered, rebuttable presumption that you mailed it. The only way you're getting away from their rebuttable presumption is if somebody's able to demonstrate via evidence that they didn't receive it three days after. If you're going to expand this to include other things like email,

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: then I think if

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you want to maintain this requirement of receipt, then I think you may expand the rebuttable presumption to say rebuttable presumption is when it's mailed. And then you could demonstrate that if somebody comes into court and they say, well, yeah, you mailed it, and you mailed it to the wrong address. That would get rid of that presumption because you can then prove that you've emailed it to the wrong address. Or if you receive an email not sent automatic reply, well, if that comes out in discovery and court, you can then point to that and say, see, I never received it. And you knew I didn't receive it because you got some sort of automatic response. The challenge with email, if you're going to keep the words receipt, are how do you prove someone receives it? So I think those two things probably go hand in hand. If you're going to keep receipt, you may want to have some sort of rebuttable presumption that if you send it via email, it's presumed that it's received the day you sent it. That is a policy decision for you all, whether you think that's appropriate. If people aren't reading their emails the day that they're sent, etcetera, that's something that you all then would need to determine. Me.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I just had a question on if you have it in your lease that it's the tenant's responsibility to update you on any address change and then like so you mail it to that last known address that you have as a good address, and then like when we get further in and maybe we're in court, they're saying I never received it, I changed my address, then if it's in the lease that they have to keep you updated, are you covered?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That was a great question that I would probably defer to people who are in court and practicing as to how the courts have interpreted that. I can just give you my experience with the Department of Labor, which is slightly different, but when we would be sending out determinations, people are in overpayment. As you all may remember, I was the director of the unemployment insurance division. When we would send out notices via mail, we had those similar requirements. It's your obligation as the claimant to update your information with us. If courts found out that individuals did not receive them because they had moved their address, etcetera, they would force us to go back to square one and we would have to start over.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, so am going to just throw out an option. I'm only doing this because we have so many issues. Please don't think I'm really going to the map. I'm just trying to get us focused. I think it's valuable to leave receipt in. I mean, want people, we want to know as a matter of law that they had to receive it, but I think the rebuttable presumption is very important there, And that if we have the rebuttable presumption, we have to clear that I mean, I should think of adding two things, Cameron. One would be that with email, the rebuttable presumption is created upon sending the email. And two, that with handle I think if it's nailed to the door, it's it's just deemed received. But what I don't know. That I'm

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: just throwing that out. I don't think email should be included. I I think it's it's it's not in there. It's handwritten or mailed to the last known address, and I think it should just leave at that with the technology issues. There's too many things that could go wrong with it going to spam or someone not having internet service to access their email. I mean, there's too many what ifs and unknown variables by including technology. And I think hand delivered or by mail with a reputable Or posting on the door, but with receipt with presumption, or bundled presumption, I think is fine.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So one thing I will just comment on seven seventy two and I apologize, we don't have the language in front of us right Your draft as it's introduced does not allow just email and I don't know if this was the reason I was thinking it required email and mailing. Okay, So there was at least that two pieces.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Oh, the two.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: Yes, sir.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: How do you feel about that if it's both?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: If it's both required, if it's required that it has to be both, then that's fine.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, If

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: you have the mail address.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Right, and they just can't say that, oh, I sent you an email, and call it

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: The only thing is, do you ever have a tenant experience where tenants only give you the email? There is no mailing address?

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Well, should it yes. I I would say there are there are, situations like that because we have addresses that don't get mail delivery. So they either have to have a post office box. And if they don't want the expense of that, then

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And that's what posting on the door is for.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Posting on

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: the door Giving

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: it to them. Yeah. Right. How do people feel about that, the status? What we're talking about is, I'll try to, well, why don't you try to frame that?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Before I go there, you had a question?

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: I'm just confused, how do you prove that it was put on the door?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Somebody says I put it on the door.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: That's it? Yeah.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Take a photo, that's what the mail delivery does.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So in July, and I'm just bringing this up because this is the only bill that has these kind of expanded notice provisions in them. Any of those new methods, posting it on the door, sending it via email also required it to be mailed. So that you kept that in.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Thank you, somebody remembers what's in my bill.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Just regular first class mail.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You would get the presumption if it was done via first class mail. So if you just send it regular mail and you don't have that first class or certified mail, you don't get the presumption, you have to go to court and prove that they received it.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Can't always mail it

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: if they don't have a mailing address.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Then you got to post it on their door.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Right, so first thing, it's always backed up with mailing, but

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It says currently it is mailed to the last known address or the address provided in the residential rental So it expands it a little bit there. As long as you're required, I don't know how much this is changing practice on the ground, but in theory based on that language, as long as you're requiring an address.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Does posting also require mail? Yes.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: On the door? Yes, On your draft of July?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, well, what do you think? Ask away.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Hypothetically, wouldn't the last known address be that unit?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think it depends on how they're asking the

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: question. Mean, you sure

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you know about an application? Yes. Yes. They

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: might use another address for mailing rather it's not even a post office box. They might have it just mailed to somebody else. But if you do I mean, we email I'm gonna say a move in packet, the lease, let just you know, the whole shebang, female, all that stuff. We email them their whole packet. They prefer to have it emailed, and then they can keep a record of it. So it's like, we know we have a good email address.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: How about this? Oh, I was about to say that.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: How about this? Because I'd like to move on.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: But you get mad. How about

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: see that they What's in 772 except

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Don't email it. That

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: hand delivery alone is okay. Excuse me. Hand excuse me. Nailing it to the door alone is okay if the tenant has not provided a mailing address.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So it would be I'm sorry, say that one more time.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, so it's 772 plus, in other words, 772 says it's got to be receipt of a, I see you, me one minute, it's got to be a receipt of notice and that consists of delivered by hand or posting on the door or email and mailing, But if and I'm adding, if there if the tenant has not provided a mailing address, posting on the door is sufficient.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. So I will try to figure out a way to incorporate that.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, I'm sure you can. Yes, Elizabeth.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Thanks. What about places where, like my own, where we don't ever use the front door during the winter months and rarely during the summer months? So we may never see notice that's been placed on our door. I mean, we own our house, that's not what I'm talking about, but sometimes the notice may be weather dependent is all I'm pointing out.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I think that would be a real a rebut a rebut to the presumption. I mean, if someone said, I never found it. I never saw it. Maybe they put it on the back door, but not the front door or something. But I think there would be mailing too. So you'd have to have somebody who didn't have a mailing address and it was posted on the wrong door.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: But didn't you just say that that posting on the door was sufficient without mailing?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: When the tenant had not had decided not to provide a mailing address. Only under that circumstance. Otherwise, mailing and posting is required. Yes.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Some states actually allow you to use your key and just post it on the inside of the door.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. I don't know that we wanna do that.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I know. I'm just saying some states do that.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. I would like to move on to failure to pay rent. Okay, here, and help me out, Cameron. The issue here is, now we're getting into specific notices and the time, not the method, but the time frame, okay. My understanding is this is when you're saying to the tenant, hey, you haven't paid rent. If you have to pay rent by x date or else I'm gonna file an ejectment action. Is that right, Cameron?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: In this instance, it would be you haven't paid rent. I assume the landlord may approach it this way in saying that you have x number of days to pay rent. Otherwise, I'll provide you with a termination notice. Okay, so the current is, is here's where you begin to see an effort to seriously shorten the time. The current law is, you have to

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: give fourteen days notice, right, Cameron?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes sir, based on that termination.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And then what happens? Then after that, the landlord can give you a termination,

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No, currently it's, if you're just saying when is rent due, it's due without demand on the

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: day that you've agreed to. Okay, so what's the fourteen days?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: If you fail to pay rents, based on the law, it's due on the first, you haven't paid on the second, in theory I can send you a termination notice two days after that.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So the termination notice says, when that happens fourteen days later, what can the landlord do? Terminate your rental agreement and inform you that you need to vacate the premises. Okay, that is not the same as starting the ejectment action, right? Okay, so this is an early kind of period. July makes it, changes it from seven, from fourteen days to seven, and '8, what is it called, eight, six eighty eight?

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: June.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: June makes it three days. And April, March leaves the fourteen days. So, this is very early in the process, everyone. That is, this is the time when you haven't paid your rent, the landlord gives you notice, at the end of that notice period, what can they do? They can file an ejectment actions? Yeah.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Then If you refuse If you

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: refuse to pay. Okay. And two quick things,

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I should have started this off, my apologies. It has just been a quick turnaround. I was preparing to have another cheat sheet for the ejectment process And then Mr. Chair, you also asked for at least a statutory timeline, not a practical timeline, but at least a timeline of events. I'll try to get you all that tomorrow. Okay, so here we go, this is the very beginning of the process. It's the time for the landlord to say, hey, you didn't pay rent, you have to pay rent.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: During that time, can cure, they can pay rent, and in fact, later on during the injection process, depending on what we sign, they can also pay rent. But this is the period before anybody's filed a case, and we have range of three days, seven seventy two is seven days, it's kind of like, it's the compromise, and the current law is 14. So thoughts? Yes. Go ahead.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: For like ten days.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: He likes ten. Okay. I also like ten, but I have another question. So when someone rental agreements, the landlord does not have responsibility every month telling their tenant to pay rent, correct? Correct. So if I'm a landlord, somebody is like, is that is the current fourteen days, like, the max the landlord can go? Or can, like, on that first day, the landlord say, hey. You haven't paid rent. So Like, I just wanna make sure I understand that.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So just to make sure you all understand these notice periods, This isn't a grace period. This is not a fourteen day grace period that individuals have. There is no grace period in statute. So unless the grace period is built into your residential agreement that says rent agreement could say rent's due on the first, it's considered late on the fifth. That would be a little grace period that you as an individual would have where the landlord couldn't consider it late until it was after the fifth. The agreement may just say it's due on the first, in which case it's late on the second. What this section is saying is if you landlord are going to terminate the agreement with the tenant based on the tenant's failure to pay rent, you have to provide them with a minimum of fourteen days notice before that terminates and you tell them they need to leave.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: So the next day, a landlord, I can say, you didn't pay, you're done in fourteen days.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: On the first it's due and the second they don't pay, you could and deliver them a notice on the second that says fourteen days from now, so presumably that would be what, the sixteenth, this rental agreement terminates and you need to vacate the property.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. Okay, and so now, so it's the number, what's the issue here is the number of days and I only will say we've had, I'm going to characterize this, forgive me for doing this, but I'm just trying to move us along and everybody's free to recharacterize. Some testament, on one side we have landlords saying, we need to make this process shorter, please, it's too long, and on the other hand, we have evidence that tenants, it takes them time to do things, they may not get it together, they may not understand it, etcetera. So, 772 is 7, current is 14, what's your number? 688 was 3, 440 was kept to 14. Joe says 10. Any other thoughts? I have a

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: thought. I just wanna make sure. Don't know in the law if it tells you how because I think if you if you have ten days, that that's count that counts weekends. But if you have seven days, it doesn't count weekends.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: What what does the law presume? Is it presume calendar days unless

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: My understanding is it presumes a

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: day for a day. It's

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Calendar days unless you provide otherwise. So it's ten days is and what is the first day? What is the first day?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The next day.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: The next day.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: The next day.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So someone does doesn't pay rent on the first, on the second you issue a notice, then that the tenth, the first day of the ten days is the third. Okay,

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: yes. Just, my boss is real quick, she said, keep in mind, it doesn't have to be on the second, it could be on the tenth or

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: the fourteenth. Whatever the rest of

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: day you're sending it is fourteen days from me.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Right.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Oh, okay. So the landlord doesn't get around to realizing, oh my god, they didn't pay rent. Right. Okay.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Okay. So I just wanna clarify. So current statute is fourteen days. We have heard testimony that landlords are experiencing non payment of rent for months and years at a time. So I don't think remedying a ten to fourteen day difference is really going to make a difference because that's not actually what we're looking at here because that's currently in statute. Am I correct?

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: It's

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: currently fourteen days.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: It's currently fourteen days and they can do this now currently. And so if we change the number of days in which that's allowed, I don't see how this aspect particularly is gonna remedy the issue in which landlords are currently experiencing?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, my feeling is there's two separate issues here. One is when it happens one time and the landlord wants to get them out, well then it makes it faster. Another issue is where the landlord just lets it slide and there's repeated failure to pay rent, which is another issue which is addressed in these bills.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: And so back to this particular aspect, whether we make it ten days or fourteen days, the current statute is fourteen days. Landlords are currently experiencing this. What difference would making it ten days do if it's already an issue at fourteen days?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: The problem we're facing here is that there are about a half dozen or a dozen periods, and when you add them all up, it's very long in the eyes of landlords. The only way to shorten them is to shorten each one. There's no other way to shorten the process. Elizabeth? Elizabeth?

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Yeah, thanks. I would really love to understand outside of what seven seventy two is gonna do. What can Cameron or somebody just walk through or Debbie or whomever just walk through exactly what happens as a as a both landlord and tenant, not statutorily, but in actuality, just so we can have a picture of So as Saudia was saying, and I was gonna bring that up too, I then don't understand how tenants have months of arrears. I also don't understand how like where the tenant arrears program falls into this. It can would it be possible to just get a walk through of that? What that actually looks like?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I can be super high level on certain aspects of it. And then like I said, I will get you some more explicit detail. I won't speak to the tenant arrears piece just because I'm not familiar enough with those different programs, but I can try to gather you some information or maybe best to just I think you have the state housing authority and others in, maybe they could give you some better detail on who's eligible and how long does somebody have to be in arrears before they can access the program, etcetera. It's very, like globally.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, just walking through the process with the timelines.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So someone, you are the landlord and someone is renting your unit. You have a residential rental agreement that says they're going to be there for twelve months. It says that rent is due on the first. We're gonna presume for argument's sake that the individual is paying monthly. The statute contemplates that the individual could be paying weekly. I imagine most of them are paying monthly. So the individual is going along and they pay the first month, they pay the second month, then they don't pay the third. At that point, statutorily, the landlord could terminate the lease because of non payment of rent. I imagine most landlords are probably trying to keep individuals in the unit for as long as possible, given the process of having to evict, having to then post, try to find a new tenant, get someone else in, etcetera. There is no statutory timeline for how long a landlord must try to work with a tenant, okay?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So then if the That's important, everybody. In other words, and sort of gets at what you were getting at, in other words, what he's about to describe is what happens when the landlord has decided enough. Okay, it could be after 10 periods or a long period of working with the tenant and it not working out. It could be the tenant saying, I'm not gonna pay you ever, so whatever. But this is the moment when the landlord says, I'm gonna go ahead with this process.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Which is fine, but what I'm just trying to understand is where are the teeth? I like if we're gonna if we're going to say that this that this is this is here, I want it to have what I'm saying, what I'm trying to understand is, if it's in current statute that this is a process, and it's up to the landlord, and we're saying, okay, this is what they can do when they've had enough. This aspect of it is not changing much aside from number of dates.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, but there's listen to them now. There's just a lot of steps and each one of them has dates.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Okay, continue. Thank you.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Is the operative word that it's terminating the lease first, and then once you terminate the lease, then you can take the next step.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: That's what it Right. And what Elizabeth has asked for, which I think is good, is asking Cameron to walk us through the process from the beginning to the end so we have that overview. Debbie, so mhmm?

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I just wanted to say that this, termination notice, it gives the the tenant a piece of paper that they can take to places to basically verify that they might need help with it, and they can take it to agencies, and they can say, hey. You know? Can you help me, can you help me? And we'll even direct them to agencies to go to, we even have churches in our area, I don't know what other areas are like, but if it's a one time thing, a church will help with a rent for that month. So, it's almost important to get that piece of paper if you are behind in print.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That may be a condition required to get access to print. It is. It's proof. Okay.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: But you just don't know where place say I need money. What I'm hearing,

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: this is an assumption that I'm making, is that, as Elizabeth had mentioned, how do tenants get months in arrears if this is already in law and it's just fourteen days? Is it because landlords are saying, we're going give you more time, like, I think that's the question. Am I wrong?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: That's one of the reasons. Another is, there's a lot of places in what he's about to go through, for tenants not to, you know, keep not paying. Okay, go ahead.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So, can't speak to why something would take that long. It's really a question for the individual landlord. Maybe they've received some rent arrears payments from some entity that has kept the person there for a few months. Maybe they're wanting to try to allow the tenant to have enough time to come up with funds. Maybe they're working on some sort of a different arrangement. I'm sure the individual facts could be endless as to why it takes a landlord this long to get to a point. But I'll circle back to something that the chair mentioned. You have the residential agreement. The person is living there. They're paying rent. They're obligating with the terms. At some point, if the landlord wants to terminate that agreement, the statute says you can only terminate for specific reasons. And there is a timeframe where you have to provide the tenant notice. And that's where you have all of these different timelines depending on the circumstances, this little cheat sheet in the far left. If you're terminating via the fact that the tenant isn't paying their rent, it's currently fourteen days versus if you do not have a rental agreement, your rental agreement has expired, the person has lived there for longer than two years, you all have decided if you're terminating for no reason other than you are wanting to get rid of the person being there, it's up to ninety days. So the period could be as short as fourteen days now for failure to pay rent or for criminal activity, where the landlord is saying, this agreement is terminated, you no longer have authorization to live in this unit, you must leave. And here's the in statute, you're saying that somebody needs to have a specific period of notice to potentially go get money, to help pay for rent if they haven't been able to come up with it or to try to secure additional lodging to be able to leave. So I think you all can understand that you don't want a tenant to just come in and say, get out and you no longer have access to all of your belongings. It is someone's home that they're living there. So you're saying statutorily for depending on the reason that the landlord is terminating the agreement and telling someone you no longer have authority to live in this location, you're saying it could be fourteen days notice, could be all the way up to ninety days notice. Depends, okay, so take

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: us beyond that then. So now has been given.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Notice has been given, termination of the rental agreement, you've been asked to vacate the property. Now if the individual does not comply with that termination and request to vacate, what do you do? You as the landlord have to bring an objectment action. The only kind of teeth that I can right off the top of my head point to, Representative Lamoille, that you have kind of alluded to is currently under subsection I think it is K in that statutory section, it says that a notice to terminate, and I'm just going to read it to you, notice to terminate shall be insufficient through supportive judgment unless the proceeding is commenced not later than ninety days from, excuse me, not later than sixty days from the date of the notice. So for whatever reason, you've given the person a termination notice. You have fourteen days to leave. They don't leave you. Now what do you do? You have sixty days from that date to bring an ejectment action. Why does it take sixty days? Maybe you need to go hire an attorney. You need to gather the documents together. For whatever reason, it could take time. I'll defer to the individuals practicing the landlords and attorneys as to why. But in statute, it says you got sixty days. If you don't bring the injectment within sixty days, you're going back to square one. You have to use a different termination notice to sustain the adjutantment action. You file the case. You then have to serve the complaint on the individual. It's a civil action. The individual based on the rules of civil procedure, which are the rules that govern how parties work throughout a case, throughout the litigation of a case, what are the rules that govern how they interact with each other, how they interact with the courts, how motions are filed, etcetera, etcetera. You file the case. So now this could be day 16 in theory. You've given notice fourteen days to leave. They don't leave. You go in the next day and you file an ejectment in court. You serve the individual. They have, under the rules of civil procedure twenty one days to file an answer. So that's kind of the next statutorily or legally required time period. At that point they file their answer,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: then Say they don't answer. Let's go that, they either answer or they don't. If they don't, how long to a default judgment?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: My understanding is that's going be up to the court, right? There's no timeline. I do not believe that there is, I will double check while we're sitting here, but I don't believe that you would, so what would happen for you all, and we're going back to civil procedure long time ago? You filed your complaint. The individual has a required time period to be allowed to file the answer. They don't file an answer. At that point, you can ask for motions of summary judgment, or I'm sure the ejectment action probably says you go in and ask for a default judgment to be issued through writ, the piece of paper from the court saying that you now have legal possession of that property again to take the sheriff to serve on somebody to get the sheriff to remove the individual. How long from when you file the motion for a default judgment to when the court rules on that motion, I don't believe there's anything in statute that says here's the time frame.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Is there anything in July? Is July, well, I'll tell you what, why don't you just continue walking through

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, because I'm to give you these in writing.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: I'm give

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: all this to you in writing. Let's say the person files an answer and makes their own arguments as to why termination shouldn't be authorized. You're terminating somebody because you're claiming that they're conducting criminal activity on the property, and their answer is saying, I'm not. Or that part of their answer is, well, never got your termination notice. Or I actually,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: as a legal aid attorney, had a case where my client said, I paid.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Did they pay?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Turns out they did, but I lost the case. I'll tell you something. So

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: it could be for any reasons they're answering. They're saying that the reason you're arguing to terminate my lease isn't sufficient, doesn't apply, whatever. They filed their answer. There is currently no statutory time frame between when the answer is filed and when the court has to have the hearing. I think you heard some testimony last week that the courts have a self imposed expectation of trying to get to things within I think it was one hundred and eighty days, the person said. But there was a specific percentage of cases. They're only hearing x percentage of cases within their own self imposed time frame. Don't quote me on that. I'd go back and listen to testimony. I don't remember if it was one hundred and eighty days, but it was some number around there. So it could be you've got your fourteen days notice, then you've got a minimum of filing, you have to find the person, serve them, however many days that takes. They have twenty one days to answer. So we're at a minimum of what's that, a little over a month in statutory requirement. Then it's up to when the court hears the case. And we need to hear from judiciary on how long that takes. Okay, so then after the court issues a judgment, let's say, what happens next? So the court issues the judgment saying that you have the legal right to the premises, they issue you a writ telling you that, and you then have the sheriff has to go deliver that onto the individual.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: There's no time difference or difference, forgive me, getting in the weeds, between the judgment and the writ.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I do not know, I would to double check this,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: presumably no, but It's not like you get a judgment, you get a judgment and then you have to go in for the writ?

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: You mean when the judge issues a writ of possession?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, they issue, that's what happens at the end of the trial, Okay.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: But the judge will, it's up to them, they might give seven days or fourteen days before the landlord would have possession back.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, so the only thing the

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: statute says is the writ is issued, so if the court finds possession, the plaintiff shall have judgment for possession and rents due damages costs, etcetera. A writ of possession shall issue on the date judgment is entered. Okay. The writ directs a sheriff to serve the writ upon the defendant and not earlier than fourteen days after the writ is served to put the plaintiff into possession. The tenant gets another fourteen days before the sheriff will So they serve the tenant, do they then have immediate right to eject the tenant? No, that's what it's saying, it's saying the writ directs the sheriff to serve the writ on the defendant.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Within after fourteen days? No.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And not earlier than fourteen days after it's served to put the plaintiff into possession. So the judge issues the judgment in your favor, issues the writ, it goes to the sheriff. I don't know how long it takes to go to the sheriff.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: There was, I can tell you, it's really not here, but there was last year a bill, apparently it had to be the sheriff that was the sheriff in the local community. Yeah. Yeah. And they were way behind and they just wouldn't do it. It took, you know, like, was a month to get the sheriff to serve the writ. So now they took that out, so it can be any sheriff, but I still think there are delays in getting the sheriff, but the next step is after the judgment,

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: sheriff It goes to sheriff, sheriff has to deliver it upon the person, There's no timeframe as to how long that takes. And then I've issued you similar to the termination notice, You've got a notice to terminate. I've issued the writ of possession saying the judge has declared that Cameron Wood has legal right to this possession, you have fourteen days to get out. And if you're not out in fourteen days, this is how I assume it would happen, I'm not sure. The statute says not earlier than fourteen days to put the individual in possession. So the person has fourteen, the way I read that plain language, the person would have fourteen days to get their things out of the house before the sheriff would come back and presumably change the locks and lock the person out or physically remove the person from the property. So it's another fourteen days after the check. Elizabeth? Thanks.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: A couple of quick questions. Well, a question and a statement. One is that we have learned from the process with sheriff Palmer of Windsor County that it's now allowed for sheriffs to contract side of their own county for procedures like this. So Sheriff Palmer, for example, provides services for the courthouse in Barrie, which is way out of Windsor County. So but my question is, and I don't, I mean, does the writ simply say the landlord gets to retrieve possession of the unit or can the writ also have a timeline written into it? I don't know. I'm just wondering.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I don't know if a, let me rephrase it and state it back to you and let me know if I'm incorrectly addressing your question. I don't know if a judgment could or would give somebody more than fourteen days, but I think presumably that could happen. The statute says that the writ is delivered to the individual by the sheriff and then the sheriff puts the owner in possession not earlier than fourteen days. So it could be longer than fourteen days. It just cannot be earlier than that. So it's a minimum of fourteen. I presume a judge could build in more time if there was reason to do so.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: That's what I was wondering. Like if a person was very sick, for example, could that or was going through some kind of turmoil that had a potential terminus to it, could I don't know, you may have more experience or any experience here, but I just wondered whether is the writ the equivalence of a summary judgment by the judge? Is it writ It's the outcome of a hearing. It a simple form or is it prescribed or is it open to interpretation by the judge?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I imagine it is a template form that the court probably uses and it is a summation, I guess, of the case and the judgment that the judge has ordered issuing somebody legal possession of the property.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Be amazed if the judges have terrific discretion. I'd be amazed if they don't have discretion to put in their judgment that the delay in the writ if there's special circumstance. Thank

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: you. That's exactly what I was wondering.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Yes. So if the object is to shorten this process, it seems like the length is within the court system. It's, for example, in the evidence presented to us by the Landlord's Association and their chart, they indicate that

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: it's often four to six weeks after the answer to get a status conference, and then that the hearing is four to six, four to eight weeks after that. Seven seventy two says, it's recognizing that what you just said, a lot of the delay, not all of the delay, a lot of the delay is, you know, this court process. It says, from the day of filing, the hearing has to be set within sixty days of that filing. Okay.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So again, that's one case, right? If you go to the other end of the spectrum where someone is living in a house and they've been there for more than two years, you don't have a written agreement anymore because let's say you had two twelve month agreements, it expires, now they're three months into the third year, but you haven't renewed the written agreement, so there is no agreement, the termination period is ninety days. So now you've extended that. But there are only a few instances where the statute specifies a specific timeframe. So if you're going to go in and shorten anything, you have limited circumstances of where you can go in and do that unless you want to inject an entirely new process into what would probably be the ejectment process to say that a court has to do something within x time period. So now that you've heard this, I'm gonna skip ahead and just summarize a little bit.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: July and June shortened timeframes. They shortened the pretrial timeframes, and they shorten timeframes in the trial. April and March, pretty much '99 leave the current timeframes. In terms of the first set of notices, that is what's right at the top of the page that I just gave you, those are all notices that refer to this very first notice, this early stage. And those notices, the difference is, there are lots of reasons for termination. One is people don't pay rent. That's under the control of the tenant. They may not have enough money, but I mean, it's the tenant's control. Another is they damage the property or conduct illegal activities or otherwise violate the police. Okay? Then there are a whole series of things that landlords can do to effectively terminate things that really is in the control of the landlord, not the tenant. The landlord decides they want to convert it to a condo. The landlord decides they want to convert it to family use. The landlord decides they want to substantially renovate it so much that nobody can live there while they're doing this. Those are all within the control of the landlord. What you'll see is that generally speaking, under current law and under the proposals, seven seventy '2, and I believe six eighty eight as well, treats those two groups of things differently. The ones where someone's not paying rent, we just discussed, you know, it's fourteen, one at seven seventy two at seven, six eighty eight is three. In terms of the ones, the breach of agreement, you know, where the violent or illegal stuff, they're shorter timeframes. In terms of the ones that are in the control of the landlord, conversion to condo, government taking, substantial renovation, conversion to family use, the current law is a bit longer, right? It's thirty days. The seven seventy two, as I meant it, is substantially longer because it is in the control of the landlord. Seven seventy two gives the landlord the requirement that if it's in their control, they got to give sixty days notice to a tenant who's lived there less than two years and ninety days notice for a tenant who's been there more. These are before we even get to litigation. So, in sum, if you're not paying your rent, it's either fourteen, seven or three, depending on which we go with. If you are engaged in criminal activity, it's three or 14, the current is 14. If you terminate, the landlord terminates because they feel like after the rental agreements over, they want to terminate or anything else in their control, it's 60 or ninety and seven seventy two. What is it, and it's in current law?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Current, it could be thirty, sixty or 90. Yeah, yeah.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So this is not the litigation part, this is the notice, that first notice, and it diffs law currently, and the law under seven seventy two, and the law under six eighty eight differentiate between situations under the landlord's control and situations under the tenant's control? Yes, Elizabeth.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: I'm sorry to ask this, but I still don't understand, like, just help me understand the termination notice. So if a person receives termination notice, that is notice of termination. There is nothing that a person can then do to satisfy the landlord to reactivate their rental agreement. Is that right?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No, as long as it's for something other than non payment of rent. If it's for non payment of rent and you pay rent during that period, then the landlord cannot terminate you during that rental period. It's a

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: cure period for not paying But the

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: if it's for anything else, if it's for, I am terminating because you've breached the rental agreement or you've done criminal activity. The only defense that the tenant will have is if there's an ejectment action brought, if they're not able to make in some sort of verbal agreement with the landlord.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: But okay, wait, wait. My question is, so if they are able to remedy the rent problem and their rental agreement is reinstated, assuming that it goes back to its, you know, original terms, has an end date for for, you know, whatever. Is there a limit in statute on the number of times that a tenant can do that to a landlord?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Can fail to pay rent and then receive a termination notice and then

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Is pay there a limit on termination notices due to non payment of rent?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No, there's not a limit. There is a section that addresses when an individual receives multiple notices. And then there is the section I mentioned earlier where the landlord has a cap sixty days to bring an ejectment action. If you send one and you pay rent and then three months later you fail to pay rent and I send you another one, I can't go back to the first one and say, we're gonna go all the way back and claim Right.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: No. No. No. I I just mean what if what if the tenant is at habitual Right. There

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: are an answer to your question. Under current law, there's no limitation. Under the proposed July, and I believe six eighty eight, I'm pretty sure, has specific provisions on repeated repetition of that pattern, and that under seven seventy two, a repetition of that pattern is grounds for termination.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: For termination at the end of the lease or termination at the last notice of termination?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Termination after twenty one days. So it would have a longer Is

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: that what seven seventy two was?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, seven seventy two includes as within the section that says so remember, subsection A, you have nonpayment of rent. Subsection B1 is breach of material terms of the rental agreement. B2 is criminal activity. Under seven seventy two, it says breach of a material term includes repeated late payment of rent. So at that point, if you've had multiple late payments, you keep paying, so I can't terminate you under subdivision A, but you keep paying late, I can terminate under Subdivision B1, which includes a twenty one day time period

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Is that under current law or seven seventy two or both? Current

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: law is thirty, seven seventy two reduces it to 21. Right.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So essentially seven seventy two is a kind of somewhat reduced, and six eighty eight is more reduced, about all these termination

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: times. Yes? I just have a question about lease violation. Let's say the violation is that they need to have even fuel and they can remedy that. Yeah. Okay. You get your notice because you're in lease violation because you don't have fuel to heat the apartment. And they could remedy that by having fuel So that would remedy that notice. Right. And there's no

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It's a cure. You can cure the So

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: there only limited circumstances that can happen, as I mentioned, for rent, etcetera, for potentially the case violation that you've described. But back to Rep Burrows' questions, your question, under any other circumstance, if the tenant, excuse me, if the landlord is terminating the lease at the conclusion of the rental term, or if there is no written rental agreement, they're terminating for any reason, the landlord doesn't need a reason, then at that point the tenant doesn't have a recourse, if you will.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: In other words, for each one of the ones that are in the tenants, in the landlord's control, I wanna rehab my building, I want my family to move in, I just want, I don't wanna release to you anymore, the lease is over. Those are in the landlord's controls and seven seventy two takes the position that in that case you got to give a long notice. The tenant is not at fault, the tenant has been paying, it's the landlord's plans for the usement

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: have changed. So people keep referring to as the no cause evictions. Right. I've tried to eliminate, I think it's

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: the problem with the terms for cause and just cause and no cause is they're loaded terms, they've loaded up. I think it's better just to deal with each of the causes. So you have in front of you some options. Do you go with the current law, or do you go with an accelerated version or vary? For example, Joe was saying, I don't want to go with seven, I like 10, or whatever, I think we just have to I'd like to know what the sentiment of the committee is.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Marc? Yes.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Is are the dates that we currently have in July, are they consistent with comments provided by Kathleen Burke about section eight?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: We would need a section that counsel can talk about. We will need counsel is prepared. I forwarded all of Catherine's testimony to Cameron, and he's prepared to draft as an exception, makes it clear that this does not apply to federal lease where it doesn't apply to federal lease.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, currently doesn't apply and I will draft up something in the next amendment version that you all review at whatever time that is, that will include something specifying that. As she mentioned, you can't control the timelines under the Section eight housing, etcetera. I

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: just wanna say that if we foreshorten the timeframes so that they're dramatically shorter than what's required by federal law for Section eight housing, then it might be a real deterrent for potential Section eight landlords.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I don't think I I have to say, having been through that myself, when you are Section eight is a very positive thing for landlords because it's a guarantee of income. It really is worth it. And federal law we had, for example, in the store that I did, we had a lot of federal money, and there were some really heavy things that federal law brought. For example, you have to pay tenant relocation expenses, and the relocation is not just like one month, which is one of the options here, it's the difference between what they were paying you and what they have to pay in the free market when they find a place. We had to set aside $10,000 for that, so people put up with the federal because of the benefits. Do people have an opinion about any of this they wish to express?

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: About the timeline changes?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yes. Tom? I think

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: it would be easier for me to decide on any individual timeline once I can see the aggregate.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: The aggregate? Okay. There's a

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: bit different.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Do people would people like to do it that way? I think that's very reasonable. Well, the timeline issues after this, my first section here, the next thing is the litigation. Just to repeat and then let's go on. To repeat, just so you got it in your head. Current law, there's current law, which is fairly long. There's seven seventy two, well, and there's six eighty eight, which is much shorter, and there's seven seventy two, which is in the middle, but also susceptible to change as well. Okay, although seven seventy two takes a fairly strong difference between things that are within the control of the tenant, like, nominally, payment of rent, destruction of property, etcetera, on the one hand. Seven seventy two says failure to pay rent at seven days, criminal activity seven seventy two is down to three days, all the rest, conversion to condo, conversion for family use, financial renovation, it's sixty or ninety days depending on how long you've lived. Okay, so maybe what we should do is go to the litigation part, should we do that?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, but I think you had a member right there.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Was your hand up? You were waving it around. Okay, should we go to the litigation?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, sir, happy to. Okay.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: If you go to page three, I think it starts on page

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: three. There's a time to write to advocate and write to counsel at the bottom of page two, but if you're just talking about the time frames, go into page three.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, I'll tell you what, let's go into litigation. I'm just going to tell you, we'll come back to it. One issue is, 339440 give the tenant create a tenant's rights at well, tenant's rights advocate? No. Three thirty nine creates a tenant's rights advocate and right to counsel. I presume there's an appropriation. I don't know what it is, but I presume it's there because there would have to be

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I believe there was. I don't recall what it was.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right. The other bills do not. Time to answer the complaint is the next, if that's at the top of page three. I didn't remember what it is under current law.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's just the rules of civil procedure, which is twenty one days.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Twenty one days.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Can I just have a general question about So this next conversation, is this something that our committee can change? Or is this something that would have to go to judiciary?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: The whole bill will have to go to judiciary.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I believe technically it's under the jurisdiction of the judiciary committee, because it's dealing with court process, but I know if that prohibits you from recommending an amendment

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: to I think if whole we can, we should do the whole thing and then it goes there. I think the whole thing's I just need to know that.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Yes, Deborah? I think as far as answering the complaint, I think if they show up, if they haven't answered but they show up with the hearing, they

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: get like another ten days? There is currently, depending on

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: We'll take a break to three, is that okay?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I have to be at a companion committee at 03:15.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Oh, okay, what do we do guys?

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Well, we've still got twenty and he's gone.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, keep going.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, so the current statutory structure mentions two subsequent processes, if you will. So as I mentioned, you've got the termination notice that's been provided. Individual files the objectment action against the individual. The individual has the time period to file an answer. And then at that point, the court process that plays out. Currently in the ejectment subchapter, there are two specific sections that deal with two subsets of this entire process. First off, the complainant, the landlord, can file a motion to have rent paid into court during the process that the objectment action is playing out. And then there is a specific time frame about hearing on that motion and when an individual can file an answer after the hearing. Not going to deep dive on this unless you all want to. Doesn't deal with the overarching ejectment action itself. It's a specific motion determining whether the individual should continue to pay rent into court. And there are expedited processes for hearing that.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: In other words, there's a process in Remember, once you get the notice of termination, you still have a cure period of however many days we decide, but also there's another chance, which is during the court process, if the judge agrees to it, somebody can pay rent.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And so to answer the specific question, representative, the way that works is there's a hearing on that motion, and the tenant has fourteen days to answer after that hearing. So there already is a separate time frame.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: But someone would have to move, the tenant would have to move to pay rent into court. The landlord. Oh, the landlord can pay.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I assume the tenant may be able to, but presumably it's the landlord.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Debbie, when does this happen? Why would a landlord move to pay with the tenant? I think I ran into Based on you have to throw it. No, you can explain it.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I was just saying, based on how I read the statutory section, if you're let's say you're terminating somebody for a reason other than nonpayment and you want to ensure maybe they're contesting it. You're saying that they're conducting criminal activity, they're saying, no,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I'm not. They're trying to stay in the location. Would ask Then the landlord says, yeah. I mean, it's a reality part of the problem that landlords have is that very often, as soon as they file a motion, as soon as they file a case for ejectment, nobody pays rent, just stops.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, so that's one and then there is an expedited hearing process for an unlawful occupant, which is not someone who has stayed there, My reading of this is not someone who has stayed there after a termination period. Somebody who is outside of the rental agreement process itself is illegally in the place. They weren't the tenant to begin with, for example. Tenant has left, somebody's staying there with no authorization to have ever been there in the first place.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: What page are you at?

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Page eight of 12. Thank you.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's on this one. Yes, ma'am. The the blue one, though, not the gray one.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So it's 21 under current law. Yes. June and July make it five business days to an answer. Correct. Seven seventy two sets seven?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, sir.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I put there's an issue here. We did hear testimony from I can't remember who it was, CVOEO, I'm not sure who it was, testified examples of people of why they thought that very short times were a problem, the people didn't get, didn't understand what their obligations were, didn't have the notice. Then, Zakowski representing the landlords testified that they have an answer attached to the complaint, and it's simple to fill out, she said, and she's seen fewer defaults. So, that's the state of the evidence before us. One of the issues we have to decide is, do we want to go with current law, twenty one days? Do we want to go with five, seven, ten? We've got to decide.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Wait, I'm confused, let me

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: do 10 way part of this. You're saying not specific to the somebody else in the event.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right, that's different.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Look at page five of that,

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: section by section. Self back, okay.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Probably ten days.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: I've got a question.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yes.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Since our current law allows for an unlimited amount of deposit, is there a role of that deposit in any of this process?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You're referring to a security deposit?

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Security deposit. If a secure like, say, a landlord requires six months of security deposit, is is there a role for that in this process? Or if a landlord requires first, last, and deposit, how like, where does the last month's rent fit into all of that?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: As a practical matter, the landlord has to apply the security deposit for damages to the property. They have to apply the last month's rent to the last month. As a practical matter, it takes so these ejectment actions take so long that the tenant never gets back the last month's rent because it's consumed, they in non rental payments or destruction of property cases, in those cases, generally speaking, by the time the whole thing is over, the landlord hasn't received rent for four or five months or longer.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: But is there a legal requirement, sort of prioritization of how those monies must be used or whether they're required to be held in escrow or whether they are required to like be designated first month's rent, last month's rent deposit, and then used as such. Is there any kind of statute surrounding that?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There is a statutory section that governs security deposits.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Or prepaid rent.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And it says that the landlord may retain all or a portion for only these four things, non payment damage, non payment of utilities, or expenses required to move the rental unit articles abandoned by the tenant. And then it provides that the landlord has to provide the security deposit back within a specific time period. And the landlord has to provide basically an itemization of what they have deducted the security deposit for within that timeframe. And if they do not comply with that, which is fourteen days, then all of the security deposit has to go back to the tenant.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: So it doesn't say anything about last month's rent?

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: It does. It includes any

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: other deposit. Can use it for nonpayment of rent. But wait,

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: still the security deposit. Security

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: deposit is any advanced deposit or prepaid rent however named.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So even if you name it last month's rent, I would argue that it meets the definition by the fact that the section says prepaid rent.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Okay, thank you. And it doesn't have to be held, it's not required to be held in escrow?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No, ma'am. There is a bill that was proposed that would require it to be in a savings account.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Debbie? My thought is if any landlord is requiring six months, they're not gonna have to be tenants.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, that's that's about the security I'm trying to keep us on target here. I I think we have to go in some order. This is not this this part of the discussion is not about security deposit. I'm not saying representative Burrows was wrong to ask because she's saying they're connected, But the question is, time for answer. Any opinions? Joe hasn't expressed an opinion of ten days.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: This is time for answer on on on which aspect? Is it on Are we still Are we past the unlawful occupant? Expedited? Where are we now?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: This is on if the landlord has brought the ejectment action against someone. Currently, it's twenty one days for that individual to file an answer to that So for all purposes, ejectment. Any ejectment that you bring whatsoever, whether it's failure to pay rent, whether it's criminal activity, whether

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: it's Whichever, whatever it may be. Yes Okay, thank you. So we're back to the beginning section. The board of the ejectment piece. Thank you.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: So what is the chance

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: if this goes only to a bench trial?

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: I think this is gonna be be set sixty days or less from the file. Because if we cut that number to sixty, the other numbers are not quite as critical. We don't cut it to sixty. They don't make that much of a difference.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: They make some, but they don't yeah.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: So that that sixty days or less from filing seems to be the number that makes the most difference?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It it is the biggest difference. Yes.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: Okay. Is that so if seven seventy two makes these bench trials, not jury trials,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: does that help close that reduction for downers? It does because according to the testimony, it's the only testimony we received on the subject, says that four to six months for a non jury trial, six to twelve months for a jury trial. Yes?

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Is that twenty one days, calendar days, I know you mentioned it, that's about,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: say Unless otherwise, it's twenty one days, unless you hear otherwise, it's just calendar days.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Okay, then I'd say fourteen days. Two straight weeks.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Let's take the rule that I always like to take when dealing with a complicated subject, nothing is decided finally till everything is decided. So, for example, if she says 14, Joe says 10, there's no vote on this. We're just telling him what to put in the next draft. There's going to be another shot at it. What we're trying to do is learning our way to get our hands around the whole thing. So we have two physicians here, fourteen, 10. Anybody else?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: I'm fine with fourteen or ten business days, which equivalents to the same thing, so.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Debbie likes five, yes. Any other Okay, expression well, let's go for the moment with the most permissive, which is fourteen days. We did have a fancy approach over here which was ten business days, but I are you okay with that? Okay. Just saying. Okay. Fourteen days.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: That is good.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. The next item is an important item, really important, jury trial. This is a big deal. All of this is going to have to go to judiciary, but I think we should work this out. Am I right in what I'm saying that every other bill allows jury trial?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Correct. Six sixty eight, excuse me, six eighty eight simply reduces some of the current time periods and seven fifty six creates a limited expedited process for a limited subset of determinations. Seven seventy two is the only one that creates a process and removes the jury trials.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Now I have to tell you, is and I'm assuming for you to have put it in my bill, Cameron, that you believe it's constitutional.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I personally don't see an issue with it. It's not a criminal matter. It's a civil matter. I will concern with our judiciary team that they do not have any issue. They have not expressed one to me to date on this provision.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Generally speaking, constitutionally, to my knowledge, I don't think there is a right to a trial by jury in civil proceedings. There are a lot of statutory variations on whether you have one or not, but, So, just to make it clear, means you're going to try, if you go with this, you're going to try it before a judge. Can't ask for a trial for a jury. You can ask, but you won't get it. So, the question, and this is a jury trial, according to the only testimony we have, kinda doubles the time. Joe?

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: The failure to pay rent and breach seemed perfectly fine with that. My question was when I don't know if saying, like, the material facts would be criminal activity that you're being evicted. In that case, would it be okay to do it with that?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: That's a really yeah. So we have a I think we have a nominal lawyer with us here. Raised a really interesting question. I know I just insulted you in the worst term.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: I don't know if it was the correct term

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I'm supposed to use.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm just gonna highlight something that happened last week. We were talking about this, and if you recall, there was language towards the earlier part of his bill $7.72, which talks about a nominal fee, and he said on the record, don't think, that he hated that term or something like that, he just used it.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So, but he is raising an Let's put it this way. He's raised an issue, would you check with the judiciary Will you also double check? Mean, it's not, it's for illegal activity, and the landlord, which is usually I mean, I can see ways around that. It's for violation of the lease terms, specifically the lease terms concerning an illegal activity, which is different than someone, for example, a lot of leases don't smoke because people worry about fire. Okay, what happens if someone smokes in the building? That's not the same thing, it's just a different, it may have to do with safety, but it's not the same thing. So, that's an open question. How do people feel, that question, assuming it's illegal, how do people feel about the jury trial issue?

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: I'm perfectly fine with getting rid of it as long as it's appropriate to.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: I am too.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: I don't wanna dance around the edge of something. If it's clean-cut, we're good, then I'm fine with it, but I'm not.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: You wanna know. Yep. Others? You're okay with the other opinions? I think a jury trial will take forever. So You can't get jurors anyway, and and it just would

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: go, why not?

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: So in the instance of an affidavit and evidence from being followed up with a show cause requirement, which I think if there is illegal activity is not likely to happen at all. But if somebody does say, I can show cause that this is not happening, can they appeal that this this would be their No.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: No. If if someone the way seven seventy two works, and this is important because we've heard a lot of testimony that both for profit and nonprofit landlords are suffering a lot from this problem. So, the landlord has to put under penalty of perjury together an affidavit. If within a week there's a show cause hearing, At the show cause hearing, if the tenant gets up and says, I I do not do this, the landlord saw this, but it meant something else entirely, and I am not a drug addict and I don't sell drugs, then it goes to a hearing.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: Okay, so then how

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: are doing?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And the hearing has to be within thirty days under $7.72. Alright, that's the separate question, okay. Yes.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Okay, so then it goes to, I just want to play this part out, because I have a lot of issues with the presumption of criminal activity by civilians. So, if they go to court and they take it to trial and it's found that it is in fact not criminal activity. This person was not The landlord loses. The landlord loses, but then what happens to that tenant? The tenant falsely is accused. But do

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: you do you understand

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: what I'm saying? Like, that's a whole that's a whole extra layer, which is the only reason why I didn't want to, I've said that is something that I don't think we should be engaging with. I feel like that is outside of the purview because the level of damage that that will cause

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: is significant. Could you imagine? So what is the new thing that we're doing that we don't already do? What are you suggesting is more damaging in the new proposals that you might not want to do?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: I'm just saying under, it's fine. It's fine with the current statute, with the timeframe, with the fourteen days for alleged criminal activity that is proven, that is fine, I'm fine with that. I'm just, and with the under perjury, I appreciate that. I'm just saying whatever happens after that within the litigation and the court systems, I don't think we should be writing policy on that is what I'm saying. Does that make sense?

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Who should then? Fiduciary. They will. Yeah. We're just giving recommendations. And we could give recommendations to be more strict or less The

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: problem we're facing is that kind of everything is connected to everything else. Right now, there is a provision in existing law that's called no cause, and under no cause, a landlord doesn't even have to say why, they just deal with the tenant by just taking them out, and that's that. There's no they say you're violating the terms of the lease, you're out. This is just the same, only it's not called no cause. It's called for cause, and the cause is illegal activity under the lease.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Violent in terms of the lease?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Okay. I got a question.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, first, we've got did you have a

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Yeah. I was curious what's up is your concern that it's pointing at making a judgment of what is? Yes. But why is that different than what exactly is happening right now? Because we're only talking about well, maybe I'm not understanding what your issue was.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: No, just move on. I don't don't digress. Don't digress. Just just Okay. Yeah.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Debbie and then Elizabeth.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I see a huge difference between the show cause and the no cause. We we have to keep it as a no cause.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, it's a no cause in this and July just makes it a cause. Right. You violate the lease, then that's one of the, it gets rid of the no cause versus cause, it just, but effectively, seven seventy two says if you violate the terms of the lease, then you can be ejected. I agree it's

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: you are, it's just that it's making it a little bit of a longer process when it's you as a landlord making a decision. It's a different process than when the renter is breaching the contract.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Seven seventy two doesn't make any changes to the no cause piece other than making them consistent, whether you have a written agreement or not. It makes the duration consistent.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Well we were saying we have to do an affidavit that we believe there's criminal activity, opening ourselves up to a lawsuit if we're accusing somebody and they're not doing criminal activity. To me that's showing a cause.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And that has to show that it's not happening.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Well, that's hard.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Well, that's what they're saying. They're saying, so this puts the power in the landlord's hands, so that they're providing this affidavit stating that this is occurring. So then it's up to the tenant to prove that this is not happening. I understand.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I think it's very easy for the tenant to prove that that's not happening.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. The reason just Oh, to be perfectly I'm sorry. Go ahead.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: My question is if a tenant were to be accused of illegal activity and they went to court and it was found that they didn't have any illegal activity, would that that case remain on their tenant file?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yes. As no ejecta.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: I get what you're asking. It's if you're a landlord and you're able to see that, you're gonna say, oh, something happened. Whereas if you're a tenant and you've never even started or anything like that, and so you have two tenants, you see no eject any ejectment versus nothing.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: There is a way to deal with it, there is, I can think of a way to deal with that, which is, there's a provision of, a whole long provision of seven seventy two that creates that the entire proceeding is confidential until judgment. It could say until judgment for the landlord.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, it's provisions that we haven't reviewed or discussed yet, but in three ninety nine and seven seventy two, there were provisions about either expungement or confidentiality of records.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: We could provide that it stays confidential unless there's judge unless and until there's judgment for the landlord. Then at that in in response to concerns Saudia and Elizabeth Burrows. So if someone

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: I'm sorry, I don't have any concerns. Okay.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Well, real life experience is that you can have, I'm going call it a drug bust, in the apartment, and so you've already notified the police that you believe that there's criminal activity going on, because that's And required by they're like, yeah, and they tell you, just be careful. And then they have their drug bust, and then by noon, you know, they all go to court, hold nine people out, they all go to court, they get their court date, and they're back in the apartment by noon, and they're still dealing drugs. And you cannot go to court with, you have to have a police report, and the police will not give you a report because it's an ongoing investigation. You can't use newspaper articles. You know, there's, you're very limited. The only thing you can have is a police report. You can't even have somebody that was, you know, police officer that was involved in that and write a note to the court. You can't even have that. You have to have the police report. So when you go to this level,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: it's like Okay. Proof. What we're talking about now is whether we have these fundamental questions about what we have with this accelerated process. I'd like to ask, are people comfortable with the next draft continuing to have that there's no jury trial? With my cap Okay. That's so we've decided that.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: With the caveat.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: The time for setting a trial. Current law has no requirement, as counsel has said. July requires a trial date to be set for sixty days or less from filing. I personally expect that there may be testimony across the hall that says that that's difficult, and we'll have to deal with that at the time, but my own personal feeling is if we don't do that, we're not going to address this problem. So I think we can stick with the sixty days. I think the issue next is whether

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm gonna

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: whether we should have an expedited hearing for alleged criminal behavior. In other words, one option is just to simply allow ejectment to proceed on the basis of a violation of the terms of the lease. July and June, and current law does current law have an expedite, I'm now on expedited hearing for criminal activity. Current law has, doesn't current law have?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Not criminal activity.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: There isn't a mischief section? No, okay. So both 772 and six eighty eight deal with this problem of feeling with growth. And the problem that I'm gonna just lay out the problem so you see it. Landlords, like, for example, the nonprofit landlords testified, Michael Monte and others testified that it's a big problem, and that they want something that will help them in the situation Debbie described, that is the situation where it's difficult to prove, drug dealing is difficult to prove, because the normal people who could testify are other tenants. Okay? So, in an attempt to address this issue, seven seventy two creates this accelerated process, show cause process, where the landlord has to swear under penalty of perjury, whatever the facts are, and the tenant has to rebut them, the tenant successfully rebuts them, it goes to trial within thirty days. If the tenant does not rebut them, the landlord gets possession. That's what's in seven seventy two and a form of it is in six eighty eight. Now, what legal aid CVOEO to some extent testified that they don't want to see this process because they just don't think that an allegation of criminal activity should be decided by anyone but the police. The problem is that takes forever and in fact often never occurs, and the landlords assert, well, we have a right to put in our lease that you can't engage in illegal activity, and so

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: ought to be able to do that, and that's kind of the issue that's at play here. So, the language is around, I'm going back to terminally, know you're talking about criminal procedure, But so this is still false, it's a violation of the lease because it's just when based on criminal activity, illegal drug activity, or acts of violence, any of which threaten the health or safety of other residents.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right, it has to do The landlord may

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: terminate, provide, okay, great. So I think this is a health and safety issue. If it's causing challenges to the health and safety of others, that is a valid reason. And this is the point, this is what we want. You want people to have valid reasons for doing things. And I'm just gonna say, to say to not use the word just cause, it's like saying mobile homes manufactured home. We're changing language, okay? The word is the word is. It's not a loaded term. It is what it is. And if we're gonna change terminology, then we should do that. If we're changing what it means or we're not changing what it means, we're gonna say the same thing because it appeases other people, It is what it is. But I just say, if it says, which threatens the health and safety of other residents, and then we also have damage to the dwelling in yours, 72, to the unit or premises or other activity, I'm saying, like, these are valid things.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: You

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: understand I what I'm have

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: to tell you, you're right on something. When we were drafting this, I wanted to avoid ejectment, where someone is just sitting in their unit shooting up themselves alone, not causing any damage to anybody else, you know, the language you pointed out, they're violating the law, but they're doing it in a way that does not interfere with anybody else's health or safety. I didn't want that to be grounds for this kind of ejectment. In other words, I'm agreeing with you, I'm sorry.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: I want to go and you took it a whole another level.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right, and what's the key? Yeah, you're right, the key is something that is, what's the words you read them, compromising the health and safety of

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: the residents, or damage to the dwelling unit, premises or other activity. And I think this is what we should be focusing on, is this is what we're hearing, is that there's needles being found. There's whatever, people coming who don't belong there. And that's another whole thing I have a question about. We discussed it last week when you were talking about who, I was trying to get to the shared occupancy. And then today, you started to talk about who is considered in the What was that language? Unlawful occupancy, thank you. So, I think there just needs to be this, think, for me, what I would love our committee to do, is to clean up that language. Unlawful occupancy, the things that threaten and damage, the things that we heard that are causing the problems, let's fix those things. Let's put language that actually addresses those things. The timelines, let's clean them up so that they are reasonable and realistic. I mean, giving someone three days to pack up their entire life and move out is not realistic. That's just gonna cause problems for everybody. No offense. But I'm saying, hey, it's just not humanly possible. But I'm just saying, like, let's let's really, really do the things. And the language matters is what I was just saying. It's that's my 2¢, and I'll stop. You know what?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Sorry about to go. The thing that's occurred to me that you might try to think about writing up, is what if we didn't talk about criminal activity? What if we didn't list those things out? What if we just said that a violation of a material term of the lease that endangered the life or safety of other tenants, and then had the accelerated process for that, that focused on that, as opposed to violations of the lease with, you know, like smoking, that, yeah, you could eject people if they repeatedly smoke, but not through this accelerated process. Elizabeth, do you have anything that you want?

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: I totally support that, Marc and Saudia. I was just going to make a comment about the criminal activity. Really, I feel like it wades into due process and I think we should be touching that. I agree with preserving and protecting health and safety of all tenants 100% and property.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. We don't have to stop, but we lose our counsel. Can keep discussing. And actually, I got to tell you, this is really great. This is the way we all learn as we go. And, you know, it's not like we all know what we think at the start. We learn as we go. Yes. Thank you, Cameron. Yes. We'll see you again for Yes.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Thank you. Sorry.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I do think that

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: criminal activity, once it is established, if somebody is shot filling a drug deal, there is a that is a illegal activity that no longer needs to be proven. Okay? If, if arrests are made and it does eventually come to trial and it turns out, the police, I mean, it's but at that point, I don't care if somebody's shooting up on their couch and dropping a cigarette when they're out of it and burning the place flat. A safety issue.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Mean that Yeah.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: And that's happened. Mhmm. Okay? That and and that's not it's not something to mess with. We've got other tenants whose safety is equally important.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Well, I think that I'd be

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: doing drugs for that to happen.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right, exactly. This is all to me, given what Elizabeth said, what you said, what you're saying, sounds to me like seven seventy two should be somewhat redrafted. Remember seven seventy two has an accelerated process buried in it, right? But instead of calling it accelerated process for criminal activity, we just call it accelerated process for material lease violation, material lease time that are endangering the health and safety of Leaving it. Fraud. Yeah. Joe. About you in the hallways would also follow this. Okay.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I can leave. Yeah. But I'm not I'm in the hallway. It's not criminal activity. Right. See? I

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: I think we're I think we're, like, shifting criminal activity into b one and the same problems there. We're just putting the same problem in a different section where it's criminal activity that you now have

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: to Right. And he I agree. That's what's we're talking about

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Not changing

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: We're talking or changing

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: what section we're built in.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Exactly. And we're what I'm hearing and I just wanna reflect it back, and then, Elizabeth, you're next. What I'm hearing is it's okay to have an accelerated process. It's not okay to call it for criminal activity or make it depend on that. It's what's the criteria that matters is endangering the health and safety of the other tenants.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Right. Well, the point I was trying to make is that you're shifting from being accusatory to this affects me. So if you have someone, if the tenants are saying, my health is being compromised, like we heard about the tenant who couldn't sleep, right? And lost their job or whatever the case may be. My health is being compromised. My work is being compromised. That is their attestation that their life is being compromised. So if they have to provide the affidavit, like I'm actually trying to help the landlord. Like if you're trying to provide the affidavit, you're providing affidavit on how it's impacting you. You're not accusing someone else of something. You're saying these things are happening, and this is how it is impacting other people. So you can't mess that up, I feel like. Whereas if you're accusing someone else and you have a burden of proof, or you're worried about, are they actually doing that? Let's stick with facts. This is what's happening. This is what is occurring and this is what's impacting my life. No, is it illegal or is it criminal activity or whatever the case may be, it's threatening the health, safety and well-being of whomever. Does that make sense?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: does, except proving it still is an issue. So if you find needles all up and down the hallway, you still have to establish Everybody in that building might know where they're coming from, but you still have to

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: That's why the affidavit is there.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: Smoking hibachi and nobody's in the hall. You still gotta you need it is almost as complicated to establish it's this tenant,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: which is why you need the affidavit. Elizabeth.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: I have a few constituents who have complained to me on numerous occasions that they have children in their apartments and there is a tenant in the building who smokes pot in the hallway. And it's not illegal, but it really has an impact on the children in the building. It's not the same as sitting in the hallway and drinking your fifteenth beer, although that also has an impact on the children, but it does have a health impact. It does have a developmental impact. And if we were able to fix the wording of this, those tenants would be able to have a way to talk to their landlord about the behavior of that other tenant. It just doesn't

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: mean

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: That does come under health.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: It does.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Very often, by the way one thing that isn't changed by July or June, one of the just to be really clear, the simplest way for a landlord to address a tenant whose activity is obnoxious, but, you know, obnoxious, is to just let the lease run out. That's what they do. The problem is, if it's during a lease, the lease isn't running out, and they're just, you know, creating this problem, and so that's, I would say one way you deal with a pot smoker is that landlord runs the lease out. Another is that it's violating the terms of the agreement.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Okay. But then you have to prove all.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. But you prove it,

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: but at

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: least then people aren't gonna be afraid to testify. Yes, Joe.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Question. I feel like we're just keep circling what the problem is, which is

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: The drain.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No. Oh, yeah. Drain.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Just, like, how do you prove that, like, they're not the police. Now how do they prove somebody's actually guilty? Right?

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: How do

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: you get to that point? My question would be, would the act like, is an affidavit from a landlord is that sealed? Is that open for

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: The whole thing is sealed until Can

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: tenants sign on to that affidavit?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: They could. Absolutely. And it can be kept from everybody?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yes. No. No. The landlord what's the seat I'm sorry. A landlord can go to the other tenants and say, will you sign this?

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: Yes.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Fear, a lot of times, there's too much fear and they won't, but there's no there's nothing that stops other landlord, other tenants. If you can get It

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: stops other tenants. Yeah. For the fact that it's gonna be available to see.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. As for the fact if the judgment is

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: under your roof I think we need Cameron here. I think

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: I think the landlord with six tenants signed on to their affidavit is gonna be,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: help the

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: affidavit. And it's thief. Yeah.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: And when I come to you as the landlord and say, hey, I'm trying to get the guy out

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: there, or the lady out, will you

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: sign on to this? It's sealed forever.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. We seal the affidavit.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: If

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: it's I'll tell you what, do people want to stop, or should we go on a little? Could point to one issue which we can talk about that we don't necessarily need counsel here for, or do you wanna just stop now? I would the one I would keep going on is disposal of property of the tenant after the eviction. It's just, you know, we don't need our lawyer here necessarily for that. Here's the deal, and I'd like anyone to comment. I'm going to speak for my own experience. My own experience as a nonprofit owner of the store, and three units of the is that it was just really difficult. It's strange, but it was really difficult to get the tenant to come and take their property. They just wouldn't. They wouldn't, we kept giving them more time and they just wouldn't do it until, I mean, they kept saying, oh, my mother-in-law, come with the car and take it, and then they just wouldn't. So, we were told we had to give notice, we gave notice and all the stuff, she got the notice. It's just I don't know why. You would think There was a lot of the stuff in this, a lot of the stuff in there was junk, but not Some of it was small, some of it was like a TV, you know, things like that. So, and she was living somewhere else, so I don't know why. So anyway, the theory here is the tension, because remember, there's always a tension, right? The tension is, from the tenant's side, you don't want to make people clear their stuff out so fast that they don't have any place to move it to. It's not like they're necessarily in a situation where they can buy a storage unit, you know. On the other hand, the argument, I'm just going try to give both sides, so the tenant side is you've got to give people a chance there. The landlord's position is, God, they've had months and months and months notice because you gave them notice, and then you went through the trial and rid of the whole thing, and how much notice do you need to give, and then in the end, you're going to have to get rid of it yourself anyway. So, I'm now a tried to play landlord and play tenant. So, boss? Debbie? I have

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: a thought, because I know a unit that came off the market because the landlord was exhausted from trying to get the tenant that moved out, whatever way it was, to come get their stuff. And it was the same scenario that you were talking. They never came, and then she has to deal with it, try

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: to find someone to remove it, and she's like, I'm tired of that, I'm not going to rent anymore. Well, thoughts? By the way, the options that are in front of you, which we don't have to go with any one of these, but I mean, current law says fifteen days after writ of possession is served, they got fifteen days. Then 688 says 688 says immediate remember, they've had

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Oh, thinking all that time.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: All that time. 88 is immediately after the writ of possession is served. 772 is immediate essentially immediate too. Yeah. Joe?

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: My point would be that I think it's kind of that what that is for me anyway is gonna be tied to the giving the written out the math on that works out.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: You mean how quick it is to

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: get Yeah.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: I'm just thinking, say, July,

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: not sooner than five days after the writ is served.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Oh, you mean how

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: quickly they've already got the case?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. You've lost the case.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Five days later.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And you've been ejected. You're you're out of

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: the But now you got five days before you actually can get that ripped.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, see.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: That from a sheriff saying you gotta go. Right? And is my reading that right?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. That's July.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Up

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: to five days.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Not sooner than.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. So And July is seven days, and current law is fourteen days.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: You I'm thinking that five days is five days that you know you lost.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: gotta go. And then whether it's immediately after that if it's immediate, then that's five days in that case. If it's within forty eight hours, now we're talking seven days after you've lost a case. So I think the map on what we decide

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I see. So judgment for possession and disposal of property should be it's Well, kind of the math, what

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: we do on it is going affect Okay, the

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: well, judgment for possession, current law is fourteen days. Yeah. So

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: if you've got fourteen days and then fifteen days for your property, that's twenty nine days.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You could have gathered your stuff up, right? Like, if I'm reading it right.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: What what I don't know under seven seventy two when I I'm sorry. I don't have the counsel here. Did anyone remember? Because he went over this. Does anyone remember when you get the writ of possession, okay, and then the sheriff serves the writ not earlier, this current law, than fourteen days after it's issued, right, so two weeks, but does that mean they can eject them then, or is there an additional time before they can eject Rome out?

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: By sheriff?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. It would be the When the sheriff serves the writ of ejectment, is that another word for, okay, here we are, you gotta get out? They

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: have

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: to wait those fourteen days, maybe on the fifteenth day, you

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: could remove them. So it's, okay, so I just wanna understand that. It's just still dark. So right now, after the judgment, the sheriff has to wait two weeks and then they can revoke them. Under $6.88, it's twenty four hours, 07:56, it's five, seven seventy two, written by this softy over here, was seven. And then, can you dispose the property?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: So, back to notices. Once the writ is written and it's served, is there a notice? I just want to make sure that they're like and I'm just playing devil's advocate here- I'm In that,

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: some

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: people, they're not gonna register in their that, Oh, I went to court, so, you know, only I'm just saying, is there gonna be a notice when the writ is issued, right? Or the judgment is with the judgment, That they're saying, okay, the sheriff is going to come in fourteen days.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: If you're not out.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Right. And so, like, just, I'm just saying, should there be a notice?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I'm gonna, you know what? I don't know the answer. I don't know. She's asking the question. I'm gonna put it in legal terms. Okay. When the judge issues a judgment, okay, and the writ, it's just all one thing. Right. Right. Is that piece of paper served right then on the defendant? I don't know the answer.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Like, what's the difference is that constructive notice? Do you understand what I'm saying?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: The the writ being Judgement

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: will be done on the spot. So

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: so that's what I'm saying. So when how do we Whenever. So if they issue it fourteen days, and we're saying, Okay, you have to get your possessions out immediately after. I'm fine with that as long as there's notice. But I'm just saying, if we're not giving notice, if there's not a clear chain of notification, and I know you're like, Oh, we've been going through this eviction process. You should understand. People, not everybody's brain works that way.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Well, we're gonna make the difference.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: That's right. Nobody knows anything. And so I'm saying, I think like, it either needs to be, there needs to be that timeline from after the sheriff serves. I'm not saying it has to be fourteen days, but I'm just saying there needs to be a timeframe after that, or there needs to be a clear notice upon when the judgment is issued, that okay, the sheriff is coming within these amount of dates. Sheriff will serve the writ

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: and Especially if it's a default judgment.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: What's gonna happen. What? Debbie, the sheriff will serve the the writ of possession and will tell the tenant exactly what's gonna be happening when he's coming back and that he will be removed. I don't care you can put how many days you want in there that's exactly what's going

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: to happen. Well, we're discussing the disposal of property that's what

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: I'm saying.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I thought you were talking about the writ.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: No, but

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: I'm saying the number, if we're talking about a timeline between disposal of property, right, we need to clarify the timeline in which the sheriff serves the, gives the writ, or whatever. I'm just saying it can't be immediately after the sheriff issues, as is stated here, because they wouldn't know. Do you understand saying? The tenant would

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: have I been think

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I've got just

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: a second here.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Isn't it the same for the person and the property when you're served that you have

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: to leave with your property?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: But I think the question she is asking, and I don't know the answer to, do you? Is this: the trials happened, or it's a default, one way or the other, okay? Whatever it is, it's over. The sign that it's over, I mean, it's over, the court part is over, the sign that it's over, hear me out. So, the trials happened and everything, the judge decided, and the judge issues a writ of possession, okay? A judgment and writ of possession. At that moment in time, let's say it's the fifteenth of the month, does that writ of possession served on the defendant? Does the defendant know there is a writ of possession out there, or do they not know anything until the sheriff arrives fifteen days later with the writ of possession? Is there notice that of the judgment that you lost? Normally in my experience in civil procedure, when there's a judgment, it has to be served on everybody, but I just don't know. So, I think I don't know the answer to the question. You're saying, hey, I'm willing to go with a shortened time for getting their stuff out, as long as they've had notice that they lost the case and that they had 14 k's, you know, or whatever it is, or seven or whatever, but I don't know, I'm looking, I'm trying to find the I think we're going to need counsel.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: Well, I'm going get a sample

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: one. The

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: sheriff. I would say, they do have possession of the premises removed the said defendant and their property there from no earlier than fourteen days after service of this writ. It looks to me like from the time they are given written notice of the judgment, fourteen days later, they got their That's current. Okay. That's current.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: And so that's the problem, so this here analyzes the problem, right? Because the current is within not more than fourteen days, not before.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: That gives them the fourteen days.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Right, but they don't know until they're served and then they have fourteen days after that is the current statute. So what I'm saying is, if we're looking at shortening that length of time, then we need to up the amount of notice. They have to have notice, because if it's fourteen days after they get noticed, like you can't shrink the amount of time after they get noticed is what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying, oh yeah, it came out. That was a whole circle. So the amount of time from when they are informed that they lost and they have to evacuate, right? That amount of time is what I'm saying matters. Guess so thank you. That's what I'm saying. The amount of time from when they get the notice to when they have to remove their property, that is the important amount of time that I'm saying cannot be shortened. I'm saying the part that when, if you want to, how long it takes for them to give the notice, if you want to shorten that, that's fine. But from the point they are notified, they move time. It can't be immediately after they are notified, is what I'm saying.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry. Did I make a complete thought? Did that make sense?

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: I think

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: we have to wait, because I don't know, the statute right now is beyond my knowledge. Yeah, here's what the statute says right now. Okay, it says, if court finds, the plaintiff is entitled possession of premises. Okay? Okay. Tenant is lost. The plaintiff shall have judgment for possession. A writ of possession, judgment for possession. A writ of possession shall issue on the date judgment is entered, unless the court orders, and this is Elizabeth's earlier question, unless the court orders for good cause a stay, okay, but unless they do that, it all happens on the same day, but then it says, the writ shall direct any sheriff to serve the writ upon the defendant and oh, okay. And not earlier than fourteen days after the writ is served, put the plaintiff into possession. Okay. So, my reading of this means you lose the case, the tenant loses the case, a judgment is issued, the sheriff has to serve the judgment. They don't put them out, they just serve the judgment.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: And at least fourteen days after

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: they serve the judgment, they put the plaintiff into possession, which means they kicked the tenant out. So there is under current law, current law, fourteen days. So if we follow current law, but not the deadlines, so you should that means we know we'll follow the current law in terms of the process. Right?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Yeah.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So we know that when the writ is issued, it's served. Boom. So right then when it's issued, which is typical in civil procedure, when the court decides the case, you serve it. Okay. Okay. So it's served. At that point, the question is, how long there are two questions, which Joe asserts, I agree, are related to each other. One is, how long should I how long should there be should the period be between the moment that I, as a tenant, get served saying, you're out, buddy, and the moment when the sheriff knocks on my door and says, go. That's one question. The second is after the landlord says, after the the I'm gone, you know, I've been thrown out by the sheriff, how long do I have for this landlord can dispose of my stuff?

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Or is it concurrent?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. Or is it concurrent?

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: That's what I'm wondering because after

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yes.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Going after something around, I'm like, the fourteen days and fifteen days

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: what you asked. Yeah. Is it concurrent? Yeah.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Yeah. Don't laugh at.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So actually

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: What was

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: that going?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: It was 29. That's what's

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: so No.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: I read it wrong.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. Actually,

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: $7.70 to two that.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Sorry. Hey. Listen. 772772 is it basically is nothing. It says, you lose, you get served, at at x days, you're out, and when you're out, the landlord is restored to possession and they can take yours.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: Be the day 15, right?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. Right. So if it's fourteen days,

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: which

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: is current law, 772 would say that's it. It's over.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: But the sheriff but there is because it says at least fourteen days, it could be that the sheriff knows of some kind of like, could the is it giving the judge leeway to say I

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: know of some

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: extenuating circumstances? I can't do it less than fourteen days. I can't give you I can't

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: give The judge.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: I can't give you landlord the ability to for the sheriff to give only one week.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: You're right.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: But I can I can give you, tenant, three weeks or five weeks or It 12 says expressly the judge can issue

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: a stay? So there's no question that and miss Elizabeth Burrows, there's no question under any of these alternatives. The judge can find that there are extraordinary circumstances say, I see this judgment and the sheriff can't come later than four weeks.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I ask the question about that. If

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: a judge does that, who's paying the rent?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Unless there's been an order to pay rent in support, no one's paying the rent.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: That's not true. The landlord.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, landlords, yeah. It just extends the time the landlord goes without rent, but I don't think that happens very often. That is no. No. I don't think the court extends that fourteen days very often. What happens is that sheriffs sheriffs sheriffs just don't get around to it. That's the problem. But so, going back to the question, going back to the question, question one, how much time should we give as the minimum time for service of the writ of possession? That is for how much time should we give for the sheriff before the sheriff throws you out. One version is the current version is fourteen days, seven seventy two says seven, seven seventy six says ten, six eighty eight, seven seventy six says five, six eighty eight says twenty four hours. So anyway, how long should we give? And then the second is, once they're out, how long do they have to get their stuff? Anybody have an opinion

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: on this? Currently, it's one day after the deadline of of getting out. Right?

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: Yes. Well, the just to get rid of the the writ says that the sheriff

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Actually Yeah.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Assumes he can remove the

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: defendant and their property no earlier than fourteen days after service of the writ.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I'm sorry. So I do not know under current law if it's just from the time the judgment issues to the time that you're you and your or you and your stuff out at the same time, I don't know. I guess we gotta have counsel here. Sorry. But this was good. Everybody knows what the issue is.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Well, so I think the current statue makes sense then because it says it says fifteen, the landlord may dispose of any personal property

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Because you've got in the

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: dwellings or units. Without notice or liability to the tenant or owner of

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: the personal property fifteen

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: days after the writ of possession is served pursuant to this chapter.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: So, that's

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: one day after, yeah.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Yeah, fifteen days after

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, everybody, current law is Current law is

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I can hear that too.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Current law is fourteen days the judgment issues. It's served. On day 14, the landlord, excuse me, the sheriff can take everybody out. And the next day, they can take their stuff. Landlord can take their stuff. That's current law. Now, it doesn't happen when can't sheriffs take their sweet time, but still, forget about what the practice is, what the law is. That's the law currently. It's 14 plus one. Okay? 772 is seven plus one, essentially seven, and that's it. And 688 is one day.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Yeah. And I I just wanna also point out for the current law, that's taking it to the max. Yeah. Like, if you leave two days after, you now have twelve days to figure out getting something out.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: That's right.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Because the fifteen is regardless of how long the sheriff is giving you the fee that the sheriff gives

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: you max and the sheriff has to come.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Doesn't make sense, though, because the sheriff is at liberty to give you more than fourteen days.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Don't

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: give you. They're just not

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: They're just not

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: school that it's no sooner than.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: They can show up

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: at any time after. Can't sue the sheriff to make them come out and do it. So

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: just to just because I'm envisioning the other side of getting one of these things. If you've got a single parent who's barely holding on to a part time job that doesn't make sense, obviously, somewhere in that fourteen days, they've got a day off to scramble and find a place. They're gonna need another day off or weekend day to get their friends to come and and unload the stuff. So I don't in a lot of circumstances, I can see where fourteen days is about to get stuff out Because they can't just take time off work necessarily. Then, you know, it's a hard time job. Works.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Like if we get stuff, where you might have some days.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: Number of days. Every so many days of work, you gotta have a certain amount off anyway.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Are you arguing for the current situation?

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: I I can see an argument for it.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Joe, what's your experience? Less

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: than that could be really Well, I finally wrapped my head around the current law about eight minutes ago, I'm gonna withhold judgment until I've more thought. Marinated. Yeah. Okay. Elizabeth, then we're you know what? I think we're I mean, we're now. Yeah.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Or just not to think about ourselves in that scenario or just to think about people who are, as Tom said, people who are single parents or people with physical disabilities or people who are very old or people who are recently released from the foster care system who don't have the executive function to be able to pull things together quite so easily or people who are mentally ill. Urge us to think about people who have enormous blocks preventing them from being able to execute things easily.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Mary? And this the way things are now, two weeks is not enough time to find a place. And where are you going to find a place the way the market is now for housing? I mean, if you don't have any family around, if you don't, you're gonna have to go to agencies or you're gonna be out on the street.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Yes. Causes another problem. I think the point is that we have to find balance because all those things are reality, but landlords need to pay their bills as well. So we have to look at it and try to weigh it. What's fair isn't wasn't that the whole objective of this is try to find fairness for landlord and also tenants.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: I think it's to free up revenue units that are not on the market because people are just afraid of getting into a period.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: And also, we're talking about the extended periods of time that landlords go without receiving income. So I feel like if we're looking, what is a reasonable timeline? I think that a realistic reasonable timeline, even though it's never a reasonable timeline to not be getting money, right? Because it's like going to work for free and not getting paid, you'd be pretty mad if you didn't get a paycheck. So like, but I think that's what we're here to do is to establish like, okay, what is the current statute? What is not working? And how can we address that without causing undue harm?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, yes.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: So on page seven of the side by side objectionable actions, the current statute, as it lays out, you're allowed to ask for rent to be paid to the court, and then you, as your landlord, are allowed to ask the court to disperse those funds if you can prove need. So this is why I'm asking

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, what happens is sometimes landlords do that if they feel like there is any chance that the tenant's gonna pay, but if the tenant's not gonna pay, they're not gonna ask for it.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Well, then it says if the if the if the tenant isn't paying the court, then the landlord can immediately take possession. So then why is this not a guarantee or a protection against months and months of unpaid rent in a court case. But you don't have

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: pay rent in court for a year? No,

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: but this is saying you can tell the court, I need this money.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: You mean the landlord

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: or the The landlord can tell the court, I need the money.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: That's in the current law.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Why isn't this helping? Getting to the point of getting to court.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: That happens in court, but there's been a lot of time in between there. Just come out to court immediately.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I think you're asking a good question. I think we ought to get Angela here to answer it.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: And maybe judge Zonie should be back in here at Saudia, or we're talking a lot

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: about court stuff, just saying.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, I think the think judge Zonie is gonna be across the hall. The concern I have is if we never get this out of here, it's not gonna pass this year. I think

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: So can I just ask the experienced?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I think you'll ask counsel and ask I think I'll ask counsel and ask the I mean, I think you're asking a good question. I just know that paying into court isn't very often satisfactory, but I don't know why. I'm not a landlord.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Because the minute that you don't, the law says that the landlord gets possession.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: It's an enforcement issue. So how do we have to I know

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: my

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: sometimes judges like to split the payment of what they owe, because it starts from the day, I believe it's the day you make your complaint, or is it the day of the termination release? They just they start back like how much yeah the termination of how much rent do you owe and the judge is with that payment so if they make the first and it's usually like maybe a week later they have to make the second payment, and then they have to start making payments like the first of the month. Yeah, so if they miss any of those payments, you can ask for your

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: pardon back. So maybe landlords don't know that they have that recourse?

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: It's written right. So it doesn't go back to the beginning? I think it goes to the termination notice. Yeah. For non payment of rent. You're talking about non payment. Yes,

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: certainly. It says on age, it says if the tenant fails to pay rent into the court in the amount and on the dates ordered by the court, the language shall be entitled to judgment for immediate possession. The court shall forthwith issue a writ of possession directing the Sheriff of the County to serve the writ not earlier than seven days after the writ is served, or the case of eviction brought pursuant to the Right, right, yeah. Putting the plaintiff into possession.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. We have certainly treated the court systems, much different than landlords.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Take this stuff, count that stuff out.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Say what?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I said, there's certainly a different treaty

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: between the landlord versus the court system. When you don't pay your landlord, you go through this process. When you don't pay the court, you're gone.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Yeah. Oh, oh, oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I think, but I don't know. Well, I suspect the problem is that this process, whatever it is, is equally long with the other processes, and the judgment you get is no sooner than you would if you just followed through for non payment of rent. But what causes landlords to do this? I don't know. It may be that, I just don't know, I can see a landlord saying, look, this person can't pay rent, they're not going to pay rent, and so I'm not going ask for it, because I have to make a motion, gives them a chance if they're represented, it gives their lawyer a chance to oppose it, there's a hearing on the motion, all that costs money, and they're not going to pay, and then I'll get an ejectment, writ of ejectment, but I'll just go for the writ of ejectment to begin with, but I don't know. We'll just have to find out. Alright, it is now 04:00, ladies and gentlemen, I commend you on your zenith, Colin. Tomorrow, we start at 09:15, I believe. Is that right?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Tomorrow, we start at 09:15, everyone, and we are now adjourned.