Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome back to House General

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: and Housing, and it's the February 24 today. Okay. So this afternoon, we're doing two things. One is we're starting to look hard at rental agreements and reform of rental agreements, landlord tenant agreements. And we're also gonna take a look at H. Eight eighty seven, which is an act relating to crime victim status under the Fair Employment Practices Act. And we'll be dealing with the landlord tenant issue for several days. What we've been doing is using h seven seventy two as a markup device, and we are taking pieces from other bills because there are a total of six bills that we've been considering, five of which are formally in our committee and one of which is across the hall in judiciary, but we know what's in the language. What people on the committee are familiar with seven seventy two as was originally introduced, this is a substantial second draft that is incorporating a lot of the suggestions made by various witnesses, including judge Zonay and Terry Kliffin, who raised a number of technical issues which were they're addressed in this draft,

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

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: a number of new thoughts. I've met with our counsel several times. We've gone over it trying to remember issues that were raised. And so I think the best thing to do is just to ask our counsel to start walking us through this draft. This is a markup in the sense that this is a chance to talk to him to for to see if we can have consensus on additions, changes, or whatever he should undertake with this draft and then come back tomorrow with a revised version. So rather than characterize it myself, I think I'm just gonna ask you, Cameron, to identify yourself and take us through it.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Sir, good afternoon. Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel. We're drafted, so as mentioned, we have an amendment. It's for page seven seventy two. It's drafted as a strike ball, draft 1.1. That's what I'm going to share my screen and start to walk through. It should be available on your website for those following along. A few things I will just mention right out of the gate. There are a few provisions that I'm still working through to either include or review for further amendment simply for a 30 plus page bill needed to get it to editing in time to be able to bring it to you today at one. So at some point I had to stop making amendments to allow it to go through that process. For example, I still need to add in some language that was requested from the state housing authority. If you all recall, they have their own federal Federal. And so on their termination periods, etcetera. So I don't have anything in there about that, but expected to include something to that effect. Still trying to work through some of the trespass language, which we'll get to, but I have incorporated the bill that was mentioned that's in judiciary, seven twenty eight. And I'm still working through the confidential ejectment records section. I did strike some things based on, Mr. Chair, as you mentioned, recommendations from the judiciary, but I still want to go through that section back comprehensively and make sure it's buttoned up. So just at the outset, for those following online and for you all, just wanted to mention a few of those things. And just know that if you're looking, for example, in the confidential sections, hey, this doesn't make any sense, I'm still needing to go through that

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: with a fine tooth comb. Let's talk about that just for a minute. I'm just going to refresh everybody's memory. Giantsoni and Terri Krasnow had a number of very specific page by page edits. Most of which I think have been reflected in this draft, but also, they were on the issue of the confidentiality provisions. They felt that they were filled with exemptions, and that they were atypical in that regard, because there are other procedures that are confidential, but this was more elaborate of exemptions, motions allowed, people who had access that went beyond the parties and their lawyers, etcetera. And so what I did is ask counsel to strike all of that, to try to make it simpler, and then also to take a look at the other statutes, which where it's confidential just in sort of compare and see how they look. So that's obviously a work in progress.

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

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: All

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: right. And the other piece, for example, last piece I'll mention this, and then we're just going get into the language, the appropriation to $600,000

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I said what we've done but I just didn't have a chance to to the point where

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you did. So if you have questions feel free to stop me, where is this or I thought we talked about that I'm happy to take notes and and continue to work this through. Also, this draft,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I made some choices in this draft to include something for the committee to see how they felt about rather than not put it in, like the $600,000 appropriations. Also, you'll see in a minute, one of the concerns that was expressed in testimony was the whole problem of tenants being notified that a lease is over or that the landlord is going to change the use of the building or something like that, and essentially finding a way to move in time. And we dealt with that in part by giving a long notice in those cases. But in addition, you'll see an attempt on my part to try to have a system whereby they can get some of their deposit back earlier than the end of their lease, assuming that they haven't messed up the apartment and, you know, assuming the apartment's in good shape. You'll see that. That's the kind of thing where I just want to put it in front of everybody, see what your reaction is. Okay.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, so as mentioned, we have a strike all amendment of seven seventy two. This is draft 1.1. We're going to start walking through. There are a few different highlights. Just understand that where something is highlighted yellow, it should be typically forward either an addition or a change to seven seventy two or as discussed, something new, etc. There's a few things that are highlighted blue because I wanted to pause and have a conversation with you all about the policy piece of it. So that's kind of the reasoning behind those colors. So for starters, section one, we're amending chapter 137, residential rental agreements. And if you all recall, we discussed this definition previously, factual notice. The changes that I've made since we first discussed was, there you can see on line 14, receipt of is back in. So initially, that was struck. So this would require the individual to receive the notice, not just mail it. There is an obligation of the individual as to have received it. We've added have kept the delivered by sheriff service. You have mailed to the last known address or the address provided in the residential rental agreement. That is the same from the bill that we've reviewed before. And then you have emailed to the email address included in the lease agreement and mailed as described. And I highlighted that blue simply because I wanted you all to know it's not necessary to have votes. The presumption is the same of receipt for votes. So it is a policy decision of you want to require, if you're going to email it, that you also mail it. Just understand that you could just mail it. You don't have to email it. So I'm just flagging it for you all as a policy discussion. The change in first error on my part, that sub five at the top of page two should be highlighted yellow. If the last known address is unknown, posted on the door of the dwelling unit. So that is the change based on the conversation that we had the last time we were together. And then I will add in the sub B, there is created a rebuttable presumption that the notice was received five days after. So the proposal here in this amendment is going from three to five, and then added in that the rebuttable presumption exists the date the email was sent, if sent via electronic means, or if it's sending party through except the notice was sent first class or third by mail, the date of the mailing. So the mailing presumption's already there. We're adding in the presumption for an email, changing it from three to five. And then, Mr. Chair, I will comment. You made a question to me or posed a question to me. There is no presumption based on posting on the door. And that may be something that you all want to include because technically, it requires receipt. And if you're posting it, arguably by definition, the person didn't receive it. So you may want to add that into presumption that says the person is presumed to have received it five days after you booked it

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: to the door, or a different period. Joe, go ahead.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Yeah, mine would just be on five there. That seems kind of odd. Are we stating last known address just because it's used in law? Because it's not really the last known address if it's unknown.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So my recollection from the conversation you all had is you can't find the individual because they may not be around the apartment, and you may not know what their last known address is.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: So if you would have no address for the person, it's be kind of

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I could say if the address is unknown. If the address is unknown.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I I would probably keep it as last known. I mean

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: I'm just curious if that's because it's used elsewhere in law as last known address.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's used out there in the current statutory section of the last known address. You need to indicate what address are we referring to. If the address is unknown, what address is unknown?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Let's go back up again. What is the last known? It says

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: where is it? Oh. So you're under three. It's mailed. So you have to

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: But that gives you the rebuttable. Address or the I see. As I mentioned, I could

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: have a PO box. Right. You know?

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: It just kind of stuck out to me as like a It's a little weird. It's

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: fine. The point not that the last known address is no longer current?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Because they're gonna at least have

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: an address on the rental agreement that might be the last one shot, but that's not their current mailing address. That's the point of posting that in the courtship.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm not the one recommending it, so you might want to ask that question to individuals who work in this area. I know you have some on your committee who engage or are landlords. I think the thing here is that if you don't know what their address is I think intuitively, their address should be the location that you're terminating the rental agreement for, but that doesn't necessarily I can't imagine scenarios where that's not always the case. But again, the flipson may have you know, abandoned or, you know, you could be, you know, one room within the place that you're trying to

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: There are there are tenants. There exist tenants, I can see, where, you know, they don't have a mailing address, they don't have a PO box, they just give you a telephone number or

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: that was what was gonna a say, you're not required to give an address and they

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: were So they may not Let me step back for a minute. This is an important section. This is not just, you know, detail. The reason is that you really need to be able to give people notice, and also, there is, in some cases, people try to evade notice. So, what we're doing here in this section is saying, you have to have received the notice, but it's not enough for a tenant to come in and just say, oh, I didn't get it. A rebuttable presumption means that it's just presumed you received it if, and there's the list of, you know, if you did any of these things, it's just assumed that you received it. What it does allow, oh, we increased it from three to five just because mail is so terrible these days, But the assumption that a tenant could come in and say, let's say you ended up posting it on the door, or you ended up sending a certified mail. It's presumed that they were notified. But they could come in and say, I can show you, I was traveling for the last month. I didn't get anything.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I was staying with my mom because she was really sick.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, or something like that.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I was in Florida for the winter.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I never checked

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: my email.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Right. But I never checked my mail. Well I had somebody checking my mail, and they were sending me what they thought looked important, but it the postal system took a really long time till they get it to me.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So the assumption I'm sorry. Go ahead.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Can I ask you a question? Is five what we call a TAC order?

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Yes.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: So will E5 change the fact that with a TAC order you need to get, or doesn't the judge need to approve that?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You're in the judicial context, yes. You're pursuing a court case, yes, you have to comply with the rules of the procedure. You would need permission coming to

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: the court. But this is not that. This is outside. We haven't yet got to an eviction. This is just a notice that you have to give that you terminated.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: There would not need to be that eviction.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. So you don't have to get a TAC order. In fact, just so you know, I suggested to him, why don't we get rid of the attack orders? Why don't we just use the same definition of litigation? And he said to me, don't do that. Cameron

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: said that?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, he said don't do that. Does he? Yeah. He, Cameron, said don't do that. And we'll get to why that is, but what we did put in, in the litigation context, it's from Debbie's bill, which said if once you get the PAC order, it's it's there for the whole rest of the litigation. But here, the presumption is if you do any of these things, you've notified them. I do think that that list should include posting on the door.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: The presumption. Yeah, the presumption, yes.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yep. So my point was just that for that, it wasn't very bad. It was just purely that wording of that sort of odd way. But I think

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: that's the way it should be because we use splash and we

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: dress somewhere else. Then as long as

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: it gets to the same point, I don't really worry about it. The only other spot I was gonna point just because they're so close was they created the rebuttable presumption. It seems odd that we're you can mail it, then you're good. Or long as it's that, but the email has to be both. But then just below that, we say it doesn't have to be both. The email is a standalone below as opposed to Well,

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: would be the same. They're rebuttable. Under the rebuttable presumption. So if you emailed it and mailed it, the individual the presumption is going to be five days from the date you mailed it or sent it. So if you email and send it the same day, the presumption that they received it, the date would be the same?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Sorry. Five it's a five it's a little hard to read, but it's there's creative rebuttal presumption that the notice was received five days after the follow-up, And either the date five days after the date the email was sent or five days after the date of the mailing of the notice. But I highlight it because

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I will say it this way. If you're going to require both this is a policy decision for Illinois. If you're going to require both, I don't know that you need both. What I mean by that is unless you're wanting to ensure that the individual is getting the information in as many possible avenues, don't think you need to have both.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I see. In other words, here's question for you all. Here's a list of notice, what notice is. Hand delivered, delivered by the sheriff, mailed, or emailed. And the way this is written, email alone is not not enough on the list. You can't just email. You have to email and then. That's the way it's written with. Yes.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: I can't attach it or.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: It's a policy issue. If you want it to be one, is this as good as the other? But Mark is saying, just email alone is not good enough. It should be emailed and mailed.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I'm I'm actually not taking sides. I'm just I'm

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: just but the way it's written,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: that's Yeah. The way it's written is that notice consists of any one of the following, hand delivered delivered by sheriff, emailed mailed to the last known address, or emailed and mailed. In other words, it's an and. I guess out of

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: the What's the committee's pleasure?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, what's the committee's thing was that people don't see their email or whatever. Yes, Debbie.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Okay. I just want to understand, hand delivered, whatever it is,

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: right now it's fourteen days.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I'll take the Cooking Festival off fourteen days. So if you hand deliver it and we count days by counting that day or the next day, like if I serve it on the first, is the first day one?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Next.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Or is the next day day one? Which would be the second.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, depends on it. This is just the definition of notice.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: What are people saying?

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: So, okay, so right now, we hand deliver, and we have a fourteen day notice or however we count it. But if I let's say I email it and they respond to that email, I still have to mail it. And then when I mail it, once I mail it, then they get an extra five days.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: The way this is written right now. The fourteen days is that comes subsequently. Right now, it's just what's what's noticed. What's noticed? And what the way this is written now is that notice is anything on this list of five, four things, five things. Any one of these five is noticed. It's just that email alone is not one of those things. It's only email and mailing. It doesn't have to be that way, it's up to the committee.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Well, think if they respond back to you, then you know they got it.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: But we can't put it like that, I don't think. So we have to just decide if we're gonna put Right? We're not gonna write if you got it or

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: not, right?

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Or you could just take email out. The I options should be, if you're gonna leave it, I think it's gonna be email, it should be email and mail, or take email out and just don't have email as an option. Because just because someone sends an email doesn't mean someone receives an email. Technology has way too many barriers for various reasons of technology, accessibility, and I just think that that's just not a reliable source.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: What about written correspondence?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Take out email is fine, by

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: the way. Or taking out emails.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: I just favor taking email, Allison, because there's no prohibition against sending an email saying, watch for this notice. It's been mailed.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Yeah. Okay.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Are we in the sense that we're just gonna okay. So we're gonna take out email and just say actual notice is hand delivered, delivered by the sheriff, mailed, or posted on the door if we don't know the address.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I would counter with what if what if you are staying with your mom because she's sick and you don't get your mail, but you could get an email because you're checking your email consistently.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: I mean, what's that what's gonna happen if someone that like, what

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: So the rebuttable presumption section, I'm sorry, I know that we've been over this, but I feel like I may not be the only person thinking this. Can you explain So when we're defining notice, then the next step is, you're saying the rebuttable presumption, what does that mean? That means you can answer back and these are the conditions under which you can make a case So that you didn't get

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the definition of notice requires receipt. You know that someone received something if you hand deliver it to them.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: You still have to prove

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: that in court, but I hand deliver it

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: to you and we

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: know that that's happened. When you mail something, you don't know the day that they're gonna receive it. But you want some sort of finality here. You're If going to allow people to mail stuff, which makes sense if you can't find the person physically, need to be at the, the landlord has to have some avenue to get the information to the individual. So we're going to allow it to be mailed. Now we want to create a time period that all parties know upfront you're going to be presumed to have received it if it's made. And that's what the rebuttable presumption is. It's saying if you mail it, there is a presumption that you received it three days after it was mailed. Five days. The rebuttable piece is you can go into court and show that you didn't receive it. So it's a presumption that you received it three days after. And if you can prove to the court that you didn't receive it three days after, then that presumption no longer exists.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: I think that sorry, can I just In respond to that case, I think that you can prove just as easily that you never opened the email, but maybe it's too tech? You know what I mean? Like it's

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Okay, but still we have a

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: policy decision.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: What does people do? Do you

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: want to take out email entirely? Or do you want to leave it in and leave it with, but you still got it made?

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: It looks like we're seeing some had not can we do a hand situation?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Guys understand the choice. The choice is there's a list of things that are noticed. It's for. This or this or this or emailing plus mail. Do you want to leave that in or take it out?

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: So raise your hand for email plus mailing.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Who wants to leave it in?

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Email plus. Mailer. Okay.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Oh. +1, 2345. Who wants to? 6. Who wants to take it out? +1, 23. Okay, leave

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: it in. Alright, moving on.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: I'm getting this done. It's not to end all be all for me.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I just wanted to make a point that once you get to court, they're emailing all the time.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Correct. If you make an appearance in court, court will typically share information based on the court proceedings via electronically.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yes. Let's move on or we'll never We've made it through page one, everybody. I'm glad to see

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: you guys are so into this. We leaving it in.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So the next change is the definition of immediate family. And this originally said adult person related by blood, adoption, marriage, or as defined in any other jurisdiction. And it was a little messy in referencing to other jurisdictions that aren't but state. So it's just been cleaned up here to say an adult person related by blood, adoption, civil marriage, civil union, and then the remaining sections. So it's just a clean up there and I referenced that from other definitions of immediate family in Vermont law. Thank you. Okay, moving to the bottom of page two, the top of page three, so this is tenant obligations, payment of rents and I've added rent increases and then we can see the language in the top of page three, new subsection C, a landlord shall not increase rent more than once in any twelve month period. If you all recall, there was a section that was further down and it was in its own standalone section. And it said that at least in seven seventy two, it said, can increase rent more than once in twelve month period. But then it had a lot of scenarios where if an individual purchased the property, the purchaser could increase rent. It was CPI plus 3%, I believe. There was question about whether to go to cost. There was some language about if the rent had increased six months prior to the purchase, how do you calculate the increase? All of that was stripped down. And so what remained was you can only increase rent once in a twelve month period. Given the fact that this subsection B already existed here, which states what the notice period is to increase rent, I felt that if that was the only provision left, it made more sense to go here statutorily. One other thing, just to clarify, this is a change. Okay? It's a change in response to conversations and

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: conversations and testimony. We basically stripped out the rent control provisions from July. There were maximum increases. They were limited to resale of the building, but there were still rent control provisions. They're gone. All that's left is the twelve month. Joe.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: In caps.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. There were caps.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: If you call it caps,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: they're gone. They're caps. They're gone. Yes, Joe. How would this apply to a new landlord or to somebody who newly purchased the building? Because at the time they're increasing the rent, if they were to purchase it and increase rent, they would not have been the landlord prior.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. So they would a landlord. Right?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I would argue that they would be restricted from increasing the rent if it had been increased in a twelve month period for actual purchase.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: But it says it's the landlord decision. It doesn't say the building, the price of rent in the specific building. It says a landlord. And if I was not a landlord six months ago, that didn't well, it's not applied to me. Yeah. Advised to me today.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Joe's a player now. It's good. No. That's a good point.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Happy to add language to Claire? No. I'm he's

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: He's egoizing it.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: What's what's okay. Everybody understand the policy. Let's not talk about what this let's not argue about what this language means. Let's decide what we want it to mean, and he will clarify. I make it the perfect way it is. Cool. Oh, you do? Okay. So

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: the previous property and then the previous, let's say the previous landlord didn't have a mortgage, they wanted to stay under a certain amount of income, so they had homestead exemption, that whole scenario, their expenses may not be as high. So they might be charging $400 a month for rent. They sell the building, I purchase it, now I have flood insurance, I have a mortgage at whatever the rates, 6%, whatever the rates are, and I have increased cost. There's no way I could honor that $400 a month rent.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: So you'd like the language to be clarified or? Well,

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: not gonna argue You're a current landlord, and okay, maybe I could look with that. But when you purchase a building, you don't have the same expenses as the previous landlord had.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Right. That's a good point.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It's a

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: good point. And it's just a question of whether

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: we can write it so that it says that if a landlord purchased a building, then then they can raise the rent once in twelve months, you know, or something. We can do that. It's a question of what you want. Yes.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: I think that if I'm okay with tying it to the landlord and not the unit, if we give a lot of notice and help with finding a new place to live from the previous and maybe the landlord will negotiate, the selling landlord can negotiate with the bank, like, help me out with Well, that's coming

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: up. What she's saying, I'm just going to play the clarifying role here, one option is make it clear that if you buy a building, you're a new landlord now, you can raise the rent, right? Right. And then you can't raise it again for twelve months, and she's saying, yeah, I can go with that, but it depends in part later on what we're going to do for the tenant who has to leave. Yes, Debbie.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Well, I mean, if I buy, okay, I see apartment building for sale, I buy it in twenty four hours. Right. I can't give a sixty day notice on raising rent. I now know what my expenses are, that rent has to be raised because I cannot afford to do what the previous landlord had done.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: And you can't buy it. Yeah, then don't

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: buy don't buy it

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: because That's not really fair.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Well, we trying to make this And business attractive to

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: we are, and there's lots of provisions in the bill that do, but not every single piece is going to be tailored to that exact lens.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I mean, I think you would if let's say, Debbie Yes. That we do oh, by the way, Tom, I don't want to talk. You have your hand up, think. You're not just gesticulating. You're not just sinking. Right? You actually have your hand up. I got you. Yes. So Not emphatic. Say your piece. Fine.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: A landlord should not increase rent more than once in any twelve month period during which they are in possession of the bullet.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Sure. I mean

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: In in this case Yeah. If you know it's gonna be 60 days before you raise the rent, that's part of the cost of the transaction.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. I think that's, Debbie, the issue you're raising a good issue. I think you just if it was the language that Tom said, you just have to work that into the purchase price or the Trump financial cost of doing it. Do people feel comfortable making it clear that it's, as Tom said, that it's the landlord? In other words, a given landlord cannot Not being present. Yeah, not being In other words, how did you say it, Tom?

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: I don't see, I don't remember.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: In possession of a building. Think it's just a policy decision.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You want to not apply in the event someone purchases a building. That's the direction you're go, would draft or something.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Or you could say rent on a unit shall not be increased more than once in any twelve month period. Yeah, well, however he says it, let him do it and bring it back to us.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I think that we can do that. Let's do that and look at the language, okay? Clarify the Tom Charlton approach in your own words.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, so if someone purchases a building, they would not be limited by this section. By the some prior

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: They get a carve out.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: They get a new shot. Okay.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: It means the clock starts over.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yes. Thank you. There's no There's just

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: it just means there's different immediate?

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Meaning that the losses rent can

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It was sixty days notice. Okay. So what's next? And we'll we'll have a chance to look at this again. Believe me.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So the next section is the section related to residential rental applications. This is the section where it prohibits the charging of an application fee to an individual in order to apply to enter into a rental agreement. That's the subsection A. If you all recall, the bill, as it was introduced, included a definition of what an application fee is. And there was discussion about whether that should include background checks and credit checks. The bill, as it was introduced, included the application fee, included a background check, but not a credit check. So that has been amended. So what you have here is as used in this section, an application fee means any fee, charge, or cost to submit a residential rental application, any third party processing payment. Then it separately says a landlord or a landlord's agent may charge actual costs to conduct a background or credit check of an applicant. And then it includes the statement that if the applicant provides a credit check as part of the application then the landlord shall not charge for a credit check. So authorize charging for background and then you're requiring that they can only charge for actual costs.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: Tom? I feel better if it, unless the tenant or applicant provides a current credit check. My Experian report continues

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. To Good. I have it.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Got it. We have to define how we So adding how we it's gonna be like that moment or is it gonna have to be?

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Oh yeah, no.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Provides a credit check within the past ninety days.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Why doesn't it say background and or? Why does it only say

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: or? Or

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: means and or.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: In the legal.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: In the legal

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: word, didn't you? Know I thought it was.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: But you know.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. Okay. So we're gonna There's put

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: all kinds of words that just randomly exist.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: So we want to clarify

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Clarify that it's Time frame.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Time frame of current reasonably current, not like, my credit looks a lot different, you know, eight years ago than it does today.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Should we say within the last thirty days or Joe said ninety.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: I said thirty. It's tough to find a

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: place to get the gift from this place.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right in the middle.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: You guys who were here when the whole who was here when the whole

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. You seem to have it 60 as splitting No.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: The only thing I'm the only thing I'm just gonna nudge on this is if we're gonna be talking about credit checks and timeframes, if they've just recently pulled one and they have to pull it again, every hard pull on your credit dings your credit score and reduces your credit. So if we're going to not take that into effect, then I just, I just, like, if you know what I mean? Like, if they're gonna do a credit check, and then they don't give them the

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So that would that would mean a longer time frame?

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Would mean actually happens, though. I don't think just pulling your credit, period. I think pulling your credit for

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: No. It home application

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: If might actually pull it. But pulling

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: it just for you get the information. Okay.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: So it depends on what they accept. So if you check your own credit on, like, Credit Karma or something like that That dings it. That no. Well, no. No. Oh. That doesn't ding. If you check it yourself. If someone pulls your credit, that does ding your credit and it does apply to

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: your credit score. I know if I check

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: the credit regularly. Because it

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: looks like you need loans to this to live your life.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Know. Yes.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Got you.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: My experience is that when landlords have full credit checks, it's a soft A soft pull? Okay. I truly don't know the answer when I'm asking this. Is that something that we can legislate? That like, any poll cannot be a hard

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: vote? No. Would need to ask a separate number on this section. It's just a question. I mean,

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: if we're getting down into the weeds about each and every

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: sentence of this joke. We certainly Do you know?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Do you know? Okay.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Well, I'm just saying, I think that's something that impacts No. Don't the most want.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: No. What am I? I

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: I just wanna I

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: just wanna know one thing. Is it okay to say within the last ninety days?

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: I thought we went down the middle with 60. Oh, 90. Okay.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It in 90. Alright. Now, I just want you to know, you guys, you have penetrated to a level that witnesses that people who are total experts sitting in the audience here are shaking their heads that they don't know the answer to.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: We're really getting pretty weedy here. Okay.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Alright. Go ahead because there's more. It's serious because it's a scary thing. It's a

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: long secure lively business. Right. I agree. Is even your car. This is your

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: actual bottom of Maslow's. Fundamentally, I also think that the question is policy decision of, is this the cost of doing business, or is this the cost on the applicants to try to find housing? And what do we wanna, where do we wanna John,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: the way it written and pursuant to our last conversation was that it's charged to the applicant for the credit check and background check only, not any other charge. But if the tenant provided it, then no, you couldn't charge. So the answer was, so far, that it was not a cost of business. It was passed on to the tenant. Which is like, I'm not

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: bothered by this because I thought that the current law said you can't I thought so too. I thought so too. That's in your state. Current law This says application fee, and what we heard from legal aid was that that is interpreted as no fees, period.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: With the current statutory section, is there an A? And it says that the landlord shall not charge an application fee to apply to enter into a residential dwelling unit. The term application fee is not defined. I personally have seen applications that charge a fee in violation of that section, as it was a fee to simply submit the application. So as in everything, there's always going to be individuals who aren't complying with statutory requirements. What it doesn't say is it doesn't say anything about a background check or a credit check. So if I were a landlord and I wanted to make the argument, I would argue I'm not charging you to apply. You submit your application, and if I want to move you forward, I'm going to do a credit check and I'm going to charge you for that.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So what we, just to clarify, because this is a policy decision, okay? Here's what happened so far, and we can change. Okay? We can change our minds. First, heard this is what our esteemed counsel said. It's unclear. You know, it would be good to clarify. And so we decided, and on the prior draft, said, clarified that they could charge for a credit check unless the applicant provided the credit check. Then in our conversation that we had last time we took this up, other people here said, wait a minute, what about a background check? And so we added background check-in. There's no we can provide clarity the other way. We can say that they cannot charge for a credit check on a background check, in which case it's a cost of doing business that's spread into the rent, and so it's up to you. It's a policy choice. The policy choice that this followed, this draft, was that you could charge the $65 to the tenant. If you wanna change that, you can. It will affect the rent somewhat, but

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Hang on a moment. Yeah.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Do you wanna go ahead with this draft as is? Maybe you should show the rest of the section and then people have to decide.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's generally it on this section.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And then security? Is on

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: sub c. So back to kind of that conversation, you know, rep Dodge, one of the questions is I would ask, there's no reinforcement mechanism for this section. So it says, a landlord shall not charge an application fee. But there's really no entity or individual that upholds that or consequence. So what the subsection C here is it would add that it would be an unfair practice in commerce for a landlord to charge an application fee moving forward, which could be enforced by the attorney general or the state's attorney, or it could be enforced through a private right of action against the land.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: My understanding from talking to people who have contacted me saying, I was just charged an application fee, and I am aware that the statute says that I cannot be charged an application fee, is that they get a case. They get representation saying, no, the law says no application fees. Because how are we to distinguish between an application fee actual cost to conduct a background check if you can make the case that it took you administrative hours and staff time and office rent costs to stand up the whole effort of conducting the background check? Do I have to, as a tenant applying, pay for your utilities and your internet and your membership to the rental background check service? So I feel like we are creating this new language that is completely speaking against language that exists currently. I think that in the wild, this is a new thing that clearly at some point we had said as a legislature, it's not right that somebody could say, sure, yeah, you can apply, when they may not have any intention of letting you, or they can use it as a barrier. We don't have a limit on what an application fee is. I thought that the point of that language was to say, no, don't pass that to a residential tenant, you can pass it to a commercial tenant.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Yes. So a landlord,

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: if they charge an application fee, that doesn't necessarily mean that they're doing a background check or a credit check. So that's what's against the law. Right. But as far as isn't it good stewardship to be able to ask for the background and credit check so you can make a decision on whether this person is a good risk as a tenant?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, she's saying Who pays

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: for it? That's who pays for it. There's no question if it's doing it.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It's just a question who pays for it.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: But in 102 people that moved in in six years where I live, they all it's $63 per person that's 18 and above, and no one has ever said anything about the background and credit check. And this

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: is low to moderate income. No. But wait. It's it's for a background check. And credit check. Yes. Yeah. I mean I was just gonna say about the application fee. I mean, I would I'm just gonna assume that landlords have if you you wanna, you know, look at this apartment, whatever they have rent, here, fill out an application. There's no fee associated with that. In fact, we can email you an application, and you can just if you can't process that, you can just write the answers on a piece of paper, take a picture of it, send it back.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: But some residents do charge an application.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Well, they're not allowed to. No.

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

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: think the policy question, I'm gonna put it as black and white as I can. Option one, we leave this language as it is with the clarifications requested. I think it would be hard to put a maximum in actual cost as the best we can do because the numbers will change over time. Not like we can say, which shall be less than 65 jobs. Right. However, that's one way to go. The other way to go is to take this language out and to clarify that an application fee may not be charged, and then that means you can't charge you know, write the language, say you can't charge for credit check or background check. It's one way or the other. He can make the language clear. Don't worry about the language here. He can make it clear. The question is, which way do you want to go? Do you want to have the cost of doing that applied essentially to spread into the rent, or do you want to charge somebody who applies the amount of the actual the cost. I think that the only thing I can say about the fear that that the sky's the limit there is, well, we have that problem all the way across everything we do, which is the law is It's hard to enforce the law in Vermont, period. I mean, I would say that's subsumed into the larger problem of landlords charging application fees when they should, but anyway, we can go one way or the other. What's the pleasure of the committee? In the next draft.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I like Gayle's testimony that nobody has ever you know, they just pay the actual fee.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Yes? I just have a question on, my question is around how how many landlords currently charge this practice, and if this would make it mandated that they would have to, or is it at the discretion of the landlord whether they choose to or not? It's at the discretion. So, would not mandate that landlords now have to charge? No.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It's just, it's only they may. Okay. Shall we, in this draft, leave it the way it is for now?

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: I would suggest pay for half the actual costs.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Charge half the actual cost. Well, otherwise, I

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: would go towards no fees whatsoever because there is no enforcement.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Yeah. So with anything, when someone is breaking the law, what happens is if somebody were to complain about it, at least there's something that's structured and codified. So of course there's not gonna be people knocking at the door for any landlord saying you're doing this or that, but if a tenant were to go and sue you, then it's already in law, it's statute.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: There's no penalty. For if they sue the person, they would at least get their money back for 18 It's $80.24.53.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There is, if this was in statute.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: There is a penalty.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, that references to the Consumer Protection Act, which includes penalties.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, I'll tell you what we're We're going to going to leave it as is, because it will be very easy to go the other way. I mean,

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: all we're going have to

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: do is strike this provision and clarify. I would say that there's a question here as to whether who pays for, I'm going to know.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Also, I asked the banker guy about the soft I forget if you know the guy the banker man? Yeah.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: About the soft hard. This is hearsay now.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: It is true. Anyway, he can provide us with information on that at some point.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Okay. On the soft hards, give you credit.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Credit, okay.

[Jess Simon (Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity – Fair Housing Project)]: Not achievable.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Okay, going on, yes. Good question. Is the opposition because it's her credit score that the

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: No, it's just a question of, she's worried about the money.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: So I don't think I understand that.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: You know, people apply, you can argue either way. The landlord can say, you know, I might have to do five or 10 credit checks, and I don't want a tenant to pay $650. The tenant can say, I might have to do five or 10 well, actually, background check. They could the tenant can say, I'm just gonna do one credit check and give it to all the landlords, but I guess that's a fact, actually. The reality is by giving the tenant the ability to do the credit check, it means that they do it once and they use it in all of their applications, where and the landlord can charge for the background check, and I don't even know. I mean, I know it's, like, $65 for both. For both. For both. For both. You know what it is? Just for a background check?

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Most of them don't split it up. Uh-huh. It's background and credit worthiness. It's not gonna cover the back credit check.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: And then we've heard testimony, I forget what year, if it was with you, different organizations like CHT, for example, have like, you have like a larger firm that's it. Right, like it's gonna be different for different people, right? Chris, you say your name.

[Chris Donald (Champlain Housing Trust)]: Chris Donald, the chair I can trust. Yes.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We use different third party vendors

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: to do this.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Heatlbergs. Anyway, so there's very I think that I'm putting a hold up. Okay, thank you. Alright,

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: this is the kind of

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: thing, it's perfectly natural for us to have different views, it's the kind of thing, maybe we go one way with some and another way with the

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: other and see where we go.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, security deposit. We're on page four.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Security deposits. Currently, in statute, security deposit in advance, deposit, prepaid rent, however made, which is refundable to the tenant at the termination or expiration of the tenancy. This section goes into what can be deducted from a security deposit, when a security deposit is required to be provided back to an individual, And if the security deposit is not provided back to the individual within the time frame specified in statute, then the landlord forfeits the security deposit. What's being added here is starting here on A2, A landlord shall not charge or receive a security deposit exceeding an amount equal to two months rent in addition to any rent for the first month paid. So that's as the bill was introduced. What is then added here is this new sub three, which says that subject to the requirements of this section, a landlord may charge a separate security deposit in addition to the amount authorized in Subdivision 2 as a condition for allowing the tenant to have a pet or pets during the rental period. So a pet deposit would be a separate, there is no cap there. The landlord shall not charge any amount under the subdivision for any animal that mitigates a disability. Just so you know, where this comes from is Burlington's experience.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: First, they adopted it without this, and people couldn't, with pets, couldn't get in the units, and so they put the provision into a letter, which I assume works okay. Don't know. Yes, Joe? Maybe we should ask them how they treat the whole mitigate the disability portion of that.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: There's a whole lot of non service animals that aren't actually trained roaming grocery stores and every other business in this state.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: It's a more pronounced animal, and that's a lot by the age. For Yeah.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: But is there any way of, like there's no there's just nothing.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: You can get them online, you know, from a doc

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: from a real doctor. Which is probably cheaper than

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: I think I think the question might be how vague that last sentence is.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Debbie?

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Okay. Service dogs and emotional support animals are not pets. Right.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: Right. Do you ask them?

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: They are So not yeah, you show you

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: show a, Trains the last and this is going back ten years to the last I knew that they are trained specifically

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: to help mitigate a diagnosed condition. Now you get saved.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: But that's no. That's true. And that's why everybody goes that way. But I've had situations where I've had to say to people, yes, you you bought a vest, you put it on her,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: it says, you know, support animal. Jess, would you identify oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. We have some we have some knowledge in the audience. Jess, would you identify yourself?

[Jess Simon (Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity – Fair Housing Project)]: Thank you too, Molly. I'm Jess Simon from the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunities Fair Housing Project. And this is a great discussion, I think it's really important to note this distinction between pets and assistance animals. So under both federal and state fair housing law, any person with a disability, and that could be a physical disability, any mental or emotional disability, and being recovering from substance abuse, has the right to an assistance animal to get them full use and enjoyment of their home in the same way as someone without a disability. An assistance animal under fair housing law is different than a service animal under the ADA. So an assistance animal could be a service animal, it could be an emotional support animal. And there's no documentation needed to show what that animal does, but a landlord can request documentation from a medical service provider that says this is a person with a disability and because of their disability they need this assistance animal in their life.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Thank you for the conversation. Okay. So pet deposit.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Do you I'm not touching.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: But this whole thing, do we need the last sentence or do we not need the last sentence? In other words, just someone was saying, Debbie was saying, if service it's animal or a promotional support animal, it's not a pet.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: So do we have to state that in our I

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: think we always need to state things that are supportive for people with any sort of disability because we don't otherwise necessarily recognize it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it also has to do if the landlord can accommodate your I'm going to use the emotional support animal. Let's say you have a small horse and it's going to need a place to be, stable outside or whatever, so the landlord has to be able to accommodate what's in that section.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I think that's by implication.

[Jess Simon (Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity – Fair Housing Project)]: There would have to be some reasonable grounds. Would say that federal and state fair housing law has this covered, and you may not need that last sentence.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: But we're saying members of the committee would like to have it to For clarity. For clarity and for advocacy purposes. And I think that is just as well. So let's leave

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: it is.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Can we just add

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: the reference? Like, The reference is there because it says pet, pets, and it clarifies animal in the last line, which service and emotional support animal is not objected. And I think that is the clarification and the separation of the two. Do we want

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: to put service or emotional support?

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: I think the way it reads is fine.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Fine, okay, all

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: right, Go let's leave on. Okay, so then we get to subsection C, and this is where, as I mentioned earlier, the landlord shall return the security deposit within fourteen days. So now this was an attempt,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: don't take this absolutely literally, this is just an attempt to address a problem. And if we want to reword it, rethink it, that's fine, go ahead.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So this is the top of page five. So this is adding in that if a landlord terminates a tenancy under a subdivision four thousand four and sixty seven Ds or E, so this would be circumstances where the landlord has to repurpose the unit, or if the landlord is terminating the tenancy at the end of the rental agreement or on a certain timeframe of notice to the individual. So this is not the tenant causing the termination, if you will, due to nonpayment of rent or failure to comply with terms of the rental agreement. Pause, because I believe you have a question, sir.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, so in other words, this is saying, if the landlord This is the $44.67 DRE or the bundle of actions that the landlord is in control of. And what you will see later is that there's a in those situations, we require three months notice. This is adding, trying to get some, get the landlord to go in towards the end of that notice period, or sometime in that notice period, do a walk through, and if there's no damage to return part of the deposit, the thinking being, if a landlord is essentially kicking the tenant out for reasons that have to do with the landlord, That's fine, that's permitted, but the tenant has to find a new unit and has to have the cash to put in another security deposit. On the other hand, I didn't want to put in all of the security deposit because, of course, the landlord's going to worry that, well, gee, what's going happen in the final month or so? And so you want to have some there. That's all this is. That's what this is. It's just an attempt to make sure that the tenant has because right now under the law, the landlord doesn't have to give the rental deposit back until two weeks after the end of the tenancy, which means the tenant has already had to move. So, yes.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I think what is, go ahead.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I'm sorry, yes, go ahead.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I think that this whole section really leaves out the people who are the vulnerable to becoming homeless in our state. I would go back to number two and not allow for a security deposit that's two months rent plus, I would counter that we should not allow first lasting deposit to be the law of the allowable deposit for a rental unit in our state. But particularly, if we're not going to give a tenant access to any of that money when the unit is being taken out from underneath them, I think we're forgetting that it is impossible to come up with first, last, and deposit. We already have first, last, and deposit committed to a unit. It's impossible to come up with first, last, and deposit in sixty days when our current rents cost more than 50% of a household income. It's not reasonable. It's really not reasonable or sane to assume that somebody can achieve that. I strongly, strongly, strongly object to all of this.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yes, Debbie. Don't we have agencies that help with

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: rent and security deposits?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Not to my knowledge, no.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Do other folks feel about this in the committee in this section that similar to what Elizabeth said or no?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I just want to add where the two months came from without justifying it. There was a bill introduced by Chairman Wood that would limit security deposits to three months. We received testimony that some people charge six months. We felt that we did need a limit. I picked two months as a compromise. It certainly could be one month. It's a policy issue. Yes?

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Like I said two weeks ago, I'm playing devil's advocate here, if we make it so impossible that landlords aren't going to want to rent their units. So there has to be some bit of a balance that protects and supports the tenant, but just as much as the landlord so that they will be encouraged to rent their units.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yes, Ashley.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Thank you. Yeah, I think

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: that's something that has been on my mind. I have a question on page five, number

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: two.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Part of the idea of doing a walk at the end of a tenancy is damages. Right. So what if there are damages to the property that exceed the security deposit?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, my feeling is this should, if this, no, the way this should be written somehow, well, let me

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: use your example. If the damages exceed the security deposit, then nothing, they don't give anything back. But if you're doing it prior to them leaving I'm just trying to understand the timeline here.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, here's what I intended, and then you guys work with it. I'm picturing a tenant who is not messing up the unit. Okay? A tenant who is a good tenant, paying rent, obeying the lease, and they're being evicted for reasons that are not have nothing to do with them. It has to do with the landlord's needs, which we are not prohibiting in this bill. And I'm saying then, I'd like to find a way to get them some of that money back before the end of the lease so they can find another unit, and we'd not have to be evicted and go through that whole thing saying, I you know? And it would seem to me the way it would you do it, and I'm just throwing this out. The way you would do it is sometime during the ninety days, you'd have a walk through, and if the walk through reveals no damage or minimal damage, you subtract that, let's say it's two months and let's say it's $2,000. You know, if there's $500 damage, you subtract $500 from the 2,000, there's 1,500 left, and you give the tenant half that, so they'll have something to go looking for a new unit. And then and then by the end, you do a final walk through, and if there's no more damage, you give them the rest right then so that they can move. It doesn't

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: inconvenient damage, then there's still

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. And whatever the damage is, it's subtracted. So the damage is so much that the land that there's nothing left. Well, then they don't get anything. But the idea I know that it's an inconvenience but it's an inconvenience to the landlord. I know that, but there's such a need for the reasons that Elizabeth said I felt. Oh, yeah. There's such a need to get try to get cash to people so they can roll it over into a new lease. I was just looking for a way to do that.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Yeah. I like that

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: it This is a rough draft of

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: That's I all it

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: think it it rewards good behavior because you get right, you're holding back that amount, so it's some guarantee that the landlord and it's incentive for the tenant to leave on good terms.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right, but it was only part because you really can't, a landlord can't be sure where things stand until the end. Right. That's what I'm saying.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: You're giving some guarantee and you're giving incentive to do right by the

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I think it's good. I mean,

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: if I was kicked out on the street and I didn't have I I wouldn't be able to come up with another security deposit if I didn't get mine partially back for the next place, right? But I just want to be sure, Elizabeth, that you're advocating though

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Less security,

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: In a different Like, it's a different Like, not of this false language, but in general, that things change in that arena, like, having the same. Like, you don't have an issue with the length. You have an issue with the larger picture of how those things work.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: How big a security deposit could be? Is that right?

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I have an issue with, if required a tenant to come up with first, last, and deposit, they should be able to upon notice of termination, they should have access to all of that or to be able to roll over into the next apartment. It is not fair to rip for Okay. People who

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Immediately

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Well, the question is when. Yeah, when.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: In other words, let's say, first of all, me just, because we might be onto something here. Let's say, do you feel that it's okay for the landlord to deduct something if there's been damage?

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Yes, I do. I do think that there should be required proof of the cost of damage.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I'm seeing some heads

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: nodding. We agree. I think most people agree, yep.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. Do you think that they should have when do you think it should be? There's nothing magical about what I did. I just figured they've got ninety days sometime in the ninety days, they got to get access to as much of it as they can, but there has to be some hold back to deal with that final period. I don't pretend to know how that should be.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Right. Because they can't take it back. Like, if they gave it all to them again, they would have to take it back after, and that would be

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Well, that's right. What's what what what Right. I'm just I'm just raising. Moving the the moving into the new place. I'm just trying to think of the timing between when you get your money and when you have to give that down payment, and whether we can create a buffer also upon entering, you know, when you start your new lease. How quickly, like, do we let people have fourteen days in to give the rest of?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right now, the law, I don't think the law Now I'm not speaking this year, I'm speaking my own personal view. I don't think the law is very good right now. The law essentially says that the landlord gives the money back fourteen days after They've left. They've left. My assumption is, without knowing, that people, when they get the notice, are gonna wanna rent. Yes.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: That's not

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

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: No. What is the law?

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: The law is that you need to get your security deposit back at fourteen days at the latest. And if you don't receive it by day 14, you get the full security deposit.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Right, okay. So hypothetically, there

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: are landlords out there who again, are doing the right thing, just like if we're going to continue to talk about tenants that are doing

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: the There right

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: are good landlords out there, and they are giving that security deposit back as soon as people leave out. I just like, I have to say it.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, that's important. Actually, you know what? For a lot of reasons, it's good for us part of the time, at least, not to focus on the worst actors on either side, but to focus on the good actors. It's always a problem when we make laws that only are addressing the awful actors. So Maybe we could

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: instead just focus on the most vulnerable landlords and the most vulnerable tenants, because that's when we ask who's being left out,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Joe, and then I'm going to make a proposal. But Joe?

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Okay. My point was just, I mean, the best time to do a inspection of a previously rented unit is whenever he's gone. Mhmm. Yeah. Sure. I mean, if you pulled all the furniture out of my house, I'm sure I could find some things that I didn't know happened.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: You know, it seems to be drawings just a two year old at some point. DIYs. Yeah.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There's little things

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: here and there.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: I've got a few holes.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: The idea of

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: not having giving back a fair chunk of

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: the security deposit before you've actually really had a chance to look at the unit is kind of

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: So you think it's a good balance. I think

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: you're incentivized. The way that we have it now, of course, if you're a great tenant, you're being fair and you're giving back. But what you're saying is we're trying to create an incentive for when there might be some questionable, right? Like, we're we're setting some kind of obligation on both

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: sides. I'm happy with this the way you

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: And I don't love it, but the fact that it does apply to the E, which are

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: my mind again. Yeah. Yeah.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: They're the ones the landlord is Like, selling or selling, converting moving

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: in. And doing.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It's not it's not not It's not a rent.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. Yeah. It's not just

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. But I'm gonna throw out here the instruction. Draft. I'm gonna throw out the instructions for our esteemed counsel. Alright. When you redraft this, first of all, what was it, a very basic thing, it wasn't just about returning what was it, Elizabeth? Proof? Yeah, the landlord has to submit an item Right. Some sort of itemized proof that gets

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: in there. I've gotten one of those.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: But also, not just proof of

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: damage, but how much estimates of how much actual lay costs.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Estimates, and Debbie's nodding, so some sort of estimate.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, The landlord, when they submit the written statement itemizing the deductions to include

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: What's the current one now, Debbie? Do you know?

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I don't know, but I mean, when we do a security deposit Like a checklist? Yeah, a list. We itemize the damage done and the costs of the repair.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: You know, like when you get a rental car and you do like a loop?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. Okay. So I think there should be a preliminary walk through. Yeah. But I don't think it should be in terms of it. The actions, the tenant. I would say not later than I wanna split the baby forty five days before the end of the termination notice. And then a final I would put it at the request of the tenant. Right. If the make this at the request of the tenant. If a tenant doesn't wanna go through this hassle of having the landlord come through twice, then they don't have to they're not getting their money back. At the request of the tenant, they do, and then if there's a final walkthrough at the end, and the remainder of the security deposit minus any damages discovered has to be paid back. When? At the end of the tenancy period? What do you think?

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Just don't get back You're the rest of

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: your Why not? If you cut, sorry. No,

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: no. I'm assuming

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: no, whatever is net after damage. You get it at the end.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: I'm sure that damages will

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: be large compared to what the deposit is, so they wouldn't get anything back. And you'd probably be lucky if the tenant would let you in before

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I they think that, remember, I've looked at some of the evidence we've gotten, you know, stuff submitted. There's no question. There are tenants who are not gonna get anything. They trash the apartment. Okay. We're not talking about them. But I think there are other tenants, I know them, who clean their places, you know, and leave them in pristine shape. I just want them to be able to get their money back sooner when they need it. Okay. Let's try that. Draft it. Let's see what it looks like. Make it forty five days of reference of final walk through and the return of the remainder of the deposit minus any expenses at the end of the lease.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So I don't so the only thing I think you need to do is change it to say at the request of the tenant and change it to forty five. Don't really need any of the rest of the stuff there.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, want me it minus any deductions? You have that? Okay. Try it that way. Okay. Yes?

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Nope, never mind.

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: No, okay. Yep, zip a

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: card with me. Go on. Okay.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: What you have here is in the e if the landlord fails to return the security deposit, and I've change it to say within the time frames outlined, the landlord forfeits the right. And then if the failures will pull, the landlord is liable for double. So that's just the last change there just because you have multiple time frames now. Fixing some drafting. Okay, now we're getting into section four thousand four and sixty seven, which is the section about termination periods. So sub A, termination for nonpayment of rent. Landlord may terminate the tenancy for nonpayment of rent. Shall be this changes to tendons. So currently, it's 14. And this bill as introduced, it went down to seven. And then other bills, Now it was it's yep. Now it's at

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: 10. It was partly this is there's no magic to any of these guys. This is partly to shorten the time somewhat, but also to allow we had testimony that's it was really kinda too short, and that there are tenants for whom for various reasons it takes them a while to kind of read things, understand things, or whatever, and the compromise, which as I remember, kind of popped out of the committee, was tense.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, go on. Okay, so then the next sentence is, the rental agreement shall not terminate if the tenant pays a tender's rent due to the end of the rental period. Added language here to say, provided that a landlord may terminate a tenancy under sub B1 for repeated late payment of rent. I just wanted to tie in the fact that those two things are different.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And that's defined later, right? Yes. Okay.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So now we're in page six, so we get to sub P. Okay, so this was somewhat restructured slightly to try to make it more clear what B1 includes. So A is non payment of rent, B is breach of rental agreement, and if you all recall under current law B1 is just the sub I, failure to comply with material terms of the rental agreement or with obligations imposed under the chapter. B2 is where you get into if it's due to criminal activity, illegal activity, other activity that threatens other legal interests. So under one, it keeps the failure of the tenant to comply with the material term. That's under lines six and seven. And then it just restructures it to say late payment of rent of more than three times in a twelve month period to that view. Tenants refusing to allow the landlord or the landlord's agents access to the dwelling unit in accordance with 4,460, so it's just referencing back to the section about access. And then that's it. If you recall as it was introduced, it said that it had those provisions as a definition of what failure to comply with the material terms meant. And I guess that got a little confusing, maybe for the judiciary. So this is just trying to clarify it a little bit.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, there's nothing new here from the It's prior just, just clarifying.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's just restructuring it to try to make it clear. So under B1 you have, you may terminate failure to comply material terms, late payment of rent which is more than three times in a twelve month period, refusal to allow landlord access and then the landlord shall provide twenty one days notice, that's on line 13. And then late payment of rent means payment of rent more than ten days after rent is due.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, Debbie,

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: then Joe. I was just going

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: to say since we went to ten days, it's really 15 visits of mailing. But are we gonna say how we're gonna count days? Feel like that, are we putting that in the number?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Do we know what that means?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So the days count the next day, So if it's twenty one days prior to the termination date, so termination date is X, I need to count twenty one days, the day before is going to be one, the next day is two, you have to provide that notice twenty one days before them counting back twenty one. You raise a good point though, keep in mind if you're mailing the presumption of receipt is five, so you need to count another five days back under the draft, currently it's three. So you're serving it on

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: day one or on day zero? This is coming backwards here, does that mean that

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: there is a termination date, you're going to pick the date. I want it to be the first day of the month, okay. I have to provide you with notice that notice has to be twenty one days prior to that date. So I have to back up twenty one days, day before that the thirty first day of the month prior or the thirtieth day of the month prior is day one. 02/03, 04/05, all the way back to '21. That means you have to have actual notice that day. Twenty one days before the termination date. You have to receive the notice because remember the definition requires receipt. So if I'm gonna mail it to you, I get a rebuttable presumption that you received it three days after I mailed it by it. So your change I need to buy but currently three, so I gotta back up another three days. Because you have to receive it twenty one days before the termination and I get a rebuttable presumption that you received it three days after I mailed it. So I need to back up that three more days.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, let's go the other way, just to, I don't fully know that we've answered Debbie's question. Let me do it this way.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The day does not count the day that you're mailing it. Okay,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. So I'm gonna give notice by then. Okay? Day one, I mail the notes. Is that notice presumed effective? I mail it on a Monday. Is that notice deemed effective at close of business on Friday or Saturday?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: When did you start Monday. Right. So it's five days the first day after you mail it. That does not include the day that you mailed it after, meaning after the next.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right? Okay. So it would be Saturday.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: The following.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. It would be Saturday.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Mail it on Monday. The first day you count is gonna be Tuesday.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Tuesday. Okay. That's what she wanted to know.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I I want it in there because when I asked the court, how do you count days? And it's like, well, then I have to take a time to write a letter to the judge asking him, how are you counting days? And it's just wasting four times.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Will you clarify that with these times, the first day is the day after a notice was actually given or something, I don't know.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I can try. I get the impression that your judicial system doesn't really care to comply with

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: the statutory requirements. That's it. It's so Yes. Forgive me because this may be a redundant question, but what does access to the dwelling unit in accordance with Section 4,460 of this title mean?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There is a section that says that the tenant has to provide access to a landlord and they can't withhold consent for the landlord to come into the unit.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: But there's time for notice? No, no, there's a time frame.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's forty eight hours. And

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: there's yeah.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: I only

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: think your access is an Emergency. It's all the money.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So it says that the landlord can have access with the tenant's consent, which cannot be unreasonably built. So it doesn't have to be forty eight hours. If you ask the tenant, can I come in tomorrow? And the tenant says, yeah, sure, come on by. The landlord may enter the dwelling unit with forty eight hours notice between 9AM and 9PM for inspecting the premises, making necessary and agreed repairs, supplying agreed services, or needing to show the unit to a prospective purchaser. So we need the tenant's consent except for those things. And if it meets one of those things, repair, inspection, showing the unit, etcetera, you have to provide at least forty eight hours notice.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Does it say anything about whether it must be the actual landlord or whether it could be an agent of the landlord?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Property could be a fuck. Yeah. I'm

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: just wondering whether it says what does it specify? And does it also does it specify tenant or tenant agent?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It just says landlord, and the definition of landlord does not include a landlord's agent. And I assume it just says the tenant's consent and the tenant. Doesn't include it up to you. I don't believe it's included in our definition.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: So in effect, if the person is not the landlord, the tenant may refuse access.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right? Yes. I mean, under the law, I guess. I you're going to get I don't know what the value would be if the landlord is having someone come fix a repair and you say, if not the landlord, you may not access.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Well, or the landlord might send their you know, son who you didn't agree to be able to live in the apartment.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Just wanna pick them up.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Are you sure? Do you think that it would be a good idea to define them?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I don't think it would hurt, because this section on termination says landlord or the landlord's agent, so

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Unless you want to define landlord to include the landlord's agent. You

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: have a section for access, this section for termination is going to say if you don't give the landlord's agent access in an accordance with that section, then you can't be terminated. Right. If we're going

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: to specify that, then my feeling is that we should also allow a tenant to have an agent.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I think if the tenant sends the landlord a note, says, so and so is my friend, I'm out of town, and you should contact him, they can do that. You can all be supported an agent unless you're But

[Jess Simon (Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity – Fair Housing Project)]: this is giving Isn't this

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: just giving permission to enter?

[Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: The tech

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: may or may not have

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: to be there at all.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There was a request that I also mentioned that a landlord can gain access to the building if there's a reasonable belief of imminent danger to

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: the property or Isn't that in the That's in the access section. That's in the other section. Okay. Alright, so we're, okay.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So you have me potentially adding a clarification about days. Yeah. Okay. I will take a look.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: I have one question just for compatibility reasons, that it's a nonpayment of rent is ten days and a non payment of rent is twenty one days?

[Jess Simon (Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity – Fair Housing Project)]: Non

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: payment of rent is in sub a. If you do not pay rent, then it's ten days would be the proposed termination notice period under the sub B1 is for Repeated Lateefit Rent.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Which was Repeatedly.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: This came from, when we were sitting down talking, this was actually the law as it is now. It's kind of vague and not very clear, and so this clarifies it.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: I think it looks okay.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Maybe it's I'm I don't know. It just seems

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: In other

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: words So if you just don't pay rent, ten days.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: If late payment of rent is defined as not having paid within ten days. Okay. One. Second, repeated late payment of rent is grounds for termination. So that means if someone repeatedly isn't paying rent for eleven days, they can be evicted.

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: Your vice chair has a question. Yes. I just wanted to clarify something. So what you're saying is, like, no matter what the lease says, like if we say rent is due first and there's no grace period, you really do

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: tenth.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's on not putting a grace period, it's clarifying what you can terminate due to a late payment of rent.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: And it was paid before.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: In other words, you can say your rent is due on the first, okay, and it is due on the first as a contractual Right. Okay, but what we're saying is if you're going to then turn around and evict them, you can't evict them for paying on the second.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: You evict them, but you evict someone for being a day late. What if somebody is notoriously nine days late?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Every single month of the year.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: A problem. I will also comment that in A, you can't terminate if the tenant pays or tenders rent due to the end of the rental period in which the payment is

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: being And that's existing law. Which we didn't, and there was no exception for this situation of competed. Sorry.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Go ahead, Cameron.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I was just going to say, rent's due on the first, somebody doesn't pay you by the eighth, and then you go to terminate them and they pay you on the ninth, you can't terminate the eventual agreement at that point. So my understanding is this was added to say, notwithstanding that, if you continue to pay late the habitual late payment tenant, then we're going to give the opportunity to terminate based on that. So then naturally, well, what's the definition of late? You settle on ten, you all could say five. Could It's up to you.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It just was our thought was, it was better to say something than just say late payment.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Because right now the status quo doesn't

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: have that clarity. No, it does not.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: So we want that clarity and the decision is how many days. Right. And I think it looks fine the way it is. I do too. That's two people. And the chair. I think that's fine. Three in the chair.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. I'll tell what. We're gonna leave work. I'm gonna I'm gonna circle this. Yeah. I'm circling this as an issue. Oh. I'm just gonna we're gonna move yeah. But there's lack of I don't there's people who are a little worried about the nine day the nine day renter.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: I was just asking.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. Well so we'll come back

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: to it. But so the second section creates an area where the person nine days late three times now becomes

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: a violation.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: But nothing's ever going to be perfect. Oh, know.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I'm not trying to I'm just trying to make sure I understand.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. I'm just saying, like, there are going to be issues with everything, but right now, it's still more defined. Right now, it's complete nothing.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, right now the law, it's really weird. In terms of giving you a way out of a continuing late payment person, it's very vague. This is an attempt to clarify that. I think we should come back to it. In other words, is it 10?

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: No. I'm not worried about the days number. I'm just making sure that the

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: person who's in that scenario of if we change it

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: to ten days, the person who's late nine day or, you know, based on day nine

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: But keeps doing a nine day thing.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Evicted or sent an eviction notice and then they pay it three times.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: Can do they have to create that record? So

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: you have to just keep sending them an eviction letter every time they're two

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: days late so that they can pay within ten days. And now it's recorded as

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: a late payment. And now you have three of those in a twelve month period. What's that?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The current statute says you can terminate a rental agreement due to failure to comply with a material term. The separate section says that you do not have to demand payment of rent. It's due when it's agreed upon and the landlord is not required to demand it. If the landlord so chose that the landlord wants to, they could pursue an objectment and a termination based on your continued late payment of rent. I would argue your nine day late renter is failing to comply with material terms of the rental agreement. So I don't know that you need statutory language to accomplish that goal. If you want to include language to clarify that this is included, then you need to define what late payment of rent means.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And we did. Part of the problem we're dealing with is that later on, let's say you evict someone, I mean you file an ejectment action, and then they can pay rent into court. They can pay rent up to the last minute, and then where are you? It sort of defeats your ejectment action. But by putting in repeated late payment and defining it, that's grounds for saying, no, that's not enough. They've been constantly doing this, so they're gone. So I'm hoping to answer the question, rep Parsons, so I interpret it now as,

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: what does your lease agreement say? And if it says rent is late as of x date, then have you as a landlord would have to follow that as well. And you have to terminate them for continuing to pay late if they're not paid.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: So is the question on the table to we're going to hold it?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: We're going leave it as is.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: As is, and then, okay.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I just might come back to that. Just indicating, yeah, I'm just coming back to it, where people are expressing any of, well, I'm not sure. Okay, there's something important coming up. We have fifteen minutes left. Go for it.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, now in the subsection two, so this is also for termination for breach of rental agreement. And the change here is to remove reference to That's criminal activity, illegal drug activity. So when termination is based on criminal activity, illegal drug activity, acts of violence, damage to the dwelling unit, etcetera, that was in the draft as it was introduced, but it's being proposed to be

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: This came at your request. This came at the requesting committee. The consensus of the committee was let's not focus on criminal activity, or even use that term because they're illegal because it implies that, sort of implies that people have to be arrested or it gets us into the whole criminal law thing, and we just decided, look, violence and damage or any other activity which, and this is the key, threatens the health or safety of the other tenants, the landlord or the landlord's agent or neighbors, and that we don't need to get into criminal activity and illegal, I mean, it obviously includes it.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: I think that's just that.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There was a proposal, Mr. Chair, you suggested possibly clarifying this to make sure it was the tenant's act of violence or damage? Currently it just says acts of violence, damage to the dwelling, and all the activity.

[Jess Simon (Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity – Fair Housing Project)]: I was just going

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: to propose that, and I was just going to say not only the tenants, but their perpetuation of it, because if it's a domestic violence situation and they are a victim, I wouldn't want them to be evicted because they were being abused in their own. We do have protections for

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: that. Wait, this is really important. About what was worrying me, and it's really worrying you, is what happens when somebody really is a victim? You know, they are a drug dealer has come in and just say, you're letting me sell drugs here, kiddo, or I'll give you some drugs in return, but, you know, you're letting me sell drugs. How are we gonna deal with that? And the answer, the way we deal with that, is through an enhanced trespass requirement, which we'll get to. In other words, the landlord, if it's the tenant that's causing the violence, the problem, the drug dealing, this section lets them evict them. If it's an invitee, if it's an involuntary invitee, we have enhanced trespass coming up. But if

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: two tenants residing in a place and one of the tenants

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: You know, I don't know

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: if you

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: do. So I talked to the network about that. Is that kind of where you're going? So I I did talk to the network about that, and, they sent us a memo, with their opinion on that because that is not absolutely not an intention that I would want to have anything to do within this bill.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, do they have those language?

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: It's we can pull up the memo.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: But, I mean, should we give it to him to come back with?

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. He has it. He said.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. He's got it. Alright.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: So, yeah, I think speak for many in the committee, we want to make sure that folks in that situation are absolutely not penalized in this bill, that it would be horrific to me.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I think we'll have to see the language. And I don't want to complexify this to the point where it can't be used.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: I agree. Thank you sharing What would the witness name be after? Was from Charlie Westermann from the Vermont

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

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: didn't

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: sent in there. Maybe talk to him about it. Go on because yeah. Sorry. Do we have anything I'm just I don't know. Up. I'm you're more familiar with this area of law than I am. But is there anything currently which allows a tenant to break a lease if the landlord does act in a way that's inappropriate or violent towards the tenant?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There is a separate subdivision in this chapter related to domestic abuse circumstances, so let me review it and circle back.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Okay, you.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, but I'm not

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: gonna Could they get restraining? Well, if you have a restraining order against your landlord, then how do you square that with access to the Well, we have an agent who can have access, you're saying the landlord's creepy, and so, like, you don't want to lie out or whatever, you get restraining order, and then agent can go for access. Or tenant has the right to break police in that.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Alright. Okay, that too, should have mentioned it earlier. The proposal here is for the termination notice period to be five days. It was three days as it was introduced and it's supposed five now This is a seven A.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: It's seven.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yes. Okay.

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

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Two more pieces here under this subsection. B would require the actual notice required under the sub B. So this is if you're terminating because of failure to comply with the material terms, repeat late payment of rent, not allowing access, or the threats of violence against the landlord, other neighbors, other tenants. If it's terminated for one of those reasons, then B, the actual notice shall be accompanied by an affidavit setting forth particular facts and the basis thereof in support of the termination with sufficient details to inform the tenant of the reasoning behind the termination. Sub three is added here. This is new language that was not in the bill as introduced. The landlord shall not terminate a rental agreement under this sub section based on a person seeking medical assistance for a drug overdose, being the subject of a good faith request for medical assistance, or being at the scene of a drug overdose, or within close proximity of the scene of a drug overdose as provided in 18 BSA 4.54. Evidence obtained from the good faith request for medical assistance for drug overdose shall not be used in the judgment action brought under 12 BSA chapter 169. Was just going say 18 BSA four thousand two and fifty four is the section that provides immunity, certain criminal immunity for individuals who are needing medical assistance or have asked for medical assistance from someone else due to a drug overdose or at the location of a drug overdose when they seek medical assistance. I can pull that up, but I would defer to one of my colleagues for any specific questions on those provisions.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: I just want to say that this piece, this edition is really important to me, that it stays in and was an error years ago not having this in our Good Samaritan law. And so I would advocate that this piece is very important to the bill and that

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, this is the Good Samaritan situation. We don't want to discourage people from dialing 911, you know, it's recorded, etcetera, and so that's what this is. Partly, one reason why I felt comfortable with this is, as you remember, throwing someone out, evicting them because of actions which threaten the health and safety of other tenants, somebody who unfortunately is addicted to drugs and sits alone in their place and does whatever they're doing, it's not aimed at them. They are just they're not endangering necessarily the health and safety of other tenants, but I don't So, know, if something happens to them, I want people to come in and do be able to do this and not like, oh my god, I've just provided

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: I don't want someone choosing between saving someone's life and the fear of eviction. That's why this is in here.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Makes sense.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, what's next? Okay, now we have sub c. This would be changing it to cover basis determination for tenant or government notice to vacate. There's no changes from the bill as introduced, so it's just a rewrite of this section so it covers where termination is based on the intent to vacate provided by actual notice from the tenant. The landlord can terminate the rental agreement on the date provided in the notice. And then the second piece here is about when it's needed for compliance with the government agency or government border, set up changes. So then we get to sub D, where it's termination of the rental agreement when the property is sold or repurposed. So a few changes here. First off, it's gone from thirty to ninety days. And then I've just included some language here. So it's whether there is a written rental agreement or not. But if there is a written rental agreement, it's still you have to ninety days before the end of the written rental agreement. So you still have to wait out the written rental agreement in this situation.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: May I ask you a question? Yes.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Say a landlord has an extenuating circumstance, family member is sick, they have to sell their property. They can sell, but they can't repurpose until ninety days after the agreement.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: After

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: notice. If they go to sell the building and their part of the contract for the sale is that there be no tenants in the building, then they would have to provide ninety days notice for the individuals in the building to terminate the agreement. If they would sell in that instance. Or if they are willing to leave the tenant in the building, then they don't give any notice. Right, the person purchasing the property may say, I want to be a landlord and leave the people that are there. In the situation that you did identify, if you are in need of a family member, need of a place, a dwelling unit for a family member, you would have to provide ninety days notice if there's no written rental agreement. If there is a written rental agreement, you would have to provide ninety days notice for the expiration of that to terminate.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Go on. Whatever you want to say in the next two minutes.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm going to take you down a rabbit hole that may be worth pausing.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Here's what I was describing to you yesterday.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: He says if you're going to terminate because of repurposing the property, so it includes your contract to sell the building, it's necessary for a member of your family to occupy the premises, you're permanently withdrawing the unit from the market, you're demolishing or renovating the unit. Then you get to subsection E which says termination at the expiration of the rental agreement and it makes it ninety days, so if you don't have a written agreement you have to give someone ninety days. If you will recall based on this GP, it's different period depending on if you've been there two years or longer, sixty days, greater than two years, ninety days. This proposal does is it makes all of those things 90. There's no longer a distinction between two years or less, greater than two years, etcetera. It's just 90 across the board. If that is the case, that it's 90 across the board, I don't think you need this individual subdivision. Right. Let me explain something for the committee.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: It says that renal agreement, not rental agreement. It's not. We don't really know. Okay.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Since we're out of time, I just wanna leave you all with with the rationale here. Good catch. I thought about this a lot, and I realized, what our goal is to simplify this whole damn thing, and it had all these different notice periods, and there was less than two years and more than two years, and for this and for that, and I just thought, yeah, it's true you're rewarding people to stay longer, but to me, that seemed arbitrary enough that I finally just said to Cameron, will you just make it ninety days from? So this only applies to situations that are in the landlord's control. Okay? That is termination because they wanna put their family there. They wanna sell the building. They wanna condominiumize it. They wanna just want to end a lease, they want to they, it's all about them. In that case, they can plan and they can give the ninety days, and that's something very important that we are giving tenants, which is in this terrible market where there's almost nothing available, we're at least giving them three months notice to price. Yes? I know we haven't gotten there,

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: but I was just kind of skipping ahead, but I would like us to think about, just as a technicality, as a technical change, adding somebody in addition to the county sheriff or the county sheriff's office to be able to execute an eviction notice. We'll talk about that. I know. But we actually That's a good point.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: That's a good point. Okay, noted. County sheriff, you have to discuss that. Alright. Thank you. We'll reach back What we're gonna do is take this up again on Wednesday, tomorrow at 11:00.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: More work up, more discussions.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right, and you know what, everybody, I'm accusing you all of becoming super intense, but actually, I think this is something we all got to do.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: It's a very serious matter,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: and that's why we're saying being serious, and I think it's really true. All teasing aside about pseudo lawyers, I mean, in this group.

[Jess Simon (Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity – Fair Housing Project)]: Don't think any law school

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: in the industry will next, be going take a thirteen minute break, and at 03:15, we're going to take H887 with an introduction by our ranking member, and Sophie Satney, taking us on a walkthrough.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Not twelve minutes, thirteen minutes.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right. Thank you, everyone, and thank you for those of you who attended and contributed.