Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: There we are. Welcome back, everyone, to House General and Housing. It's still February, and we are discussing H-seven 72, the landlord's tenant bill, and we will be joined by counsel in about forty five minutes. But I thought, you know what might be valuable? I talked to a number of people who were saying, I'm so close to each of the little things we've been talking about, I kind of don't know where we stand in the big picture. And what I thought I would do for everybody's benefit is I'm going to try to describe the bill generically, what's in the bill overall, so that we can all sort of have that in our minds. As we've discussed before, one way of looking at this, I mean, what we've done is we've just taken terms, we've just left out terms like just cause, no cause, for cause, because in current law, every one of them has exceptions, and it's just sort of a mess, and also a little, I'm not sure these terms help, and instead, we've just focused directly on all the actions that landlords, that could be causes for eviction. And one way to think about this, which is applicable to this bill, is we think about issues that arise because of the tenant versus issues that arise because of the landlord, and they're treated differently. So in terms of issues that flow from the tenant, it may not be the tenant's fault necessarily, but there are two of them. One is the dangerous tenant, the tenant who is endangering the health and safety of others, and the other is not the tenant who either does not or cannot pay the rent. So the dangerous tenant came to us a lot of landlords talked about this problem, but particularly, actually, we heard for most, we heard a lot from landlords who are the nonprofit landlords, and the problem they're dealing with are dangerous tenants who are perhaps dealing drugs or situations that really

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Charlton]: have made it very difficult for them, that

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: other tenants really are unhappy with the situation, but it's difficult for them to evict them for various reasons. So, seven seventy two addresses tenant actions that endanger the health and safety of other tenants, the landlord or the landlord or the health and safety of the landlord's agent, And it does it by creating a special show cause process, which is faster, in which the landlord can put together, under penalty of perjury, the reasons that they think it's clear that the tenant is dangerous, and what they're doing. And then there's a show cause hearing very quickly, and at the end of the show cause, at the show cause hearing, the tenant has to appear and rebut those allegations. If the tenant doesn't show up, then the landlord gets possession. If the tenant does show up and just doesn't have anything to say really, the landlord gets possession. If the tenant shows up and rebuts the allegations with others, then the court, it's up to the courtroom, if the court finds that there's really a credible dispute here, the court can order a hearing, but that hearing is very quick. It comes quickly. So that's And then, the other thing we've done, which is very important, we're dealing, that deals with a situation where the tenant is the problem. What happens if the tenant isn't the problem? What happens if someone is preying on

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: the

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: tenant and has made it clear that they're going to stay in their apartment and sell drugs or whatever, and the tenant is terrified, or perhaps a user, or whatever. And there, what we have done is taken provisions from Debbie's bill, provisions from Ian's bill, and put in enhanced trespass requirements. There was, if you remember, a case which made it pretty clear that under the court's interpretation of existing law, you couldn't issue trespass, you couldn't use the force of trespass law against someone who wasn't a tenant, but was an invitee, that's the wrong word, whether the tenant agreed or didn't agree was kind of camping on the tenant, and that's been changed. Now, that law provides that it's got safeguards in it occurs, you know, we'll get to that, but it occurs particularly where the tenant says, I don't want them, or similar situations, and we'll get to the details of that trespass law, yeah.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: Did we add in anything about when the landlord or their agent is in danger?

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I think in existing law, that violates the provisions of existing law, remain unchanged about the obligations of the landlord. But, no, but to be frank, I think it would befall the tenant to raise those issues, which sometimes they may not want to do. The nonpayment of rent is a really difficult situation. Let's be clear, or I'll be clear why I think it's so difficult. It's the most common, remember the testimony of the sheriff? It's the most common situation. Why is it so difficult? It's so difficult because we are operating in this room, when we sit here trying to come up with a compromise that we can all live with. We are operating in a world in which The United States does not have a developed social safety network. In other words, in a lot of other countries in the world, there are all kinds of help for people who are running out of money. At the same time, we have decided in this country, and it's pretty common, there's no question that housing is kind of, whether you characterize it as a fundamental human right or not, it's clear, it's important, right? You can name it any way you want, but it's important. But we have decided that the way that housing is going to be provided is through the private sector, and the private sector has to function as a business financially. If they don't function financially, it doesn't work, they're not going to provide this service. In other countries, the state assists the private sector much more than in this country. In this country, landlords don't have a lot of help, and so it really kind of comes down to this bedrock problem that they have to make their business work. So that contradiction, those contradictions, no social safety net, and increasingly a tight rental market, a rental market where everything is incredibly expensive and getting more so, the lack of state health for various reasons, justified or not, that's what we're operating in, and there's nothing we can do about those things. They're there. Well, it's not nothing, we'll get to that. So, how do we deal with this? The way seven seventy two deals with it, on one side, it helps the landlords with a faster eviction process. It may not be quite as fast as some of the deadlines in some of the bills, but it's faster, a lot faster. Right now, it takes four to six months, clearly. Remember, we had testimony that six months is what the courts regard as what they're aiming for, and quote, 80% of the cases are resolved in six months, but that means 20% are not. They take longer. So what we've done is put together a series of deadlines which substantially shorten that to, I would say, sixty to ninety days. It just depends, but sixty days is the goal, and you'll see that when we keep going, you'll see that there's a sixty day requirement for hearing, you know, to get to a final hearing, the longest one, and there are several other faster ones, but the longest one is sixty days. The problem is, everybody, it depends on the judiciary. We can't get around that, so, but we at least in the legislation are saying sixty to ninety days. There are, we have evidence of what other states do. We are definitely an outlier right now. It takes longer here than in many other states, and we're short, I think. We're trying to cut it in half, essentially. We're also advocating for various programs to assist tenants and landlords in an attempt to prevent the whole non payment situation. And we're trying to do that, and we're doing it by seeking funding in this bill for support for the Vermont State Housing Authority's Rental Arrears Assistance Fund, which is the primary statewide fund that helps with rental arrears, although we have heard Debbie's pointed out there are other sources of funds available to tenants. We've also put in funding for the Champlain Valley OEO's statewide, for a statewide landlord and tenant classes on rights, responsibilities, and remedies. And as part of that, I'm sure they'll do credit, not credit, sort of financial responsibility. We're including a funding program for a statewide positive payment credit reporting pilot program, so that people can build their credit by paying rent, which they can't now, it just doesn't work that way, and then you'll see funding for rental ombudspersons in the cap agencies. But there's no question that this is a thorny issue because landlords who can't pay, and in today's rental market, it's not like we have a six or seven or 8% vacancy. And so, when tenants are evicted because they can't pay, they often end up in a homeless situation, and that's cost the state a lot as well. That's why we're advocating for this funding for rental arrears. I think that's one of the most important points of the bill, and if asked by appropriations, when I testify to appropriations, I will testify that that is a very high priority.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Charlton]: You might point out how much less expensive it is than the hotel.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Than the hotel, exactly, I will point that out.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: Well, it's not just that, It is also that our system does not support families staying together. So it also includes foster care, children turning to foster care, the ultimate cost to the system of children turning to foster care, who then have a very high rate of them becoming homeless, then becoming dependent on children's state aid for the course of their lives. So it's much more than just staying

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: in nothing. That's good, and I will say that, okay? I think, I'm just trying to say overtly, this is just a very bad problem. This bill does what we can. A lot of this is out of our control, and it just is there, which is a bad situation. So the other bucket is not tenant created situations, but landlord created situations. I'm not saying that landlords are acting badly, they're just acting. These are situations where, remember, the landlord decides not to renew a lease, they decide to convert to a

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Charlton]: condominium, or convert it to

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: family use, or to completely remodel the building, which may again become rental, but at least for these tenants, they can't stay there because of the remodel. These are not preventive in seven seventy two, but the landlord, first of all, has to give three months notice. That's a long notice period, and it is there as a it's there to give tenants time, and the security deposit, as we've discussed, at least as this bill is written, has to be for the tenant who's a really good tenant. Remember how I said you can't only make law thinking of the worst cases. You do have to think about the worst cases, but you also have to think about the good cases. We have good landlords, a lot of them, and good tenants. A good tenant, if they have to leave and they've taken care of the unit, they should get, under this bill, they will get half their rental deposit back early, so they will have time to roll it over into a new unit. And then, in other words, okay, and then there are provisions of seven seventy two that apply in all cases. Remember, I started off with these two buckets. One is the tenant moving forward, you know, like nonpayment of rent or the violent tenant. One is, it's in the control of the landlord. So, tenant things are not in control of the landlord. If the tenant starts not paying rent, that's not the landlord's fault. It is the landlord's problem, particularly if you're a small landlord, they could lose their building to the bank because they can't pay the mortgage. And then we have the the tenant, the landlord initiated situations that I described, and those are fine too, but we're giving long notice periods and security deposit return if there aren't damage. Then there are provisions of seven seventy two that apply in all cases, doesn't matter which bucket it is. In all cases, security deposit is limited to two months rent. In all cases, rent cannot be increased more than once every year, except of course, we went through that if you buy a building, you know, you get your shot at it. In all cases, conviction processes remain confidential unless and until judgment for the landlord, which case they're not, and in all cases, uncured, or I would say code violations that are not in the process of being cured, are a defense to eviction. That's what's in this bill. I mean, that's it. Let me be clear. Here's what's not in the bill. Okay? Gonna go back before I say what's not. So in sum, we have these guideposts that we're constantly trying to live within. We have to allow landlords to have viable business or if the housing won't be there. I think we have to, my own view, I'm just saying, is, you know, I don't know, how could I know, whether landlords will get out of the business under the current law. I am certainly reading that they are doing that, but I don't know, but I strongly suspect they will not invest in more rent, and that they may be tempted to convert to short term rent, under the status quo. At the same time, we have to encourage situations that allow good tenants to stay, or if they can't stay, to move in a reasonable period of time and have some money to move. Okay, that said, let me be real clear about what is not in this bill. This bill does not contain, across the board, rent control of any sort. There is no cap on rental increases. It does not contain a perpetual renewal of leases where the tenant is paying rent. I can talk about that a little, I'll just say, I don't think that would work without rent control. In other words, I think the two go together. If you have, If you provide that if you have a twelve month, you sign a twelve month lease, it really isn't twelve months that goes on forever as long as the tenant pays rent. If the landlord can raise the rent to any amount they want, they can just drive the tenant out by raising the rent. So, I think that rent control and perpetual renewal leases go together. I will say that so far my research indicates that although there are some cities in The United States that have both rent control and perpetual renewal, there's no state that does. And my research indicates that I used to think that things in Europe were very pro tenant, and they are, but they do not, none of them, to my knowledge, say that as long as you pay rent, can stay. What they say is that the landlord wants to remove you, there's very long waiting periods. There is no financial relocation assistance requirement imposed on the landlord. In other words, there's no requirement that the landlord has to pay to relocate tenants. There are, I will tell you from my own experience, if a project or a nonprofit is operating under federal law, there are such requirements. They are limited, but they're there, and they can be quite expensive. There's a requirement in some cases that you pay the differential between what was paid before and any new unit that was found. The problem that the testimony and input we've seen is that in Vermont, a lot of the housing that's provided is not provided by landlords with dozens, hundreds, or thousands of units. Is provided by very small landlords who arguably cannot afford that. Was, seven seventy two does not contain those things. So that's a quick overview of the build in terms of what it does and what it doesn't do, and I just wanted to start there, you know, to kind of give, because I know we're just going through it line by line. Nothing is decided until everything is decided, in the sense that we're going through line by line, people can say, well, I don't like this, or I do like that, and then in the end, what really matters is, where are you? Do you think For me, the choice is, how does the end compromise compare to the status quo? Is it an improvement, or isn't it an improvement? And that's the operative question. In terms of ideally when we would vote, I think we will finish going through the bill today, and I think we can have discussion tomorrow. Ideally, I would like to vote tomorrow. Unfortunately, I have signed up finally to go to the Council of Local Governments Housing Conference. Which day are you going? Friday. Okay. They're flying me out on Friday and Saturday. I hope we can vote tomorrow. I think that if we can't, we can't, and we'll postpone it till after

[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin]: But town

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I hope we can vote, but I don't know.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: Is there a time when we could talk about various little tweaks that we would like to suggest?

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Absolutely, there are two times. One is as we go through, discussing it in terms of the markup. What's our next what's what's gonna be in the next bill? So an example of our doing that was well, there were I can think of two. You raised the issue of what about the dangerous landlord? I think the answer is in its existing law, but you need to get him to

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: confirm It's not. I just checked it. Okay. Well, then what do we do about that? But also, another one is what if your county sheriff's department is compromised?

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Can we come up with another? Right. I think that we discussed I that when you were

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: list have of those.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. Well, one way is as he goes through. Another way is when we discuss. Say, well, here's the things I would like to see that we aren't in here,

[Mary E. Howard (Committee Clerk)]: and what can we do about it? So when would be, just to get a sense, when would be the last chance to kind of do that? You're saying we would like to be able to what's our our agenda tomorrow looking like?

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: At the moment, we have seven seventy at this bill at nine to 09:30, and then we have all tomorrow afternoon. As far as I'm concerned, this bill trumps everything, and if we have to kick things tomorrow, we'll do that.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: I need to go and I have a, like, a five minute, ten minute long meeting that I have to get to put on right by the end.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: This is by the way, everybody's gonna be doing this more and more because you gotta go to other committees. By the way, we did discuss when you were out of the room with sheriff. Oh. We did. At the moment, the only solution is we passed a bill last year, the year before, that allows you to use any sheriff, not just your county sheriff.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: Yeah, our county sheriff, Like the Orange County uses our sheriff.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And the other is

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: because

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: otherwise we have

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: to come up with process survey. The sheriff's deputy, any deputy sheriff can do it. The question is, is there anybody else who is trained and ready to deal with? Remember, the sheriff only deals with eviction, the actual act of objectment. Otherwise, it's just civil process. That's the one area where everybody agreed, we need somebody who's trained. Question is, who is

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: that? Yeah.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, so I think at the end of today, we'll all know what's in the bill, and what isn't. And I think people should be talking about, well, I really

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Charlton]: need to see

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: this or that or whatever, and see if we can come to consensus. Yes, Debbie? I know if this

[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin]: is really brought up at all, but I think in some of the written testimony that we've gotten, including pictures, I know Of all the pictures of how the apartments were left? Yeah, I mean, it's a civil matter, but there's criminal destruction done to these apartments. Is there any way to address that?

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: What were you gonna say?

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Charlton]: There'll be a criminal do that for my charges.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Don't know if there's a crime for, one, this damage to property. The only thing I can tell you is, actually, Chris, do you happen to know whether there is, exists now, a criminal approach to wanton property destruction? The only thing I will say is one of the problems that landlords run into is that when they operate in the criminal domain, the standards of proof or hire is harder, etcetera. Mean, I also think the best thing we're doing is trying to make it easier to just get paid people. Yeah. I mean, there's no question that part of doing business, the part of doing business as a landlord involves not just dealing with good tenants, but putting into the business plan the cost of dealing with the bad tenants. And I'm not sure we can do anything about that. That is, it's part of the business plan. What we're doing is saying, no, we're not gonna have rent control. Like I said, from my personal perspective, one of the problems that we're dealing with here is we can't control a lot of what's outside of here. We can only change the law and hope for the best and see how it goes, and then take it again, another pass. But anyway, that was my quick effort to summarize the bill. I think it's safe to say that it ain't everything. Some of the things that tenants really would like, we're not doing. Some of the things landlords would really like, we're not doing. I do think it's very important,

[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin]: very important to speed up the eviction process. Yes? I think it was the lawyer that worked for Chittenden Housing Trust that she advocated to keep no cause evictions in there along with the show cause, and they just talked about a little longer timeline for that, for the no cause.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: Reason Are

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: you doing that? Actually, without calling it no cause, it's in the bill. There is no prohibition on a landlord terminating because the lease is up. There is no prohibition on a landlord terminating because they want to use the building for something else. There never was in the law the ability to just throw a tenant out during the lease. So although the word is gone, the substance is there.

[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin]: Remember you With a ninety day notice.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, with a ninety day, well, not for nonpayment of rent, not for the dangerous tenant, just for terminating the lease, yes. Right. That's the give, because we're not giving tenants rent control. We're not giving tenants the, you know, the right to, that a lease auto renews, which they would really like. I mean, the normal tenant, there are stories we have heard of tenants just being repeatedly having to move their families again and again for no good reason. Yeah, and I don't think, frankly, I don't think the landlords in this room do that. They don't do that, but it happens. No, but if you rent somebody, and

[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin]: they don't even make it through the first month, and then I'm gonna use a ninety day notice, I'm gonna wait that long to

[Mary E. Howard (Committee Clerk)]: No, that gives you a reason, that's a eviction that would

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: have to If they don't pay rent, it's quicker. It's just as quick, if not quicker, than current law. But in fact, it is quicker than current law.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Charlton]: I don't

[Rep. Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: pay less, but not a payment of rent.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: No, they're non payment of rent or a violent tenant. It's much quicker than current law. If it's letting the lease run out, yes. I mean, you can, yeah. Another possibility for a landlord is simply not to enter into long term leases until tenant, you know, for the first, make it month to month for a few months and see what you've got. There are bills, like, for example, Saudia's bill and Chloe's bill, I think, have in them perpetual lease. You know what I mean? That is where the lease just renews and renews automatically. Once But Saudi said is Once the trials here. After a trial period of six months. But we don't have the perpetual renewal in here.

[Rep. Saudia LaMont]: Just adding, it's perpetual renewal with the clause that there are several off ramps and ways to get out of that. Just saying.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: Thank you. That's true.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yes, Tom?

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Charlton]: You maybe answer the previous question as to penalties for destroying property. Yeah. Title 13, Unlawful Mischief, reads, A person who, with intent to damage property and having no right to do so, reason would rather believe that he or she has such a right, does any damage to any property that is valued and without exceeding $1,000 shall be imprisoned for not more than five years, or fined not more than $5,000 I

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: have heard that, yeah, there is unlawful mischief. Yes. Whether a landlord would bother, that's what I mean. But in the real world, what we're hearing from both sides is the same, which in the real world, a lot of this stuff doesn't function, because from the landlord side, they're dealing with a judgment proof tenant, and they just basically know that the best thing we can do is get them out of there, and they're not gonna bother to file a criminal complaint or something like that. On the tenant side, they're just dealing with an imbalance of power. They feel the landlord has all the power. If they get the landlord angry, then they'll get kicked out. And so that's, you know, we're living in that world where probably both of those things are true. But yes, there appears to be a criminal avenue. Would you like, Cameron, to look into that?

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Charlton]: I just, if it's, I think I'd like to know if it is a reasonably viable option for a landlord to even bother with it, because sometimes we're talking about 10 to $20,000 worth of damage. A loss of rental revenue while you're waiting for a contractor to eventually get there and do something about it. It's There are some instances where it's a bigger

[Mary E. Howard (Committee Clerk)]: Okay. I just I guess I just feel like those clearly, they're when the accusation is is bigger about something really big, you should have a bigger burden of proof and you have to go through the process. That's just the way it is for all of these things. I don't think this bill is where we've all talked about massive crimes that because we can't prevent it and we can't create a vehicle of a remedy beyond use the court system. That's what it's there for. Like in the land, like this is about little tweaks honestly, like I don't

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Charlton]: I'm not suggesting we put it in this bill.

[Mary E. Howard (Committee Clerk)]: Oh, okay.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Charlton]: Kind of wondered if there's a different place for them because that's most of these tenants don't fall in this category. Most of the people are not paying the rent,

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: you know, or Or the majority of cases.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Charlton]: Yeah, but it's the few notorious ones that keep small renters from going into the business.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Small landlords. Yeah. Yeah, Small landlords, you know, who could rent one apartment, two apartments. It's not the majority, but this is the one that sticks in their mind. Right, right, right. Well,

[Mary E. Howard (Committee Clerk)]: I think I, Again, I think the approach of finding that middle ground, just like we are not talking about the most horrible tenant actions or abuses. We're not legislating how to provide remedies or even prevent those things. We're just trying to make the process friendlier to both sides to come to a better agreement so that people are either not left in the street or living in bad conditions or stopping to rent at all. That's like, we don't want to keep moving the goalposts either as we have this discussion. Like, these are the items

[Rep. Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: that from all

[Mary E. Howard (Committee Clerk)]: of the different bills that we're in, like, don't think that element was even your proposal to begin with.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: No, she had it. She criminalized some stuff. Sure, but if you do criminalize something that's already am relieved to find that there is a remedy at law, a criminal for that. I do think we have to It would be interesting to find out if it's

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: Well, if it's on the books,

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: that's it.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: Yes. I feel strongly that we should be able to find a way to add remedies for tenants for How can we work okay. Let me back up. This past summer, there were some tenants who were wheelchair users here in Montpelier, and the elevator broke, and they were stuck in that happened right at the end of the session. The elevator broke, and the tenants were stuck in their building. And they were not moved to a place where they can gain act or leave the apartment. The landlord didn't move them to another place. And they were in there. I followed up about a month later to see what had happened, and they were still in there. And Like, for people with disability, like, that is not acceptable for anybody. If there was for people without disabilities, it would be totally unacceptable for a person to be locked in their apartment. And yet there's no actual remedy for landlords who don't immediately address a concern like that. Is a little bit What's that?

[Mary E. Howard (Committee Clerk)]: When was this? Here in Montpelier.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: That? That Or There is no remedy, actually. So a tenant, under current statute, from what I understand, a tenant can withhold rent. But that's not the point. The point is that people are being held hostage in their unit because there's a lack of elevator repair people in New England in general. And that is not the fault of the tenant.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It's also not the fault of

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: the tenant. Nonetheless, people are like, again, if the person was not disabled and they were held hostage in their apartment, it would not be acceptable. It is only acceptable. And so I'm just saying that it is not acceptable, and it it is something that the landlord the landlord has a responsibility to the tenant. It's not it doesn't matter whether it's not the landlord's fault. The landlord has a responsibility to the well-being of the tenant. If we're gonna do all this stuff to protect landlords, we should also be doing things to protect tenants from we we want people to be able to live good lives. And it's I feel really frustrated about the only remedy provided to tenants being nonpayment of rent. And that's for health and safety issues, when nonpayment of rent is fine, but it's not the point. The point is being able to live a safe and healthy life.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Do you have any sense as to what the remedy would

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: be? In some other states, the landlord has to put the tenant up somewhere until but until it's fixed.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: You mean to landlord find has to find housing?

[Rep. Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Yep. Until when?

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: Until it's fixed.

[Mary E. Howard (Committee Clerk)]: And rent continues or does not? Payment continues or not? I'm just asking what

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: happens that on the face.

[Rep. Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: My friend, her landlord had to put her off in a hotel with her fiancee until they fixed some mold issues in the house. She had to pull three legal steps to get him to do that, but she said I can't run-in it, until it was fixed and I forced him to fix it, and that's a no longer. Well, I'd like to know

[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin]: maybe would come under fire and safety, because you could have a tenant, you know there's no elevator, but you can have a tenant, they become wheelchair bound, they're on

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: a 2nd Floor apartment, and does the fire department say they can't be there? According to the Americans with Disabilities Act, it is then incumbent upon the landlord to provide accessibility for the tenant.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Charlton]: So why do we need to safeguard it? It's already in federal law, so it applies. I have to promise people don't know what's in the law. So if it's in ADA, and it's also in the Fair Housing Act, What would change if we put it in this law?

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: I'm not talking about I'm not talking about people with disabilities. I am drawing a comparison for people without disabilities, saying that if you were to walk inside your apartment unable to get out, it's not a thing for people without disabilities because it would be unacceptable. And yet somehow it is acceptable for people with disabilities. But just trying to draw a line between because the people who had been in much earlier had been stuck in their apartments for a few months. It wasn't like a week. And so I'm not talking about the ADA. I am talking about there being remedies for tenants.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, disability is a real differentiator, because if a tenant who isn't disabled, let's say they're locked into their unit, well, it's rather inexpensive and easy to fix that. It isn't inexpensive and easy to fix a broken elevator. It's a completely different order of magnitude. It's just a much worse problem. I mean, that's, I'm not saying it shouldn't be addressed.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: I'm just saying that that like, we I guess, in general, what I'm saying is that we fail to address the obligation of the landlord to protect the well-being of the tenant. So we have all these things about damage to the apartment, but we're not adding in anything about the well-being of the tenant. And that goes with safety of the tenant with regards to the landlord or their agent. And it has to do with there being something beyond just the ability to withhold rent.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: A couple of questions have come up. Could you go ahead? You had your hand up.

[Rep. Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Well, had a question of what isn't that all in the tenants' rights that it covers that? Just read it and I didn't

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: see that. Camera. I don't think

[Rep. Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: it's on inside It's of the not in there?

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: I just read it and I didn't see because Marc said it was under the landlord's obligations, and I read that part, and it said the tenant is allowed to withhold rent.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I think the question, I'm gonna translate this for a minute into a legal question for counsel. A couple of questions have come up. Are you ready?

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

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, one is, does habitability, which agreed only contains, the only remedy in habitability is withholding rent, right? And while someone's withholding rent, you can't evict them, which means that either they're occupying it for free or you're fixed, right? In that section,

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: for the record, Cameron Wood, officer

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: the Thank you. City

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: It is 9 VSA 4458. The tenant may withhold rent for the period of noncompliance, obtain injunctive relief, recover damages, costs, and reasonable attorney's fees, or terminate the rental agreement. Okay. So,

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: okay, that's the law there. Also, what about the problem of, what can a tenant do if a landlord is dangerous? You know, we have a section, I'm trying to, Elizabeth, respond to the question that you asked here. I don't want to reframe it away. She's asking, we were out of the room, look, we have these remedies for tenants, for the landlords, for a dangerous tenant. What about the dangerous landlord? Somebody who is endangering the health and safety of the tenant. What are the remedies available to the tenant?

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: Yeah, Cameron.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: When I was 18, I had a landlord, like I rented an apartment in Burlington and the landlord and property manager would just, like, come over and be creepy. And, like, I was, like, a young woman alone. And there would be, like, something's in my apartment when I wasn't even there waiting for me to come back and things like that. Don't worry, my mom handled it. But those kinds of things, what is a young woman to do?

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I think it would be interesting, counsel. I think this is a legitimate concern. I think it would be interesting for you to investigate it. You wish to answer off the top of your head, be my guess.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: Don't see anything in the residential rental agreement chapter that would address it.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Do they have an obligation to provide, you know there's that series, there are those obligations of the landlord, is there any obligation that they provide safe housing?

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: I would want to look in I would want to look in the rules of the Division of Fire Safety to see if there's anything in there about It's like that. There's nothing in statute in the habitability section. Where I was going to go is, could you go get a restraining order against your landlord?

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, probably.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: I was going to say, I'm assuming yes. I imagine that puts you in a very difficult position when you're having to the person has the ability to remove your tenancy at the conclusion of your rental agreement. So I know that puts the tenant in a the power dynamic situation is slightly different. But I'm not aware of there being any specific tenant remedy in statute about just there being a bad language. Yes.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: And so I guess one of my questions is, could there be a show cause hearing for a landlord?

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: In this type of situation, you're saying? I'm

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: saying that if a tenant accuses a landlord of, I don't know, some sort of inappropriate behavior that does threaten the safety of the tenant, the same as the landlord could say for the tenant. Couldn't the tenant make the same kind of claim against the landlord that they have to then show cause? And then if they do show cause, they get all their deposit back immediately or something. Don't know.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: So I would think about it in this way. Again, I think a tenant is going to have whatever rights and remedies an individual has against another individual. So if you're harassing me or stalking me or I want to go get a restraining order against you, the individual tenant would have whatever rights that other Vermonters have against other Vermonters in that space. What you may then want to consider is whether or not you want to expand on the anti retaliation provisions in here. So if an individual goes and gets some sort of restraining order against a landlord and there is some sort of conduct against the individual because of that, that the individual would be eligible for damages or something to that effect. I think that may be the most straightforward way of trying to address what I think is the concern. Is

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: that something that people are asking to have in the bill?

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, something that Elizabeth has brought up, and the question I mean, I would certainly be interested in your pursuing that.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: So you would like to see I'd

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: like to see what it would look like.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Charlton]: So, I have it in the different testimony that we've been emailed and sent, I have to speak of aim this as a situation, but hypothetically, what do you do if it's the landlord selling drugs? Landlord what? If it's the landlord selling drugs.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: Or providing It wasn't the landlord, it was the tenant who was letting people come in and use his apartment.

[Rep. Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: And they did

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: give one of the persons a restraining order, or no trespass. But I mean, it

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Well, if the landlord's selling drugs, just call the police.

[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin]: Yeah. Well, thought They had to a station back. The Feds take the building over in Rutland.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Was completely. Because of the activity. Yes.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: On the very same token. It was empty. When we're talking about providing safety to all tenants, One scenarios of that I thought of was, I think I've mentioned before, a building where I've been contacted several times about this building, where there are children in the building, and there are neighbors who are either using illicit substances or licit substances, but exposing the children in the building to behavior that's not appropriate for children. And so what if the landlord is the one doing that? They could say it's not illegal, but they Well, that's why I'm wondering whether Would

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: it be overbroad? I'm just wondering whether it's possible to include in the list of things the landlord's obligations. Remember you showed us that there are They're not in this bill because we didn't bend them. The landlord had an obligation to provide a habitable, could we add, and safe housing situation.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Law abiding? Yeah, I don't know, that's complicated.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: I think that my

[Mary E. Howard (Committee Clerk)]: instinct is, of course, to be like, yes, we need to make sure that that's such a laudable thing. But I also have this sense of there are other systems in place for those things, unless this is a wraparound service situation. If you're just in charge of making sure that the place is habitable.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: You're saying we should be putting some kind of, like what remedies or penalties of action rather than a regular court system would you suggest? I am simply saying that if we are focused on safety for everybody, should be regardless of who is perpetrating something that is unsafe.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Problem is the show cause hearing, which by the way is a very common, unfortunately common situation, the show cause hearing as it is drafted now, the remedy of the show cause hearing is eviction. If there were a show cause thing of some sort, what, for the tenant, for an unsaved landlord, I'm not sure what the remedy would be that isn't already in law.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, I mean, I think this could be like a judicial I just don't know if this space It could

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: be something like the tenant immediately gets all of their I don't Okay. Yeah. I don't But if landlord's able to I don't understand why we can't address the power dynamic on an equal footing. Because we are I agree,

[Mary E. Howard (Committee Clerk)]: and I want to just hear how like, what that would look like. That's what I'm trying

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: to I don't think it should be a punishment that we decide. Like, I don't think it should be our committee being like, then you get, this or that. I think that's something that a court should decide.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: And so maybe it should be the same for the 10.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Is what It is. That is not.

[Mary E. Howard (Committee Clerk)]: I thought that was the push

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: Oh, no. Because we're offering eviction as the

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: I understand. But I get what you're saying. But we can't give someone a bonus because it's not the I don't think it's the legislature's job to give someone a bonus if they have a landlord abuse. That's where the court should come in and decide what that management should be.

[Mary E. Howard (Committee Clerk)]: Could there be an extra protection, is what you're saying? Can we add a layer of

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: protection? I'm saying that if we are going to claim that both sides of the equation have the same level of power, then we should treat both sides of the equation with the same level of power.

[Rep. Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Not that don't know. Don't. And unless you can think of something where they would, your landlord has the upper hand and more power because it's his or her dwelling and renting to you. So that shifts the power right there. We have,

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I just wanna make clear, it's not like we have not addressed this issue at all. We are saying that the landlord, the current law says the landlord has to rent property that they maintain as habitable. We have said that if a landlord tries to evict someone for nonpayment, that it's an absolute defense, and in fact, will dismiss the action if landlord is not providing a list, you know, is not providing a list of things. So we are focusing on the law as it stands now, focuses on the need of the landlord to provide the tenant and the right of the tenant to have a habitable environment. And I think that that's protected by this bill and by current law. I think I would like to know a little more about what tenant remedies are, Cameron, as in common with other Vermonters, for a landlord who is dangerous for endangering the safety of the tenant or others, and if you need time to flip at that and think about it, that's, you have, we'll give you thirty minutes.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: No, I mean, just think that that's a real judicial question. I don't think that belongs in this bill.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: Well, would say this, I've tried to pull up the code and I can review it

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: probably while you're on the floor. But

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: I would just restate

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: what

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: I stated already which is if you as a tenant have the same remedies that every other individual has against the bad actions of another person. There are sections in here in the residential rental chapter about retaliation, and that is where I'm kind of potentially advising you. If you wanted to include in there something about anti retaliation against somebody who I takes

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: think that's worth investigating. I'd like to see what that is.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Right, I agree, but I Right, exactly. I don't think it's our job to take it further than what the already states for human beings.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, well, I think I would like to see, in the spirit of what you've heard so far, I would like to see, just provide information on options for strengthening the retaliation law. And then I think we should, at this point, take advantage of your presence to continue our review of the bill.

[Rep. Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: I just You mean an exception?

[Mary E. Howard (Committee Clerk)]: Yeah. Can I just tell us, I have a relative that, in her building, in the contract? It said if they were going to send anyone into the apartment to do work in the apartment or assess it or whatever, they had to be notified forty eight hours in advance. People came- And They did? Well, people came to her apartment and were coming in, and she just happened to be home. She had another safety element, and then she found out that it was happening to other tenants. So she decided to move out and she got her full deposit back.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, no, that same thing happened to me, like I said, when I was a young kid, we dealt with it by saying that they broke the law and the agreement got our money back and moved out. It's not good.

[Mary E. Howard (Committee Clerk)]: I'm just trying to find, so the remedy on landlord side is to basically end the contract, right, when there's been some kind of breach like that. Are you saying that you would like a tenant to be able to end the contract as well, or are you looking for something beyond that? Because I don't know that aside from the retaliatory, like does that make that question make sense?

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, I get it.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: So this is my proposal, it's here, and I'm not trying to answer the question, Rip Dodging, direction of the team. He makes a particular figure. Is my Could you make the volume? I didn't

[Rep. Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: know if you heard me.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: This is primarily designed about an individual who's made a complaint of a violation or who has complained to a government agency. It's saying that the landlord cannot retaliate by establishing or changing terms or bringing or threatening to bring action against the person for these things. So that would be and the tenant is entitled to recover damages and has a defense against a action for possession. And then the next section is except for non payment of rent, there's a presumption that it's a retaliation if you bring a termination action within ninety days. So that is my recommendation if you're wanting to try to add something, would be adding in here that it would be retaliation to change the terms of the rental agreement or to threaten to bring an action against someone who has filed some sort of civil or criminal complaint against the landlord, and there's at least some level of protection to the tenant, which would include damages if they brought a case and won. But outside of that, what's the protection from I think

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: you should give us language. No, I think you should go on. Okay.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: Back to amendments 1.1 for July, we are on the bottom of page 17,

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: and we are moving into this new I've got something right now. You've got to take just pause out. 4861 on page 17.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. What would you like it to say? Issuance of process by a superior judge. Right, so there's already a section titled that or similarly titled. So this year, it's a fundamental question of how you all would like to proceed. There is a sub chapter that deals with ejectment. You're creating a new subchapter dealing with a certain level of ejectment, so you need to distinguish them somehow. So just cause is the most frequent term I have heard being used here, and that's what was being proposed by the individuals proposing this new subchapter process. But this whole process, remember,

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: initially, language that came from the landlord side created a whole process that was parallel to the existing process, because they wanted to maintain a no cause process. We don't want to do that. That's why we don't want to get Once we start using just cause, then people are going to want no cause.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: I understand that, but I'm saying that you have this process that exists, it's superior court ejectment, it's a sub chapter that governs how you eject somebody and what you're doing is you're adding a new sub chapter for a subset of those and so can't But what's the subset? The new sub chapter is for of, or for non payment of rent and for failure to comply with material terms of

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: the rental agreement. Okay, so it's specific to that, okay, and it's faster, right? Correct, correct. So call it that.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: Call it what? I'm not trying to be flip here, I'm saying this is the current chapter. It is Superior Court Ejectment, Issuance of Process. So I can't name it the same thing. It has to identify that you're creating a new ejectment process for a specific thing. I know. Superior court ejectment for nonpayment of rent

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Charlton]: or danger to dangerous

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: tenant or something like that.

[Rep. Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Oh, so you're saying don't have a label of just clothes, good cards or whatever.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I mean, once you get back into just pots and no pots, we are going to have a huge political problem.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: So I will potentially have to give it some thought. Okay, give it some thought.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: You don't have much time.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Don't give it a lot of thought. I'm just

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: We thinking

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: gotta vote tomorrow. Yeah, right.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: If we're voting tomorrow, like, it can't be like, this is getting

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Charlton]: a

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: lot of revisions and a lot of time for Cameron.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: So,

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Charlton]: will see what I can do this next.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, all right.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: I could think about it.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, so this, as I just was showing, a lot of this new subchapter is mirrored on what is currently there. And so this is what I meant when I said this subchapter is limited to there on lines 15, it's limited to a termination based on non payment of rent or a termination based on the fees. I'm afraid it's been screwed this whole thing.

[Mary E. Howard (Committee Clerk)]: No, can't

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: be bad. And so it's setting up this new sub chapter for this. And so then we get to the next section, which is mirrored on what's currently there. And it says that the process issues a summons requiring the defendant to appear and answer to the complaint. There is a slight change there in the yellow, just clarifying. This was based on some feedback from the judiciary witnesses. It's my understanding that the complaint has to state that the defendant this is on line five, defendant's in possession of the lands and tenements in question with a description thereof of those lands and tenements. Now, I've highlighted trial by jury. Does this initially Oh, say right, yeah. It initially said that neither party shall have the right to a trial by jury. There are potential constitutional concerns there, because there is a provision in Vermont constitution which guarantees a right to a jury trial in certain instances based on the language. So my recommendation to you, if you don't want any constitutional concern with the language, would be to keep the right to a trial by jury. I can't guarantee you that a right to a trial by jury is guaranteed by the Vermont Constitution,

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: because there hasn't been a court that has said that. You mean there's no court holding it in any civil situation or just

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: In any Objection Act case, there is no case that I was able to find in Vermont where the Vermont court states that you have a right under the Vermont constitution to a trial of jury. There is a court case that seems to imply that you do not because it was stating in the case that the individual didn't have a right to a trial by jury because there was no material fact in dispute,

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: that was all. So it's not a whole There was a case that said, what again?

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: That the individual who did not raise the issue did not have the right to a trial by jury because there was no material fact in dispute in the case. You Right,

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: mean by implication, if there had been a material fact, maybe they would have.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: Exactly, but that's not what the court said,

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: so Right, I can't tell

[Mary E. Howard (Committee Clerk)]: it was saying based on just a procedural, like, needed to show these, some facts.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: Right. By saying that statement, it's an implication that if there are material facts in dispute, an individual may have the right to a trial by jury. But the court didn't say that, and they haven't held that. So I'm just telling you, it's an open question. If you remove it and I am a tenant attorney, it's one of the first things I'm going to argue when I bring the first case is

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: You mean if we leave it? Oh, if we remove If the we remove the right to a

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: trial by jury. So I'm simply flagging it for you all, and I'm telling you that I can't guarantee you what the outcome will be.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I will tell you two things. One, I had a conversation with counsel. My reaction was I mean, what he's saying is you can take the right to a jury trial out, and you will get litigation to find out whether it's constitution.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: And will the litigation be by jury? I don't know.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: No, obviously, someone will ask for a jury trial. It's not They'll just make a facial claim against the statute. They don't have to, know, anybody could bring it, legal aid could just bring a case to test that issue down. I was accosted in the cafe by someone who said, oh, looks like you're taking on the Vermont constitution, aren't you? And said, What do you mean? I said, Well, right to a jury trial. I have a friend who's a tenant attorney, and he said, Man, they just gave me what I need to litigate. So, I think the risk is there. It's, I think, up to the committee whether you want to leave the right to for jury now or whether you want to take it out.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: You see the risk? Just to clarify for the committee, it says article 12 of the constitution says this. Trial by jury article 12, trial by jury to be held sacred, that when any issue, in fact, proper for the cognizance of a jury is joined in a court of law, parties have a right to trial by jury, which ought to be held sacred.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: So everything should be jury trial if someone wants it? Is that what you're saying?

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Charlton]: I

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: mean, everybody can read this thing till they're blue in the face.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, I need to

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: till blue in the face, but I think that the you can play lawyer, but all our lawyer is telling us is that it's uncertain. Yeah, and then people have people have there's a court, one court case on it, which held that there wasn't a I guess what they looked at is they said, when any issue in fact is joined, They decided if there's no issue in fact, then it's no right to a jury. The implication might be, when reading this, is if there is an issue in fact, you have a right to a jury.

[Mary E. Howard (Committee Clerk)]: So right now, where there There's not

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: a possibility our situation, Belfort,

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Charlton]: there might be an issue in the fact that we should have the right.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Does this go out of judiciary?

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, I hope it's only gonna fly by. It's only But

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: there's a lot of pieces that are gonna have to this I'm just really concerned about the timeline.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Me too. Because Well,

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: the the they're gonna this is there's a lot of things in here that are are under their jurisdiction. And we're not lawyers or judiciary people.

[Mary E. Howard (Committee Clerk)]: So, you proposing that we strike it because it's going to hold them up with another No,

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: I'm suggesting that we trust our legal experts here.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, legal expert is recommending we leave the right to a jury.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Then we'll leave it,

[Mary E. Howard (Committee Clerk)]: so then we have to strike this language.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, I agree. I just want to make sure, you know, I'm just flagging that if you remove it, it's a constitutional concern. If you don't want the constitutional

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: I don't want a constitutional concern.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: By the way, the Everybody has the right to.

[Rep. Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Pardon?

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: They don't have to take

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: I know, but We'll see.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: See. It'll be applied.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: I have been working on a bill right now that's gone to five committees, and every single committee, even though it's not in their section, has an opinion on everything and wants to talk about every piece. And it's been a lot, and so I just worry.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, all right, so go on. The consensus is leave the right to a jury trial in

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: the That's what it says in the law, then that's what it says in the law.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Here we

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: go, answer. So this is for the ejectments that are brought under this subchapter. The defendant shall file an answer within fourteen days after service of the complaint. This is a reduction from the rules of civil procedure which is twenty one days. If I recall, I think fourteen maybe more than it was initially when it was introduced but I don't have that right in front of me so I'm gonna keep us moving. But right now that has fourteen days for the tenant to file the answer to the objectment action that's brought in court. The answer shall be accompanied with an affidavit setting forth a particular facts. That's the similar language that's in the other chapter. So moving to the sub C, If the complaint is based on a termination under sub A, which is non payment of rent, the defendant may cure the action by paying all rents, board costs, service fees by the answer date. If payment is not received by the answer date, the defendant shall lose the right to cure the complaint as a matter of law. My understanding is there was some concern about this time period raised by the judiciary because it is you have the right to cure it by the answer date. So you file the complaint, you have fourteen days to file that answer, so that's when you would have to cure. Which is sooner than it was. Right now,

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: you can cure it all the way up to judgment, can't you?

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: My understanding from our conversation based on the testimony you heard, yes, sir. Mean, there's nothing prohibiting the parties from reaching a settlement agreement. But I mean,

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: isn't it true that under current law, if a land, I don't know that a tenant would, a tenant comes into money and pays their back rent and all the costs, the action's dismissed.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: I assume it would be, but that's a question

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Not necessarily.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: I don't think there's anything in statute Because at the

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: they've already broken the

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I just don't know.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, don't

[Mary E. Howard (Committee Clerk)]: know. I mean, you could settle but still evict yourself. But now

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: it puts it for the answer.

[Mary E. Howard (Committee Clerk)]: But I think that could be part of the seventh decision, but it's not following.

[Rep. Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: He just saw me die.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Charlton]: Okay.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: As my understanding of this C is, it's going to give the tenant the legal right to cure. As it says here, you lose the right to cure as a matter of law. So after this date, if the tenant has not cured it, then the landlord is not obligated to accept it after that date. It would become a negotiation point among the parties. Happy to answer any questions or spend more time on them. People are confused about what I said. Sub two here, upon receipt of the answer to the complaint based on the termination under 04/1967 or (one), so A being nonpayment of rent, (one) being failure to comply with the material terms of the rental agreement, repeated late payment of rent, not giving the landlord access, not following the lease agreement, etcetera. The court shall set a final hearing date not later than sixty days after the date of service of the complaint, absent good cause. This was

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: in the original bill. It's sixty days. It's an important date. Judge Zonie was not happy about that, but did not have a correction other than saying, Yeah, give

[Mary E. Howard (Committee Clerk)]: this is like giving the court an out for going beyond sixty days.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: It could be giving the parties an out either, it just says good cause, good cause, Party but if they have to

[Mary E. Howard (Committee Clerk)]: could be very sick or whatever, okay.

[Rep. Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Kevin, with the lease for a rental, is it more, is the lease more, I can't find another section, in favor of the tenant or the landlord or his vehicle? I mean, is the protection, is that lease protecting also equally the tenant?

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: It's going to depend on how the lease is drafted. Mean, the lease is a contract between the two parties. Depending on how it's drafted, you're going to argue that it's more favoring to one party over the other. Although,

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I always think of a lease as protecting the tenant, because the tenant it means the landlord can't throw them out. On the other hand, if the landlord if the tenant theoretically, it means that the tenant is stuck for the twelve months too. They owe the rent, but in most cases, if the tenant flakes out and leaves, the landlord doesn't have much

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: of a remedy. I would echo that, that's probably one of the biggest legal implications of having a written lease, is the landlord cannot terminate the lease until the end of the term. They still have to provide Even that in current statute, the notice period is longer if you do not have a written lease, but it can happen at any time. Whereas if you have the written lease, the landlord can only terminate it at the conclusion of that written lease. So that is one of the mechanisms that would be protection for the tenant.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: Can I ask a question?

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: What

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: happens if a tenant wants a written lease and the landlord pleases to provide it?

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Don't know. Nothing, well, the landlord cannot rent from that one. The tenant cannot rent, but that's the only

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: There's no obligation to

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: There's give no obligation for a written lease, which is in But some of the other

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: that's not in this bill.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It's not in this bill. We're not adding it.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: Correct. There's no obligation for it in writing, so it would just be a verbal agreement.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: And change, whatever.

[Mary E. Howard (Committee Clerk)]: As soon as payment is given, or you can prove through an email or witnesses, you could show that there was an understanding that I was going to rent from this person.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: There are other ways to prove a set permit contract.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, so back here, we're in this new section, new subchapter, as a default provision, which states that if the defendant fails to provide the written answer as provided, so if defendant doesn't provide the answer within that fourteen day period, the plaintiff shall be entitled to possession, the plaintiff shall file a motion for possession based on the default and shall include an affidavit that provides proof of service to the defendant. The court shall decide on the motion within five days after the filing by the

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: plaintiff absent good cause. Yeah, we kept a short time period here. It's not quite as short as in some bills of three days, we

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: This was the compromise language.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yes, this was the compromise in giving Zone A something, yes.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, so the next section is about the show cause hearing. If the complaint is based on termination under four thousand four sixty seven(two), the

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: kind of that's violence and endangering, yep.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: One shall set a show cause hearing within ten days after an answer is filed, absent good cause. If the defendant fails to appear, the plaintiff shall be awarded possession. At the show cause hearing, the defendant shall provide a rebuttal to the facts. There's been some minor tweets here just trying to massage the language to alleviate concerns from

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Charlton]: the

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: judiciary, testimony that you received. So at the hearing to finish, I'll provide a rebuttal to the facts supporting determination of claims. Moving to the top of the next page, parties may rely on affidavit evidence during the show cause hearing made under the pains and penalties of perjury. If the defendant makes a showing of live testimony as required or on the court's own motion, excuse me, a determination, then a final hearing can be ordered. And then the final hearing has to be within twenty one days after the date of that show cause hearing.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Charlton]: So you

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: go to the show cause, court says, need to have in person testimony. That has to happen within twenty one days.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: Yep.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, so then the next, if the court finds the plaintiff is entitled to possession, whether in vaults or after a final hearing, plaintiff shall have a judgment for possession, including damages and costs. And then we have the writ of possession shall issue on the date of judgment and direct the sheriff to cert the writ and not earlier than fourteen days and put the plaintiff in possession. So similar to the fourteen day period under the current construct. Landlord may dispose of any personal property remaining in the dwelling unit without notice or liability, saying lead in language, upon the landlord being legally restored to possession of the dwelling. I'll probably amend the section earlier to follow this so they're consistent, but it's the 14 plus zero time frame that you all discussed. Okay, now trespass orders. So we're moving into this section about trespass. I did do a little bit of taking you based on some questions that you all had. You don't need to go to a court to get a trespass order. You as an individual can file a notice against trespass to anyone. You don't need the sheriff to deliver

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Okay. Elizabeth, when you were not here earlier, we talked about if a sheriff can't build the duties in your counties, what would happen? So I think this addresses it. Right, Cameron?

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It's

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Charlton]: one the duties.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: You're serving papers through the civil procedure process, it's not required to have a sheriff do it. The only thing in statute that I believe we've looked at where there's a requirement of sheriff service delivery is that writ of possession, that final judgment that

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: So I'm saying this section would help alleviate what's happening.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: But you have to be in possession, right? Yes. I think when the lawyer

[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin]: for CHT was testifying, she said to put that trespass, connect that trespass order with the writ of possession.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: That's what this This is Julia? Yeah.

[Rep. Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Thank you. Bless you. Okay.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes,

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Charlton]: just, I know we talked about this at length, but I just want to make sure plaintiff issued, murder against trespass for the entire premises, of the is that clearly referring to the whole property or just the unit?

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: What is the premises? The premises

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Charlton]: premises

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: is the definition in the residential rental agreement chapter, and it may be worth it if you want to define it as that, but the premises means the dwelling unit, its appurnaces, and the building, and the grounds, areas and facilities held out for the use of the tenants generally, and who use or whose use is promised to the tenant so it's you have the dwelling unit and then you have the premises where that dwelling unit resides.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Charlton]: Cross lawn,

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: gym, whatever else. The premises would be the wire? Yes. I want to make sure off the property. It is the building so it means the dwelling unit, its appurgences, and the building. Okay. Okay, so then you get into title 13, which is where unlawful trespass exists, and what I've done here is I've combined the language that I initially drafted up, and then I've also added in the language from, I believe it's H748. I might do in preparation for tomorrow is simply combine these, so it's not two separate subdivisions, but I need to put that back to judiciary, get their immediate feedback. But nothing has changed in the language. It's highlighted because we've just incorporated the language from Representative Quizana across the hall. And if you all recall, this is trying to address the circumstance where somebody's been ejected, they're given a no trespass order. Separate from that, this language in seven twenty eight here that's highlighted is being able to give a mixed trespass order against someone who doesn't reside in the dwelling unit if the tenant consents to it, if the invitee is subject to an order violating the lease agreement, or the invitee has violated state or federal law while being on the premises.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: My apologies, were you there? Okay,

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: so that's page 23. Now we're moving into the ejectment records sections. And if you recall, I mentioned yesterday when we first started, I'm still trying to do a review of this. So if you are willing to allow me leave, I will walk through this tomorrow with you.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Is important. I just want to tell people what the attempt here is to remember there were, well, first of all, were people besides, there were a bunch of people who had access, even though it was confidential, there were a bunch of individuals who had access anyway that weren't just the parties and their lawyers, like legal aid, legal services, and others. We just took that out. All it is is the parties and their lawyers. And the second was, the hearing was open, the point was made, what's the point? If the hearing's open, then everybody knows, so that's out. And then the third was exceptions for a whole bunch of people for, you know, unrelated to the need for the need that underlay this in both. So all those exceptions are taken out. It's just simpler. It's a simplification. And I ask counsel to look at other areas which are confidential and, you know

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: And I have some information I'm just needing to sit down and kind of do some

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Charlton]: of that crosswalk. And again, I want

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: to just be able to go back to the sections. Sections. I removed some of the things, Mr. Chair, as you mentioned, and I just need to go back to the fonts to make sure that it's

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And if there's an ejectment or a writ of ejectment, judgment for the landlord or confidentiality disappears. In other words, if the landlord brings an action and for one reason or another default or whatever, they win, and they get a writ of possession, as soon as the writ is issued, it's not confidentially.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: Did we already talk about the possessions, like the junk? We did already go through that? Yes. I just had one question about that. About the stuff? Yeah. Can you clarify? So the bill says that a landlord can dispose of property. Does disposal of property include taking property?

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

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: could, yeah. I think the best way to understand it is the landlord, it is theirs to do with Is what they do with that

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows]: that something that needs to be That wasn't clear to me, either the bill or the current statute.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Sorry, I'm just trying to get to where we discussed it. Didn't you say that usually landlords store it? Why do they do that? Because they can't get rid of it all at once. They might not have a dumpster ready Well at the

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: keep in mind, this is where we got to a lot of the confusion, where under current statute, as I read it, when the landlord is restored to possession of the property, they have to keep all of the tenants' possessions that are in the property for fifteen days before they are legally allowed to dispose of it. I know. Maybe throwing it away, maybe giving it away, maybe keeping it. Right, but not under a notice of precise use. It would

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: be immediately Right, well, just to note, you think that, I think that.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: I'm going to further clean it up to match what's Okay, below

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. Not all of this stuff, what if

[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin]: the tenant, during this process, this court stuff, what if the tenant moves out and so we never get to

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, that you just get, you get the judgment and then the sheriff can come out. The sheriff When do you get legal? Quick question. Let's say the senate leaves, you give them the notice, and then five days later they move. You don't need an order, just, if you haven't had to file an ejectment action, it's yours. Just want

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: make sure, are we talking about a situation where someone, where you had brought an ejectment case, or are you talking about where somebody has abandoned property?

[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin]: No, I'm only talking about abandonment. You're bringing in a case, they have to answer, you're going through that whole process, we're taking a break to the end of getting a writ of possession, but what happens if they leave during this process? Have to

[Mary E. Howard (Committee Clerk)]: get a, you

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: have to get a writ of, first of all, I think once the ejectment action, unless there's a, once you begin an ejectment action, one way or another, you're going to have to have judgment or risk, the ridicule.

[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin]: But what are the, you're talking about things being sealed.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Sealed, Oh,

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: that's different. It's sealed from the day you file the complaint until the day you get your credit card. Okay.

[Rep. Saudia LaMont]: Saudia? I'm just curious on the abandonment. If the person dies in between this process, does their family get access to their belongings?

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I don't see why not, but I've

[Mary E. Howard (Committee Clerk)]: seen a lot of cases where they tape it up and you can't go in there until the most the probate is out of lot of water. Okay. Was just

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It's probate Saudia.

[Rep. Saudia LaMont]: Oh, well, I'm talking about in this because we're talking about if they abandon it and when the purse when the landlord can throw away their things. So if the person is if the landlord's in the middle of this process, and let's say the sheriff comes and the person takes their life, when the sheriff comes, would the person the landlord would then be responsible to give the property to the family member, correct?

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: The property at that point would become part of the estate for the individual who is deceased. Okay. Well, they're having a state either way.

[Rep. Saudia LaMont]: Okay, thank you.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: I do not, yeah, I don't know in statute what, but if I were the landlord, I'd assume you would be able to remove the property and put it in a storage unit, and then allow the estate to come back.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: That's exactly, I had that happen. Actually, I, did I dare mention the store? I had that happen. The original tenant died, and several people claimed to us that they were the inheritors, and the court, we wrote the court, or called the court and said, what should we do, and we stored it, and the court, it just, the parties never agreed on who it was, and so we finally just wrote the court saying, in fifteen days, we're getting rid of it, and then they finally said, go ahead. I mean, it was, you know, so anyway. Okay,

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: so there's one other piece that we have not kind of walked through in detail and I don't know whether anyone wants to or feels like they need to. There are the sections at the very end regarding the pilot program. Mr. Chair, know you've mentioned at the very beginning, this was kind of language that had been worked through quite extensively last session to address a lot of the concerns that have been raised at the time. I'm just flagging that it is there. And there is one change towards the bottom in the appropriations section, the treasurer's office asks for a clarification on the appropriation to the treasurer's office because it comes with $100,000 to administer, Just clarifying that that also allows them to contract, so $100,000 for contract administrative costs necessary to implement that program. I don't see that as necessarily a substantive change because I think that was the intent from the beginning, to administer the program, they get this money, they wanted that clarification. So I'm just highlighting it for you all, because it's a change from the bill as it was introduced.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I think there's the $600,000 for OEO.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: Which I have not included yet because I gave you the best we've got, and I'll take a look at it.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So let's talk about process for tomorrow. Actually, I think we all pretty much know what's in the bill, but I think it's important that people see a final bill. What's, Marian, help me out. What can we do tomorrow?

[Mary E. Howard (Committee Clerk)]: Well, if you set the parameters of what else can, what are the changes proposed that came out of today that we've asked in everything?

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I think there are very few, We decided much of it. I checked certain areas where we went one way or the other, just so people can, when we have a discussion, we can flag them if we want, but I think pretty much Cameron can draft a final version.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: The question is whether people want to vote for The changes for today are if there's a week to week rental going from ten to seven excuse me, going from seven to ten if it's a week to week, to align it with the non payment of rent section. And then there was the Just the weekly rental.

[Mary E. Howard (Committee Clerk)]: For weekly rentals.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: If you're on a week to week basis, what is the notice period for terminating that, currently it's seven,

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: and going to ten, which has been consistent with other bills.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: And then there was the period where if a landlord is bringing the ejectment action, how long do they have to bring that after providing the termination? When we decided to stay with sixty days. It was sixty days. Remember that you're looking, looking, you're Are you, you got it? No, I'm not. Oh, looking,

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: maybe you weren't in the room. The issue was, right now under current law, I'm just going say this really quickly, under current law, a landlord has to bring their action. If they're going to bring an action for non payment, they've to bring it within sixty days. That was shortened to thirty. I'm not sure why, because the person who wrote that provision is the landlord advocate. Debbie said, wait a minute, actually sixty is good, because we used that period to try to negotiate, the tenant and the landlord tried to negotiate a possible solution, and also, it's more time for the tenant. So we said, okay, leave it at sixty. This is, in other words, the landlord has to bring, they can bring the action in five days if they want, but they have to wait.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: Have to it within sixty Okay,

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: go on.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: And so then the next piece I have is for the section here when you are giving the tenants a defense to an ejectman because of the health violations to add in there something about the landlord making steps to cure. Substantial progress, right, yeah, okay. And then the next change that I have is cleaning up, going with one of the two sub A's under this section, that's technical cleanup for me. The discussion we were just having about how long the landlord keeps the property after the given legal possession again, cleaning that up even further, and then I have the getting rid of the reference to just cause, getting rid of the removal of the right to a jury trial, and then Those are today's edits based on what we've looked at.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: You look like you're ready to speak. Yeah, John, just come in.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Charlton]: So we change the week to week from seven days to ten days to make it consistent with non payment rent, which is seven days.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Is it? There aren't many week to weeks, but there are some. Yeah.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Charlton]: But I'm thinking back to the not paying them of rent, and I'm thinking it probably shouldn't be ten days. But when I'm thinking of that, it's one, the sooner they get the notice, the sooner they can get, start applying for help that they need. And it's not a surprise. I mean, they'll know whether they

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: need What is friend or the ten days?

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: The ten days is the period that the tenant has before the termination date. So it's saying that you have to give them a minimum of ten days before the rental agreement is terminated. So you could give them twenty. It's currently 14, and this is lowering it

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: to 10. In other words, this is before any ejectment action. This is just about the notice to the tenant is over as of this date, and if the tenant hasn't paid rent, you can call them up, you can tell them they haven't paid the rent, they have a contractual obligation to pay the rent on the first, but when you can send them a notice and you say in the notice, they don't pay on the first, you send them a notice on the second and say, this terminates the tenancy on the twelfth. In other words, you have to say it terminates ten days, but they're on notice the minute you do it. And that's

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Charlton]: the paper that they need to go on

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: Essexual Security.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right, a termination notice is what they need, yes.

[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin]: Yes, Debbie? Well, so we've added five days for mailing. If they won't accept it by hand, we have five days for mailing, so you're up to fifteen days, really sixteen because you have to count the, you start counting the next day and then seventeen before you can bring action. And right now we've got basically nineteen days. It's not that much different because we have three days for mailing now with a fourteen day notice. I'm not

[Mary E. Howard (Committee Clerk)]: Okay. So how many days are we quibbling over? So I can be clear. I'm trying to understand. Well, I'm just saying

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: if we

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Charlton]: did three

[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin]: days and then you're adding five days

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: for the mailing, we're at the seven days that Marc was talking about in the beginning. Right, all that's happening though is the moment you give them the notice, okay, they know. However you give it to them, they know. And then the question is, once you give them the notice, they've got it and they can go to, I'm just responding, they go to any entity they want. But I need to stop here and say two things. Are gonna, because we have the floor in five minutes, we're gonna meet tomorrow morning at 09:00. Our council will have a revised version, okay? We can discuss it and take whatever action we want after that, and I'd like you to clear our calendar so that we can do that. And what you, what's your availability? Do you even know? I am good tomorrow. Good. No worries.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Did you get my amendment?

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: Will remind you that at a point it has to be edited again.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Right, probably two more times, maybe three.

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: I will not have it edited before tomorrow at nine.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right, I'll

[Cameron Wood (Legislative Counsel)]: come in, we can review it, potentially make some additional alterations. I mean you all make alterations whenever you want but just if you're wanting it out by a certain time, just remember I will need to take whatever version that is, have our editing team review it. I don't,

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: that actually at this point where we are, I'm not worried about that, because we can meet tomorrow at nine, we can go over it, we can discuss, we can talk about problems we have, he can disappear and we can keep talking, and then can keep talking, and then he'll come back with the final version, and we can vote on it if we want.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: But I want, yeah, I would like the committee to know that I personally will be ready to vote and calling it to a vote soon.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And you might ask, I think it's perfectly

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: No, Yeah, done

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: you might ask, what's the rush? Right?

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: I don't think it's even been rush.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, I'm gonna talk about that for one minute. Back thirty seconds. One, it has to go in some form to get a share. Number two, it has to go to appropriations. Number three, then if it gets out on the floor and is voted out, it has to go to the Senate,

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: and

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: it will be heard all over again in the Senate, okay, And finally, if it gets out of the Senate and the governor signs it, next session, I have a cleanup bill, I guarantee.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: And no, it comes to us again for the governor. We

[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin]: have to concur

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: with those senators. So, it's got a road. That's why I'm Do

[Rep. Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: they have to pick

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: it up in the other committees? They may fly by or it may be they may take possession.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: And they may plot it too. So, I just wanted people to know that I'm personally going to be

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: making That's the reason I want to move. Yeah, to your rather than later. Thank you, everybody. And in

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: particular, thank you to Cameron.

[Mary E. Howard (Committee Clerk)]: Yes, later, Jared.