Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Good. Good. Good. Well and so yeah. It's so interesting that our efforts to deal with just cause for very specific things in film, we call them for cause fiction. Instead of just cause. That is what just was dealing with being dealt with in house scuff ups. And

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: all over the place. There's a

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So you've gotten good exercise?

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, ma'am. Okay. Okay.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We are now live. Oh, sorry. We're now live. So we are now turning to our housing bill on Friday. We hope is always to deal with housing on Tuesdays and Fridays. We are now dealing with the landlord tenant bill, age seven seventy two, which is on for third reading today in the house and will be coming to us sharply, obviously. And we started walking through it last week, and Mark Mahaleh is gonna come back after we finish walking through it to just chat with us, addressing some of the concerns that people had. So and then we're gonna hear Brenda, we hear you people in the outer sphere. If you wanna testify, please be in touch with Kiera. And

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: She emailed. That's why I went,

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I know, but I'm speaking to all the people who we can't see. All the people who we can't see, if you're interested in testifying, please be in touch with Kierra Meeks department. Thank you. So let's let's finish walking through. Do you know where we stopped? Yes, ma'am. Oh, you're right. Okay. Where did we stop?

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: We stopped, around page 10. And I'd say around because I'm gonna kinda pause and just reorient us for this section.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. If you could just recap what we've gone through already at lunch.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: One second. I'm just trying to waiting to get into the Zoom. It's okay.

[Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Yes, sir. So I have not

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: been following what's going on

[Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: in the house because we have no control over that, but I am trying to get a feel for what we have walked through. Understand ways to means that amendment and approach on an amendment. So anything you can overlay as you're going through about what's still

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: in flux would be appreciated. Will do. Will do. So what I will do is I will walk through I'm gonna bring us back very quickly going through some of the sections that we've already looked at. I will comment where some things have changed and then get us back to where we were. So okay. For starters, we talked about, if you recall, dealing with the landlord tenant relationship. There are a lot of changes in the bill that deal with the relationship when it comes to raising rents, security deposits, etcetera. I'll hit those again very quickly, but most of what the bill is about is about the ending of the landlord tenant relationship when you have to terminate a rental agreement. What are the notice provisions that are required? How much notice do you have to give? What are the reasons that you need to have as a landlord to terminate a rental agreement? And then if you terminate the rental agreement and the individual tenant remains on the dwelling in in the dwelling, on the premises afterwards, you then subsequently have to bring the ejectment action against the end of field. And how does that court process that's a legal process that happens in the court system. How does that play out? And so just to get us back to where we were, I will start at the beginning, section one.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And having and may I just may I add? Because I know Mark helped tee tee it up for you, but the objective here, after years of not addressing landlord tenant and on the heels of a landlord tenant task force that did very well articulating the challenges that are and the inadequacies of the current laws, did not make recommendations for change, which was frustrating. So Mark Mahali and I took it on ourselves this fall to work with Cam and and others to really try and address this razor edge balance of improving the eviction process for both parties and to improve it for landlords and to try and improve it and make some things clearer for tenants. So I I this is a it gonna this is we approach this. It's gonna be a balancing act all the way through it. It's not easy, but it's not working now at all well. So it is an attempt to make this this very challenging process a better process, a more predictable process, and a simple process for everybody.

[Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: As I've been trying to read up on this, I see that other states often treat eviction as a separate thing than ejectment and eviction being if you have a contract with somebody, then you are evicting them during that contract term, whereas ejectment is when there is no contract in place. Does our current statute that separate and define those terms? Okay.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: No. You there there is a question on the termination period about whether you have a written contract, a written written written rental agreement or not, and current law provides a different notice period depending on whether the rental agreement is in writing. But the court process in Vermont is called a judgment. And you could think about it, so being an eviction. So you would need to the landlord would need to prove that the individual the termination is valid if you have a written if you have a written rental agreement, is a contract. State law allows for the termination of that agreement if certain conditions are met and a certain period of notice is provided. If the landlord meets the notice requirements and the reasoning behind the termination is compliant with state law. For example, non payment of rent. You have a written contract, and if the person is not paying rent as per the written contract, the landlord can terminate the agreement by providing a certain amount of notice.

[Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: If I may follow-up on that.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. Absolutely.

[Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: All of this is related to some sort of either verbal or

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: arrangement where people were given some sort of

[Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: blessing to live somewhere. Is any of this also touching what I don't know a better term, like squatting or trespassing? That is a completely separate topic.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: It really isn't a sub There is a provision in here in this bill about trespass, but no. Generally speaking, this is this is covering where you have a and and written a rental agreement is defined in the statutory section. So it's either an oral or a written agreement where an individual is renting a dwelling unit for consideration. Okay. So the in the in the effort of time, I'm going to be relatively succinct on the things that we've already gone through, not to say I'm not happy to take questions. I have little doubt we will come back to each of these, but just to to get us back to where we were last Friday. If you recall, there

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Just before you start, Ken.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, ma'am.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I understand because this is up for third reading on the floor right now. Do you have a notion of when it will be on the floor so we can meet here on your time frame? Because you may not be disappeared anymore. I do not. Okay. Would you be kind of in touch with the clerk's office to find out when 01/1998 is, when at seven seventy two is coming out, that would be great. I

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: may have to step away. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I know, I'm just trying to I set

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: appreciate you reminding me it was a condition I meant to start with with my testimony. I don't think I introduced myself either. For the record, Cameron Woodall is the legislative counsel, just in case I didn't. I may need to step away if that gets taken

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: up on the floor this morning. We're clear. Okay. Thank you. I just wanted to get a sense of when that might be, but let's make progress on this if we can.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. So we talked about actual notice. In order to terminate a rental agreement, the landlord has to provide actual notice, and we talked about some of the amendments here that would authorize emailing and mailing, and it would authorize posting to the door if the no. If the address of the individual is unnamed. Talked about extending the rebuttal presumption three to five days of receipts. We talked about moving to the top of page three, provision that's being added to say that the landlord cannot increase rent more than once in a twelve month period unless the landlord is purchasing the building. Right? We talked about the residential rental application where application fees are prohibited, but this application fee is not defined. So there's definition here. It authorizes credit check, background check for actual costs. Landlord can charge actual costs. Landlord cannot charge if the tenant is providing a current copy. If you remember, that was defined as ninety days before the application, and we had a little bit of conversation about this allows for enforcement of violations enforcement against violations under unfair practice in commerce, and there was some discussion about, well, could a person give a false credit report, and does that cover under a potential violation of of commerce? So something I'm gonna look into. So just reminding you all some of the discussion that we have. Security deposits. Half on security deposits equal to two months rent in addition to the first month paid. Requirement that the landlord provide half of the security deposit back if the landlord is terminating the rental agreement or what can kind of politically be known as no cause eviction. Right? No. No cause. Right. So then we move to Which

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: we have reduced. Quite honestly, we have it now functions entirely on no cause. We are not limiting no cause considerably and creating much more for cause eviction, so that that is clear.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: And we get into page six, you have a section about, retaliatory conduct that's prohibited, adding in that the landlord cannot retaliate against an individual who has taken legal action authorized by law against the landlord. There was an amendment on the house tour to add in here a new subsection five to say that a landlord cannot retaliate against an individual who contacts law enforcement to respond to an instance of domestic abuse. Sixth race of both. Okay. So moving, page seven. Now we get into some of the meat of the bill, termination of the tenancy and notice. So here are the amendments that are being made to change what reasoning or circumstances have to exist in order for a landlord to terminate a rental agreement. Subsection A, we discussed termination for nonpayment of rent. Tenant has to pay rent when it's due without demand. If the tenant fails to pay rent, then the landlord can terminate the rental agreement because of nonpayment of rent, and the proposal is to reduce the notice requirement from fourteen to ten days. Moving on to subsection B, termination for breach of the rental agreement. There are two separate provisions here, B1 and B2. B1 is the termination for breach of the rental agreement, current law, for failure this is lines seventeen and eighteen for failure of the tenant to comply with material terms of the rental agreement or with obligations imposed under the chapter. Sorry, Cam, just to go back to seven, and I

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: know, I suppose we should probably keep part of the issues that we want to talk about subsequently, but I thought we, people had penned aid to pay bills.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: Not in this context, no. There is no grace period built into the statute. And it is, it's not providing an individual ten days to pay it. It's saying that if a landlord is going to terminate the rental agreement because of someone's failure to pay rent, they have to give the person ten days notice before the termination ends. So if I hand deliver a termination notice to you today, say I'm terminating our rental agreement, you need to vacate the dwelling unit because of your failure to pay rent, I have to give you ten days to remain in the dwelling unit before the rental agreement terminates. Right. Right. The B1, as I mentioned, failure of the tenant to comply with material terms or with obligations imposed. The tenant has certain obligations that are statutorily imposed on the individual. They can't damage the property. They can't disrupt, you know, other residences, you know, peaceful enjoyment of their property. They have to ensure that their guests do not do either of those as well, damage, you know, disrupt others, etcetera. There could be terms of the rental agreement that are material. For example, these have been brought up frequently. No smoking in the unit. No allowing other individuals to to reside in the unit, except for no subleasing of the unit. Those could be material terms of the agreement that if the tenant breaks them, then the landlord can terminate the rental agreements under this section.

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Can I I ask I mean, because I once introduced a bill that has never passed just so that tenants would have to provide notice to the landlord if they were subleasing? We've never gotten to like, you can't sublease. We haven't even gotten to like, you should tell your landlord if you're subleasing.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: The statute allows the landlord to prohibit subleasing.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Okay, so you're That already exists, right? That's incorrect.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: Correct, but it doesn't, if I recall, and I'm just trying to pull it up and I'm gonna share it so we can walk through it, it doesn't, I don't believe it requires any sort of notice, but I wanna make sure. So here, four thousand four fifty six B, a landlord may condition or prohibit subleasing of a dwelling unit under terms of a rental agreement. Okay, no, there it is, and may require, may require the tenant to provide notice, not a requirement. It's it's not a requirement. Right. Is that

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: That alone was, like, a whole bill. Yeah.

[Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: So relatedly, is subleasing all the same? I I can think of in my district, there's a lot of people that just need to buy people for the summer as opposed to leasing out for a whole year. So it's subleasing, subleasing and there's no distinction between periods and length of time.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: There is a big and let's put a pin in this. Yeah, that's a big discussion. I'm

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: worried

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: about Put a pin on this.

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: This is like touching many areas of law that usually have very careful consideration.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: This has had a lot of This has been the biggest bill that's that's bad about the House of Congress. I mean, had a lot of thought. It passed out of Congress? I mean, house judgement. And then out of house judiciary. So, house judiciary took it for quite a long stretch of time. So, why don't we keep going out and put a pin in this?

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: So, seven, bottom of page seven, what is being added is specific statutory language to authorize a landlord to terminate a rental agreement under fee one because of a tenant's late payment of rent more than three times in a twelve month period. When you go back to subsection A, subsection A is about terminating the rental agreement for nonpayment of rent, but there is specific language in subsection A right here on lines a, nine, and ten that state that a rental agreement shall not terminate if the tenant pays or tenders rent due to the end of the rental period at which payment is made. So what does that mean? That means a tenant could conceivably fee late frequently, and if the landlord went to terminate the rental agreement because of nonpayment of rent and then the individual pays rent the next day, it negates the termination because the individual has now paid through that month. So the landlord may still be able to move forward with the termination, but they would have to provide another notice. They wouldn't be able to terminate during that period because the person has paid that.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: A new period would

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: be set. Okay. So b one sub two is specifically authorizing a landlord to terminate a rental agreement or repeatedly permanent rent, which is more than three times from twelve month period

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: We have the whole bill.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yes. You

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: have it in pieces because there isn't

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We have it as we have that out out of the two committees or jurisdictions.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: 4.1. So there's no major change to the relationship. So you have the report. What's my point?

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I can Let me let me see if I have it. I'm sure I don't need.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: So what we're walking through is the report of the committee. K? This is the most comprehensive that the bill was when it first came out of the first committee. It has been amended at least three times since then, and there are three more amendments that are being proposed. I don't have a document to give you right now. Agreed.

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: But This is today. It's on the floor right now. For third reason.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: For third reason. That's why he may disappear at any moment. There's still unannouncements.

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: They still haven't. We are we have a lot in the house.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And it's okay. They do a

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: lot of hard work for us.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We just like doing some of that. So we're at the top of page eight. Yes. Oh,

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. Love it.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. So what this would allow is the, again, if payment is late more than three times in a twelve month period, the landlord will be able to move forward with terminating the rental agreement under this new statutory language. What is late? What is the time period of late payments? And the section provides here in subdivision c on page eight, lines five, and six. Late payment of rent means payment of rent more than ten days after the rent is due. So if the tenant's paying rent late more than ten days, three times within a twelve month period, the landlord could be able terminate his claim. Page eight, there is an addition of this sub three, where a tenant's refusal to allow a landlord or a landlord's agent access to the dwelling unit would be a justification to terminate the

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: rent relief. So the damage you've got,

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: we already talked about. I haven't got there yet. And so access is required in section four thousand four and sixty, and last time I was here we talked about when access has to be allowed and under what circumstances, so there is a section that covers that. So this would allow a landlord to terminate if a tenant refuses to allow access.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And sorry. I have a missing seat for

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. J j, lines one and two. Oh, you're right

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: at the top. Okay. It's fine, miss.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. So for these types of terminations, for failure to comply with material terms of the agreement, for repeated late payment of rents, for refusal to allow access, the proposal, look at line four, is to reduce the termination notice period from thirty days to twenty one days.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: If they have failed to comply with the first two.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: If they have failed to do one of those things, give access, repeatedly payment of limits, breach of material terms. Okay. Now we're on B2. Current law says that if termination is being based on criminal activity, illegal drug activity, or acts of violence, any of which threaten the health or safety of other residents So it has to be criminal activity that threatens the health or safety of other people. It has to be illegal drug activity that threatens the health or safety of other people. It has to be any act of violence which threatens the health or safety of other people. This is changing that slightly. To say, removing the specific reference to criminal activity or the illegal drug activity, and it just states, if this were to pass, and termination is based on acts of violence, damage to the dwelling unit, or other activity, any of which threatens the health or safety of other residents, and then adding in the landlord, the landlord's agent or neighbors. So it could be neighbors on the adjacent Yeah,

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: you be threatening neighbors, you could be threatening a landlord.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: Make sure you're aware that that's not just other individuals in the dwelling unit itself. So it's activity, but the activity must threaten the health or safety of other residents, landlord, neighbors, and that is a requirement under the current statutory framework. So there's not a significant change in that regard. It is adding in other activity, So it's removing the reference to criminal or illegal activity, and it's adding in other activity, which one could interpret as broadening what someone could terminate for. However, the activity does have to threaten the health or safety of other people. Just making sure you all are They're very hot. I'm not going to disagree. Those are policy decisions for you. Right.

[David Weeks (Clerk)]: So if I could, just to give context on this, I see that criminal activity, illegal drug activity has been struck, but what is the current language on the notice of termination? How many days? Yes. Sorry.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: So there, right there on lines 12, perfect question, segueing right into currently, the landlord has to provide fourteen days notice if the landlord is terminating the rental agreement under this section because of that type of activity, and this proposal would reduce it to five days.

[David Weeks (Clerk)]: I get all that, but criminal activity, illegal drug activity has been struck, so where is, what paragraph does the termination notice for those two activities? Parent, including other activities.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, it would just be, it would be kind of subsumed into the wording on lines eight and nine for other activity that threatens the health or safety of other residents.

[David Weeks (Clerk)]: But what if it doesn't threaten health and safety? If it's criminal activity, it's illegal drug activity, but it doesn't threaten anybody, what's

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: the termination? You would have to terminate, you potentially could terminate under the B-one, which would be twenty one days. For example, if in your lease term it says you shall not use illegal drugs on the property, right, and you find out the individual is using illegal drugs on the property, but it's not threatening anyone. Got it. Yes, that's what. Yes, So as I mentioned, termination under B2 going from fourteen to five days. Now, another slight change is on line 14. This is currently listed as 2B. The bill has moved this to a two three. So just stop moving of where this language would exist. It says that the actual notice required shall be accompanied by an affidavit setting for particular facts and basis thereof in support of the termination with sufficient detail to inform the tenant of the reasoning behind the termination. Sorry. Where where are you now? Lines 14 through 17 on page eight. Okay. So if you're terminating for under the the subsection b, So it's either because of a violation of the material terms of the rental agreement, or it's because it's some activity that's threatening other people, either of those, (one) or (two) the landlord has to provide an affidavit to the tenant as part of the termination notice that they provide, and it has to include particular facts and the basis thereof with sufficient detail to inform the tenant of the reasoning behind the termination. Okay, now we get to sub three. Landlords shall not terminate a rental agreement under the subsection based on a person seeking medical assistance for a drug overdose, being the subject of a good faith request for medical assistance, or being at the scene of a drug overdose or within post proximity as provided in '18 BSA four thousand two hundred fifty four, and evidence obtained from the good faith request for medical assistance shall not be used in an objectment action brought under 12 BSA Chapter 169, which is the court case. Okay, Now we get into page nine. This is coming up to, give or take, where we were last Friday. A and b are what are referred to as the just cause reasons for terminating a rental. You have cause that the tenant has done something that causes or gives a just cause reason to terminate the rent delivery. The remaining provisions here are fall into either a gray area or more of the quote no cause reasons for terminating. Sub C is restructuring the entire section to cover circumstances where the termination notice the termination exists on the day that a tenant provides notice to terminate. So that's lines thirteen, fourteen, 15. Termination is based on an intent to vacate provided by actual notes from the tenant. The landlord can terminate the rental agreement on the date provided in the notice from the tenant. The tenant says, I'm terminating the rental agreement the thirtieth day of the month, then the landlord can say, terminate the rental agreement on the thirtieth day of the Next, if termination is based on compliance with a government order, then the termination of the rental agreement is on the date provided in the government order. That's on Any time you see that? '21. Yeah. That's an example of that. Be condemning of a building because it's not habitable to live in.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So it could be a town, an ordinance that had

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: been violated that Evident domain. Correct. Or Evident domain.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yes. Yeah.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, now we're moving to page 10. Currently, subsection D covers the circumstances where the property is being sold. I'm the landlord, I'm selling the property, and part of the contract of sale is that there's no rental agreements in place, current statutory notice period is thirty days. So you're selling the property, have to provide thirty days notice to the individuals living there if it's in the absence of a written rental agreement. If have a written agreement, then you can't terminate it during the period that you have the written rental agreement in place. If you don't have a written rental agreement, so you're on month to month, right, then the landlord has to provide thirty days if they're going to sell the property.

[David Weeks (Clerk)]: I could not hear her. Yeah. Can you say that again about the if there's a written lease rental agreement and buildings being sold or repurposed, that the tenants can stay in during the duration of their for the written period. Yes, sir. And this is a change or this is current? This

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: could be a change. Actually, no. It would keep the same. They have a pandemic. Excuse me. Okay. One thing I wasn't able to bring with me today, but we had talked about last time, if you all recall, I mentioned that there are multiple different notice periods depending on primarily two things. Is there a written agreement? Is there not a written agreement? And second, has the person been there for two years or more, or has the person been there for two years or less? Depending on those circumstances, the termination period could be thirty days, could be sixty days, could be ninety days. Under this current section, if you have a written agreement, then the landlord has to provide thirty days before the expiration of the written agreements if they're selling the property, and you will no longer be able to live there. If there is no written agreement, then it has to be thirty days at any point in time. The change is keeping that distinction, but moving it to ninety days. So it's ninety days before the end of the written rental agreement, if my If if not, it's with the owner. Ninety days at whatever point the notice is provided. Thomas?

[Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Nope. If I I'm under the impression when I had a couple of rents when I used to rent, I'd get a one year lease. Now, it standard practice that you do a one year lease and then that's the end of it and it just most often you're then no longer on contract, and it's just month to month? Or is it just as common that leases are one year with the option to renew one year, option to renew one year with the actual

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: That that is more common.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: I don't know which one is more common. Yeah. But depending on what you do, under current law will then dictate how much notice period you have to provide to the tenant. What I mean by that is let's just take the scenario where the person has been there for two years or longer because that, under current law, have the longest notice periods been. Correct. Okay? You have a written agreement. You have a written agreement for the first year. You have a written agreement for the second year. You have a written agreement for the third year. You can't terminate the agreement until the expiration of the written term. And if they've been there for two years, you have to provide them sixty days notice. Now let's take the example where no agreement is the agreement's not in writing. You have it in writing for the first year, and then you just go month to month after that. Second year passes, now you're in year three. Landlord wants to terminate for no reason. You don't have to wait till the expiration the agreement because there isn't one in writing at that point. But because the person's been there for longer than two years, you have to give them ninety days notice.

[Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: That would fill those at what is current? That's current.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. Current law. But now the one I mean, there are several pluses here, but the plus for tenants here, the landlord has to give a a reason for why they are terminating. Well I guess that it's being sold or it's being repurposed. The landlord has to

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: tell the tenant why the term why the agreement is being terminated, but the language that's coming out of the house currently still allows for the, quote, no cause eviction. So it doesn't remove that. It doesn't provide these two cases where

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: it could be no cause without being clear about repurposing or selling. So

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: keep in mind, under the no cause, like, you know, gonna quote no cause eviction, a a landlord doesn't need a reason to remove you from the from the rental. The the there's as long as they comply with the notice requirements, they their landlord has no obligation to have a reason for determining

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: But we've added a bunch of of of sort of

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: just cause. You've added some changes to the just cause but the bill as it currently exists still proposes to keep the no cause reasons.

[Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Current law, ninety days. Yes. Okay. But what I read here is current law is that when a property is sold, it's thirty days.

[David Weeks (Clerk)]: Correct.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: So it reduces the notice period.

[Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: So current laws, if you're selling the building, you can give thirty carve out.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: Right? It's saying that if it's for no cause, so for no reason, you just want the person gone, and they've been there for two years, could be up to ninety days. But we will have an exception under sub d to say that if you're going to sell the building, we're not going to make you comply with that extensive notice time frame. We're gonna shorten the notice time frame to thirty days.

[Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Is that common in other states when buildings are sold to give three months?

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: I would need to go do some

[David Weeks (Clerk)]: do some research on that.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: I don't know what other states have as it relates to that specific provision. Another question I

[Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: guess I'll have for the admin.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. We'll we'll pin it. We'll put a pin in

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: on that. How often are buildings sold? And how often do

[Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: you have to reject the tenants versus can you sell a building

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: if you wanna keep an auto, so I'd like to get a better idea of how frequent this is. Peter, that would be

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: a question for the re re realtors, and that would be interesting to know. After COVID, Thomas, in our neck

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: of the woods, I don't

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: know about South Carolina, but we saw a number of buildings in the Upper Valley that were sold after COVID. And Yeah. A lot of evictions or with and with you don't have at least 90. I mean, you need time to put an apartment in a market with no vacancies.

[Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: I agree. But I just wanna know when that happens. Is it more frequently that they are basically updating this building? Because they're 70 years old with new HVAC systems, and if there's no right path to do it that way, is it is it bad thing that we're updating our housing stock?

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So No. I think it's not a bad thing. Challenge is what do we do with the tenants while that's happening? And where do they go? So for example, we have an older person's community in Woodstock, Melishwood. The Twin Pines, the affordable housing, our affordable housing partners are updating and rebuilding that, but the much better it's gonna be they've had to rehouse them in that time in between. So there are a whole range of responsible landlord tenants.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: So I'd like to back very, very quickly to one of the questions from Senator Chittenden. I mean, it's it's whether to have a written agreement in place, it's gonna be up to the parties. There are protections that are afforded to them if they have it. The the tenant would have protection that the landlord couldn't terminate the written agreement for no cause until the end if it's in writing. You can't terminate a written agreement for no reason in the middle of it. The there you have to meet some other reason for termination. Just cause reason, you'd have to sell the property, etcetera. So the tenant would at least have the protection that they could remain in the unit during the period of the written agreement. The notice periods are longer under current law if there is no written agreement. So you have shorter notice periods if you're the landlord under the written agreement, but you would have to wait till the expiration of the agreement. Separate from that, There was one other thing I was gonna mention about about the having it right, but it it slipped me. Excuse me. It's got a little.

[Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Okay. But so it then I'm gonna be also curious, and this might be for you, Cam, is is there an abuse of this carve out where that if an, an owner says, I'm selling the place, get out, but then they don't sell the place and they use it as a is that something that we're also trying to address here and are there protections for the the lease? That's good question. There is a section

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: We just lost you, Ken. Yes. I'm I'm I'm pulling something up. There's a a section.

[Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: It seems like this bill's guarding against a

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: lot of different circumstances, so I'm

[Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: just kinda curious about what is already park

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: related. Sections. There is a section related to illegal evictions. There's a protection for tenants for illegal evictions. I don't know that the statutory language is going to cover that scenario exactly, but conceivably a tenant could go after a landlord for damages if they had to vacate the property that the tenant would excuse me, the landlord was knowingly utilizing that section to terminate a, you know, agreement to get someone out. But keep in mind, it is conceivably or conceptually, I don't know that a landlord would do that. What I mean by that is if you have a written agreement, current statutory section or language says that you need to provide the tenant thirty days or sixty days notice before the expiration of the written agreement for no cause eviction. And so to sell the building, it only shortens the time frame by a maximum of thirty days. So I don't know that a landlord would go through the hoop of trying to make that argument just to get someone out when when the notice is only shortened by a month.

[Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: So, but if they're financing or if they're buyer's financing, rates certainly lock it for thirty days, so

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: I could see how that could be an issue. But then again, right, if the landlord is is, you know, working to sell the building, They're providing the notice, and then everything falls through, and the individual has vacated the property in the meantime. You know, they were concerned about the landlord possibly going through an ejectment at this stage. So they went ahead and scrambled and and left, and they got another buildings with less favorable terms, etcetera, and now they wanna argue that, you know, the landlord didn't sell the building, so they have been harmed. I mean, they could bring a claim against the landlord, sure, but, the landlord is going to be able to point to that fact in a case like that. Well, we had financing lined up, or we had a contract for sale that fell through, etcetera. So coming out, you know, Is it frequent that a landlord is using that provision in particular to lie knowingly to try to get someone out? Probably not. I think you'll see the argument much more frequently under the just cause reasons that a landlord may be fabricating some stretching some facts about the activity that's going on that may not be threatening other people that the landlord's claiming that it's stooping to try to get someone out, because in that instance, you can breach the terminate the written agreement. You don't have to wait until the end of it.

[Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: As we dive deeper into this lovely subject, I just wanna state, I'm not assigning malintent on landlords. There are bad landlords. There's bad tenants. What we're trying

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: to do is just find protection.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We're trying to

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: I'm not going anywhere. I'm just making sure my computer is No. Will You guys

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Here. We got one right here.

[David Weeks (Clerk)]: I hope

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: you wish Up here

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: so we don't kill anybody. Yes.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: Center brought

[David Weeks (Clerk)]: take a shot. Bang.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yes. We do not want to. As I almost did that, there are people screaming. Ow. Okay. Okay.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: So I'm gonna bring us back to this.

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Yeah. Let's keep going. Put a pin in

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: that, Thomas.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: So what this section's doing is it's adding that term. This is saying termination under this section when a property is sold or it's being repurposed, and it's extending the notice period from thirty to ninety days. If you're going to sell With a written agreement. In either instance, if you have a written agreement, it would be ninety days before the expiration of the and if you do not have a written agreement, it's ninety days. Okay, good. And then it says, when the landlord's contracted to sell the building, when it's necessary for the landlord or a member of the landlord's immediate family to occupy the premises for a minimum of twelve contiguous months as a primary residence, if the landlord's permanently withdrawing the dwelling unit from the rental market, or if they're demolishing the unit or renovating the units, then they have to provide ninety days. Forgive me, but I'm gonna take a pause, and well, I'm going to go back to a section.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And this covers eminent domain and stuff, is that a

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: previous No, that would potentially be under a previous section. Yeah, right. Again, this is just if you're selling the property or you're repurposing repurposing the property, what is the notice period that you need to give the tenant, and this is extending it to ninety days. Now you get to the subsection E, which is termination at the expiration of a rental agreement. Right. So I mentioned earlier, no cause this is the no cause eviction section. Current law, I've mentioned a few times now. Current law, it's going to depend. Do you have a written agreement? Do you not? Have they been there for two years or more? Have they been there for less two years? Depending on those two questions will depend on how much notice the landlord had to provide. It could be thirty days, fifty, sixty days, could be ninety days. This section is consolidating all of that, and it's saying that if you're going to terminate the written agreement, the rental agreement, for no cause, then it's ninety days regardless. So it's ninety days before the end of the written term, or if you don't have a written agreement, it's ninety days notice. And it doesn't matter how long the person has been there. Could be the first year, could be the second year, could be the tenth year, it's ninety days. So it gets rid of that thirty-sixty-ninety distinction of the current law, and makes it all consistent in ninety days. Because of that, I will highlight something for you.

[David Weeks (Clerk)]: Just for clarity. Yeah, David. Does the tenant have the same obligation that at the end of a written of a written?

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: To give them notice. You have to

[David Weeks (Clerk)]: give ninety days. Notice to the landlord so that landlord has the opportunity to flip the, advertising for the unit replacement of the tenant or is this just essentially no.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: A landlord wouldn't be able to hold a tenant liable for ongoing cost in my understanding.

[David Weeks (Clerk)]: But reverse, we're creating a scenario where the reverse is true. Correct. These

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: sections refer to the landlord terminating the agreement, not the tenant, so I would need to go, you know, I will take it upon myself to go look, but I'm not aware of any case that would hold a tenant responsible for the same notice period at the end of a written lease term.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Some agreements do have that. I mean, know in New York, our son who just moved apartment, if they were going to move out, needed to let them know.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: I mean, I've seen a written agreement in Vermont that says, The question is, is there a legal obligation of the tenant to do it?

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: It's the

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I'm thinking out of context, but This is the tenant giving the landlord notice. Right. I mean For this section is the landlord giving the tenants notice if they've sold for food.

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Right. I I mean, it it only it only exists if the tenant would like to enjoy the, like, the ongoing privilege of of living on those premises. So and I don't say privilege in that context, but there are places in especially New York City, which I don't wanna emulate, but certainly Burlington where you would be you you would be required to let your landlord know if you did intend to stay

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: because they have to start doing showings. Exactly. Often they they would ask two months before.

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: So that's written into rental agreements because it, you know, it doesn't have to exist everywhere. It's it's the landlord, you know, the landlord's really the one who's supposed to provide notice. The tenant, it would just be kind of

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: a courtesy back and forth if he wasn't. Landlords can ask for that. So tell us.

[Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: And it's by my expert what I remember about you have to give thirty days notice. You can't just say I'm done today. I'm not paying any more rent. Isn't that standard protocol that you have to give thirty days notice that you're moving out? And then they still pay rent for those thirty days?

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: So it's gonna depend on the circumstance. Right. What I mean by that is if you have a written agreement and the tenant abandons the property in the middle of the written return deposit. Then in theory, the landlord could go after the tenant who would remain obligated to pay rent in the period unless the landlord was able to find someone else to take over. However, you know, there's a difference between the landlord could do that. Would they do it? Could be very difficult to find someone, take them to court as opposed to just going to find another tenant. So Yeah. That was conceivable. But so think about it. You have the written agreement, and it expires at the end of a twelve month period. The tenant is still obligated to pay that last month. So they pay the last month, and then you're asking, are they obligated to give any sort of notice after that? And I would say no. The landlord is aware at that point that the lease agreement expires at the end of that month. So in theory, the landlord is on notice that that's the end. And so I don't I'm not aware, and I would I would, you know, pause at the others that are going to come testify, they are aware of something to make you aware of it. I'm not aware of anything in the statute that mandates that a tenant provide the landlord some sort of notice that they will not renew the term. The the lease agreement could say it, and I've seen them say that. And it may be ideal for the tenant to do that, you know. Hey. You know, let the landlord know I want to renew lease terms. Or not. I think a best practice for a landlord would be to engage with the tenant early. Right? If if you have to provide a sixty day notice that you're not gonna renew, I'm the landlord. I'm going to the tenant at the, you know, seventieth day or seventy fifth day, whatever it is, and saying, are you renewing? If you are renewing, here's the written term. You're gonna sign it, and if you're not gonna sign it, then I'm gonna give you a termination notice. That way, I'm covering my bases to be able to bring in another tenant. You know, that, I think, would be, like, a best practice for a landlord to do that.

[Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: So just mister chair, I'll make a decision. I would just say I would love to hear from the advocates on that too because my impression is that you can put you off in in leases as you have to get thirty days notice because that just makes sense. Also, for reputational purposes, if you wanna get a rent or somebody else to go rent to you in another place, you wanna be able to refer to your previous landlord to just poop and disappear and leave that landlord in the lurch not knowing that they had

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: to rent the place. So but that's where the advocates come in. I I agree. I think if you're if you are if you're, you know, intending to use that rental experience as a reference potentially in the future, it would probably be in your best interest to do that. But I think about it similarly in the labor As an employee, I'm not legally obligated to give my employer any service that I'm legally

[Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Only good reference. You do. Exactly. Right. That's what I'm saying.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: Practically, it may be smart of me to sue them, but there's not a legal obligation.

[David Weeks (Clerk)]: So can we go back one paragraph?

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I'm just dealing with our agenda because

[David Weeks (Clerk)]: Paragraph d started in line 14, same page, page 10. We didn't, I don't remember you really hitting this section part, and I'm curious about the renovations exceeding 50% of a rental unit's value. Let me go back to Senator Chittenden's example of HVAC renovations, which can make a unit uninhabitable. If a renovation makes it uninhabitable, whether it's 10% or 90%, I'm curious where this language came from and what it's for business. Thank you

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: for mentioning this because I wanted to come back to this section for So sorry, where are we? Which page? We're on page 10, looking at subsection D starting on line 14. Yes. Senator, I don't mean to speak for you, but I think the question is about it's allowing a landlord to take a unit offline for renovations that are required, and it has a threshold of the renovations exceed 50% of the rental unit's value, and the question is, why is it at 50%? Because renovations that are substantial may not be 50% of the rental unit's value, but may still require the basement to be vacant in order to Vaccinating units on level. Right. So here is a potential, in the issue with these two sections in play together, the D about repurposing of the unit, and the subsection E, which is about no cause eviction. This is a structural problem that I raised to the committee, the house committee, and they they did not do anything with it at that point in time. But we could. You

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: could. Yeah. Currently,

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: as I mentioned, there are different notice periods for different reasons. Do you have a written agreement? Do you not? Etcetera, etcetera. You can have a shorter notice period if you're selling the property. The current statute doesn't say anything about renovating the building, right? That doesn't even exist, so this is new. Because sub B is giving ninety days notice for these reasons and sub E is giving ninety days notice for these reasons, I don't know of any landlord that would ever give a termination notice under D if I can give you a termination notice under E with the same time frame, and I don't have to give you a reason. Do you follow me? Why am I gonna go through the process of making an argument that I need to refurbish the dwelling unit, and that's why I'm giving you a termination notice if all I have to do is give you a termination notice under me, and I don't have to give you a reason at all. And so I think that's a fundamental issue that you all may want to address. If you think that providing a shorter notice period because someone needs to refurbish the dwelling unit is appropriate policy, then I think having a question about whether a 50% threshold is is important. I don't know where the 50% came in, I don't know, you know, I was not in the room where there was any lengthy discussion

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: about I wonder if whether that others take, and then that may be based on other law.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: Could be. I was asked to put it in, and I don't remember if

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: there's But it makes some sense for somebody to know couple of things, the renter, that they would wanna know they'd want notice, and they'd wanna know how the duration of the renovation so that they could find a substitute, know Well, one staying

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: with a friend or doing something. And one other key provision that I was gonna point out in this subsection is the fact that if you're renovating the unit, the landlord must, there on line 16, must give the tenant the first right, excuse me, right of first refusal to re occupy the property. That was included.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Right. So That's if you want to,

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: So you want to keep this type of provision in, just know that that's also a requirement.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So there are a couple of things I would want to know as we further thank you, Ashley. Sorry, we're way behind. Good luck on the floor. Thank you. Also the the requirement if somebody's gonna be refurbishing an apartment, and the tenants expect it back, is there any obligation of the landlord to help pay for the for the accommodation in between? Not in

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: this bill. There was discussion and that requirement exists in some of the other bills that were introduced that are in house general that they reviewed together. There was a requirement that if you're going to remove someone because you're refurbishing the location, you need to provide some sort of reasonable accommodation. Financial accommodation. Right. Right. Which they did does potentially just being a month's rent, but that that does exist, and some of it does have been

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I'm putting a pin in it. It strikes me as something this whole section needs to be for us to spend more time on.

[Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Okay. So

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: is Your gonna take us this is the thorniest bill we're gonna deal with this half of session. Look it up. I I said that in chairs the other day. Everybody's going around saying, oh, this is we're all gonna have such a great spring. No serious challenging bills coming our way. It's like, oh, we have one. I don't know. Why is anybody else?

[David Weeks (Clerk)]: Just have curiosity. Is the house also some just economic development bill?

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: No. There's also economic development bill is sister state. What? Wait.

[David Weeks (Clerk)]: No. I'm talking about, like, you know, moving the moving the boundaries. Commerce

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: is sent us sister state. That is the they haven't sent us consumer protection bills. They've sent Oh. Oh. We've dated private I mean, the genetic privacy. We don't know.

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: They are sending it. Economic development.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: You asked about CTE. You asked about strictly economic development. All they're sending so far as sister's day. We initiated the economic development, and they are very excited about it.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: Circling back here, we are on line, excuse me, page 11, lines 11. Termination notice, this is just a section that's saying date has to be specifically stated in the notice, and then there's addition of, as well as the reason for the termination, if you remember from the insertion way above where if it is for a just cause under the sub B, the landlord has to provide the particular facts with specific information. It's just a corresponding change here. Have subsection G, its current statute, converted to a condominium. There's an entire chapter in Title 27 about what needs to happen if a building is being converted to condominiums.

[David Weeks (Clerk)]: To your point earlier, a graphic on these different Yeah. It's looking very helpful.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I think we definitely have to work on a graph for the two years, the six years, the notice days, the written agreements, the non written agreements, library of time.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: And that is on me. Hope to have

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: No, no. I'm happy to

[David Weeks (Clerk)]: In time. I would submit that it needs to be as is and projected or recommended or whatever, you know, because everything's moving here. We need to know where it currently sits and where it's being recommended.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: As an ultra current law. That's what

[David Weeks (Clerk)]: I mean by hazardous meaning.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yep, we're gonna get it because I think that's gonna help us a lot.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: So, the sub H here on the bottom of page 11, moving to the top of page 12, this is about shared occupancy when the rental dwelling unit exists in the landlord's home. Then the notice period currently is fifteen days, so this is the literal bottom of page 11, top of twelve, fifteen days if it is a monthly rental, and seven days if it's weekly, and the proposal here is to strike 15 and make it seven, whether it's a monthly or a weekly. There was discussion about whether weekly rentals exist, and there was some testimony that very rare, but they do exist, so regardless, this would strike that distinction. It just made it 70s.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Great, and this addresses HOBO share, you know, shares are

[Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: It gives an example.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, so subsection I is about when multiple notices are provided, it's nothing changing, but it is just a point to mention as you're walking through. A landlord could proceed with multiple terminations at the same time. So for example, a landlord may want to proceed with a termination because the individual is not paying rent, but also proceed with a termination based on a no cause reason. That way, if the nonpayment of rent is unsuccessful, they still potentially have the other termination notice to move forward in an ejectment action, so it is conceivable. We have payment after termination, so this is saying that a landlord who is accepting payment of rents, even after you've provided a notice of terminate, doesn't result in dismissal of an action being brought. So you're terminating the agreement because you're arguing that the tenant is breaching some material term of the rent and rental payment, the tenant continues to pay you during that period, you accepting that payment doesn't negate your ability to move forward with determination. Okay, subsection K on page 13 requires that a landlord commence an ejectment action not later than sixty days after the termination date in the notice. There's no change there, no substantive change in the section. I'm just bringing it up so you're aware of it, because we're gonna talk about ejectment action shortly. You give a termination notice. You have sixty days to bring the ejectment action. This new subsection here, affirmative defense to an ejectment action. For any ejectment action based on a failure to pay rent, it shall be an affirmative defense, judgment shall be issued through the defendant if there exists a serious health and safety code violation issued to the landlord under 20 BSA two six seven seven, that is the section where you all provided the Division of Fire Safety with the legal authority to enforce against habitability issues for residential dwelling units. So if the landlord's been issued the citation and the landlord has made no reasonable attempt to correct the violation as of the date of the termination. Why? So why is this here? Currently, there's a separate section that requires the landlord to provide, you know, a habitable living space. The section doesn't have a lot of information in it as far as what is habitable, but pull it up and review together. I'll review two sections with you. Landlord obligations, habitability. In any residential rental agreement, the landlord shall be heed to permit and warrant to deliver over and maintain throughout the period of the tenancy premises that are safe, clean, fit for human habitation, and comply with the requirements of applicable building, housing, and health regulations. The Division of Fire Safety has issued a code that documents what standards have to be met for habitability. The only thing that this section talks about is heat and hot water in subsection C, but there's a lot more that goes into that, okay? So the landlord has to have a habitable place as to provide and maintain a habitable dwelling. What happens if they don't? You go to the next section. Then the health and safety inspectors can come. Yes, but also, also a tenant can withhold rent for the period of noncompliance. The tenant can obtain injunctive relief. They can take the landlord to court and get an order that the landlord must fix the habitability issue. The tenant can recover damages or terminate the rent the rental agreement. So a tenant can withhold rents because of a violation where the landlord is failing to make repairs within a reasonable time. That's what the current statutory section there says. This new language here is saying that if a landlord moved forward with a termination and an objectment action for your failure to pay rents because there is this violation Because it's uninhabitable. Because there's a it doesn't have to be uninhabitable. It's just there's a a violation that the landlord has been cited for, and the landlord hasn't taken the reasonable steps to fix it, then it is a defense in the ejectment action. I would argue that that protection already exists. If if you're withholding rent under the section that authorizes you and pretend to withhold rent and then a landlord terminates the agreement and brings an ejectment action, and then the tenant points to that section and says, I'm legally authorized to withhold rent because you haven't corrected the violation. A court is going to review that and likely to find that no other contrary facts exist, then the tenant has that right as it is now. But this is putting it in the section regarding term termination notice to make it clear and explicit for tenants, for landlords. If there is a violation that has been issued to the landlord by the Division of Fire Safety and the landlord hasn't taken reasonable attempts to correct the violation and they bring the ejectment action, it is a defense and the ejectment will be dismissed. Is From page 13. Yes, bottom page 13, top

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: of page Number one.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: And it gives a list of what those violations could be, and then the last thing I'll mention, because this is the last part of this section, is the sub two on lines 10 through 13, page 14. The remedy under that subsection, the defense against the ejectment action, will not defeat the ejectment if the violation was caused by the negligent or deliberate act or omission of the tenant or a person on the premises with the tenant's consent. So if the violation is because of something that the tenant has done to cause the violation, then the tenant can't use that as a defense in the ejaculation. You

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: can't go puncturing. You can't

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: stop paying rent. Right. You can't do the damage, stop paying rent because of

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: the damage And benefit from damage

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: you caused. And then subsequently have it as a defense in the actually.

[David Weeks (Clerk)]: When we get into this, it doesn't have to be a now and today thing. I wanna make sure, because this is a new section, so when we rub up against the ninety day notice for renovation, when a landlord is trying to improve the health and safety aspects, that we don't somehow create a ninety day gap where the tenant can begin to pepper the landlord with issues which are known, already known by the landlord so they stop paying rent for about ninety days. I just want to make sure that the balance here is correct that on one case we need a ninety day advance notice, in another case we potentially allow the tenants to stop paying rent for nomination.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: Moving to the next section, and then we're gonna start talking about ejectment. Okay, so we're moving I'm

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: on 14. Line 16 Line 16, right. On

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: page 15. The lines fourteen and fifteen are just saying that that subsection applies to 10 BSA chapter 153 related to mobile homes, 11 BSA chapter 14 related to cooperative housing arrangements corporations, and then 12 BSA Chapter 169, which is the adjutant chapter. So it's making it applicable, the defense, the adjutant, it's making it applicable in a mobile home park and in a cooperative housing corporation. Okay. Termination of tenancy and action for possession. This is amending this section to allow a landlord to bring an objectment under subsections a and b. So if you remember, this is for nonpayment of rent or for the tenant breach of the terms of the written rental agree of the rental agreement, doesn't have to be in writing, then the landlord can bring the objectment under this new process that we're about to talk about and walk through him. Before I get there, I just wanna pause because I wanna make sure I haven't missed any of the commitments are related to that section. I don't think I have. Actually, yes. I missed one. Yeah. Yeah. Much it is. So, let me let me pull it up. I missed actually a a big one. So Forget it. It's already passed. That that has that has passed. It is part of the amend that is part of the bill at this point in time. There was some concern about individuals who may be the victim of a domestic violence stalking for sexual assault. And so if you remember, we're gonna we're gonna go all the way back to the termination of the rental agreement because of acts of violence against some. Right here. Sub two. So if you remember, we talked about when termination is based on acts of violence, damage to the dwelling unit, or other activity which threatens the health or safety of other residents, the landlord's agent, or neighbors, then the landlord can terminate the rental agreement in five days. There was some concern that was being discussed before, you know, as the bill was being passed out of the first committee and some concern that was talked about in the judiciary committee and so there was an amendment that was proposed on the floor that was ultimately adopted. There was concern about tenants who are in the unit that may be a victim of, as I said, some sort of domestic abuse, stalking, or sexual assault that could be from another tenant. What page? I apologize, we have time on challenge here. Page eight, going all the way back up where we're talking about termination of the agreement because of activity that is threatening the health or safety of other people. And there was concern that there could be situations where the tenant is the victim of a domestic abuse, sexual assault or stalking, and the the policy discussion of ensuring that that victim is not Is it harming by eviction? Correct. Their the the victim is not having their their rental agreement terminated because of being the victim of that instance of violence. And so there was a section that was added in right here. You don't you may have this in in front of you. You may not. This is one of the amendments that was reviewed the other day. So it would add into that subsection b, this language, this this new subdivision five a b c, which says that a landlord shall not terminate a rental agreement of a tenant under the subsection because the tenant is the victim of an incident or pattern of domestic abuse, sexual assault, or stalking. The landlord shall allow a tenant who is the victim of domestic abuse, sexual assault, or stalking committed by another tenant or lawful occupant to bifurcate the rental agreement as authorized in section four four seven two A, which is coming up. And the landlord may terminate the rental agreement under Subdivision 2 for a tenant who has committed an act of domestic abuse, sexual assault, or stalking against another tenant. If the act poses an actual and imminent threat to the remaining tenants, other residents, landlord, landlord's agent, or neighbors, there is no other action to be taken that would reduce or eliminate the threat. David? So can you take us, just tell us the section that, how many days notice do they have

[David Weeks (Clerk)]: to give, or is it like a zero day notice?

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: That may So be immediate.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: This well, so it it is going into the subsection b. Subsection b talks about if you terminate the agreement because of a violation of the terms of the agreement, it reduces it to twenty one days, or if you're terminating the agreement because of some sort of act of violence, then it's five days. So presumably, under this section then, if the landlord is bifurcating the agreement because one tenant has committed an act of domestic abuse, sexual assault, or stalking against another tenant, you can bifurcate the agreements, and then the landlord could terminate the written the rental agreement of the abuser, and the landlord would argue, most likely, it's under one of those two sections. So K. Presumably, you're doing it because it's an act of violence against someone else, and you're doing it in in accordance with five days of this. K.

[David Weeks (Clerk)]: To use the term of the chair, chair, I would submit that we put a pin in this one. Yeah. Because that's pretty significant. Yeah. But there

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And so We have at least too much case law.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: I mean, there are so many examples of this. The the things I will point out here are the threshold is potentially higher to eject the abuser. If you if you look at subsection b two, it talks about activity that threatens the health or safety of other residents. That's how you can terminate under that section. This says that the landlord can terminate if the act poses an actual and imminent threat. So somewhat of a different standard, and the actual and imminent threat is defined up above, which has been added to the bill as physical danger that is real, would occur within an immediate time frame, and could result in the death of serious bodily harm. I'm just pointing out to you so you're aware as you're moving this forward, there might be a slightly different threshold there if the landlord was going to move forward to eject the abuser because they're claiming it's an act of violence. They would need to successfully potentially defend in court that the activity was posing an actual and imminent threat. So do we not require a review, a release from abuse order? It would not, no. It would potentially be Because that's important to know it. The statutory section wouldn't require there to be a relief in order to move forward, bifurcate the agreement, and eject like the other tenants know.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So there's no legal This is,

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: yeah. I mean, gets to another area of law I happen to have practiced in.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I spent

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: a lot of time doing relief from abuse orders, and while we, in other areas of law, don't want to say that someone needs a relief from abuse order to enjoy other employment privileges, etcetera. This is an area of the law where you often have to get a relief from abuse order to keep that person 500 feet away from you, go get, to give them the opportunity to get their possessions from the home with some kind of third party. So a relief from abuse order is actually the only place where you could really work some of this out without getting criminal condition but release for somebody.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So Yeah. So that's why I'm sort of anyway, I'm sort of surprised it wasn't so we're putting a pin in this. This is a big discussion.

[Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: One thing I would say when this gets through the house, I would love if we walk through the final version of it and then just do one thing that I think would because this is a complicated bill. I did it in transportation with the GPD bill a lot. We could go through and just sort of mark sections that we're fine with so that we can just add the committee to be like, these are the sections

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: that focus in as we go on.

[Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: And I know It's like a section by section grid as Antia used to do it. It was really nice that we would have the section by section of what each unit did, then we'd be like, you could read that we're and then otherwise we would just come back. So I feel a lot of hints and I'm

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: being Nope, got it.

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I say this knowing it's also a dangerous thing to do, it's totally up to you, Madam Chair, but I need to hear from the reporter or a representative of the committee how they

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: got to all of these. We are going to hear from Mark again at the section. Section by section.

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I mean, really, I don't know where I could be in. It's just saying, like, what are

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: we I I'm happy. Mark Mark Mark has offered a work of offered as a chair Mhmm. And as the really, the inspiration behind this bill. I mean, I've worked with him too, but it's really his baby. Go through a section by section once it's a full passage. So let's keep going, and we are gonna we will have that. Exactly. Good. I've already asked. I've already asked. Great months. We're taking a lunch.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: Will just comment that the definitions here, domestic abuse, sexual assault, stalking, refer back to the abuse prevention order section.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So are we back on page 14, are we still on that?

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: Still on this amendment because there's one other thing I need to point out to you. As I mentioned, the landlord cannot terminate the written the rental agreement under this this circumstance and bifurcate, and that's the piece I will comment. There is a new section being added in subchapter four of the chapter governing rental agreements, and it allows, or requires the landlord to bifurcate a rental agreement to eject, remove, or terminate the individual who is the abuser, and then in sub B, it requires the landlord to provide the remaining victim, the protected tenant here, a reasonable opportunity to locate additional tenants or to find new housing. That is defined as ninety day period. So I understand you got a pen in it, I'm gonna switch back to the bill, and you can So that's But that's the last piece I wanted to

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We would use the word eject, not evict the party, the abuser in this case, the ejector.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: Potentially, so it's got eject there on lines one. Yeah, okay. And eject on line four, so I've seen eviction used somewhat interchangeably with eject, but the So

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: when eject is immediate.

[David Weeks (Clerk)]: I mean, that would

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: be happening to the effect.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Anyway, we'll come back to it. Let's come back. Okay. Let's we have 20 we have about fifteen minutes left.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. 18, 20. We are We were on the We're on Yes. 14 or 15. Bottom of 14. Page 15. Yes. Yep. So we've talked everything up until now is about the residential rental agreement and how a landlord goes about terminating the residential rental agreements. Now, we're gonna switch gears and talk about the ejectment process. So, a landlord provides the termination notice. The individual tenant remains on the property after the termination notice date, the date provided in the termination notice, so the landlord has to bring an objectment action into court in order to get a writ of possession to have the individual removed from the property. So this ejections

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: occur when they do not have a written agreement?

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: It could be a written agreement or not. If this is the Oh, you're just sorry. Injectment is the formal process of going to court to get a court order to remove the tenant from the property if the court deems that the individual should approve it.

[Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: So the point I raised earlier is that as I've been trying to read up on this, I see other states often separate distinguish those terms. We do not.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And that and we are doing that here.

[Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: No. We're just caught in conviction at the check. They're the same to us.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: Under Vermont Law. Yep. Very simply. Okay. Fine. You you have a tenant who lives in a dwelling agent. You have a written agreement. You don't have a written agreement. Doesn't matter. You are terminating the rental agreement with the individual. You have to have a reason for doing that. As we've talked, it could be nonpayment of rent. It could be for no cause. You've terminated the rental agreement. The person stayed after the date that was provided in the termination notice. Now you as the landlord want to physically have that person removed from the property because they have remained on it after you terminated the agreement. How do you do that? Some states, you very quickly go to court. You say, hey. I terminated that person, and they say, okay. Here's a order to take with the sheriff and the person immediately. They have an abcess. In other states, a more linked to your process. In Vermont, you have to go to court and file an ejectment action, and the court has to issue you a writ of possession, deeming that you are legally entitled to possession of the property, meaning that you have complied with the termination notice requirements in the statute, So you have the legal right of possession, not the tenant. Then they issue a writ of possession. That goes to the sheriff. The sheriff issues it, serves it to the defendant, and then has to wait a statutory period. Could be five days, could be seven days, could be fourteen days, then the sheriff comes back, and if the person is still there, they physically remove the person. That is the Vermont process. So there isn't a distinction between eviction and objectment. The statutory language in Vermont is called objectment. Thomas?

[Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: So I think it's we have time to get into the weeds. When those occur, do they just remove the person, or is it overseen that the stuff is removed?

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: It's just the person, and there is statutory language about how long the stuff has to be maintained in the property by the landlord. There is a change in there about how long the Okay. The sheriff shows up, removes the person, blocks are usually gonna be changed right then at that point in time, and then Okay. So ejectment. The first section here and actually, I'm not going to walk through this. I'm going to switch over to the judiciary amendment because the judiciary amendment was adopted. Let me have a second.

[Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: We've got some really

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: nice comments just because there's so many amendments between Donna and the Bill of We are gonna take

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: your advice. We're gonna go right through it once we're done, and Mark is gonna go with us if we can, side by side, which should do the whole thing. But that won't be clear on the intent of each section and what the objective is.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: I presume that you aren't worried about what House General passed, you just want to talk about what the villa is at this point.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah, I think that's probably the

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: I mean, it's a combination of those two things. Understood. So this is where I'm getting into the changes that were made by the judiciary committee. There were some some language that was passed out of house general regarding the object of process, and some of those things were significantly altered by the Judiciary Committee, so I'm just gonna walk through what they approved and what's in the bill right now. First, section 12, VSA six sixty three is being added, say that when a plaintiff, when the landlord in an objectment proceeding asks for alternate service of process according to the rules of civil procedure, the court shall rule on that motion promptly. That's there on line 12. It was on motion promptly. It is not defined. As it came out of

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: house general defined promptly for appeals in act 50.

[Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: I mean

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: There is something that you will definition will need to speak to the judiciary about. When it came out of House of Generals, it was a specific time frame. It was three days. That seems reasonably prompt. The judiciary is going to come in and discuss with you about when you put a specific timeframe on the judiciary to have to rule on a motion, you are starting to kind of stray into the judicial branches of the legal authority to

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Speak what Thomas Chittenden. And Okay. Slice it away.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: Sure. You were stepping on their separation of powers, if you will. The judicial branch

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Many of our laws create laws that their judiciary have to abide by. I think that that is the the odd

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: So there's a there's a distinction here, and you it's a good point for me to pause and mention it. There are time frames built in here that where you all are ordering the court to hear a motion, hear have a hearing on a motion within a specific time frame. Yes. We do have time timer. That is is appropriate. If you start to switch and you say that the judiciary shall rule on certain things within a specific time frame, now you're starting to tread on core judiciary functions about when the judiciary actually has to act. And I'm not saying that you can't do it, I haven't done any exhaustive research on this separation of powers argument. I'm just letting you know if that's the argument appreciate that will be

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Okay, let's keep going. We have ten minutes. Okay. I've got them down.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: So what is alternate service of the process? Just very quickly, to be extremely succinct, these are things like pack orders. When to, when you've taken someone to court in a civil proceeding, you have to have certain documents served on the other party, and there are specific ways you have to have things served, and if you are unable to serve documents on the other party in a proceeding, you can request that board authorize an alternate service of process. There is a specific rule, it's rule four, that governs this, and by doing so, you can then provide alternate service. Sometimes that is simply leaving the documents at this location known as a tack order. So what this section is doing is it's saying that when a motion is filed for an alternate service in an ejectment action, the court rules on the motion properly. Change from what the House General passed, this is what's in the bill now. Now we're moving into the ejectment chapter in Title 12. Title 12 is about court procedure, Chapter 169 is about ejector cases. This first section here, 4853A, Payment of Rent into Court Expedited Hearing. When the landlord, plaintiff, when the plaintiff landlord brings a case, they can ask, they can file a motion to have a rent paid into court during the period of the injection case. K? The court can mandate that a rent be paid into court, and then if the tenant fails to pay in accordance with the ruling of the court, then the court can issue for immediate possession to the landlord. It is it is a somewhat expedited process to potentially get to the conclusion of ejectment of the tenant. So that's why the landlord's asking for rent to be paid in court. Maybe you're ejecting the person because of nonpayment of rent. They're not paying you rent. You're terminated. You're moving to ejectment. Now you're saying, court court, you order that person to make payment of rent into court. And if the person fails to do so to what the court orders, then the court can issue a a of possession to the landlord, and it's just it's a a more expedited hearing to get to a concluded activity. That's what this section is about. There's two subsection As in the current statute. Yes, that is true, there's two, and so we're striking one of them. So we'll get down to one.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: That's good. Two As

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: A is a little statutory cleanup here. Okay, the key pieces here are here on subsection D, and then moving to the next page.

[Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: So this was still

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: on the judiciary's? Still on judiciary amendment, yeah, this is the bill. We don't have it. This has been approved. This has been approved as the bill, So subsection d, as I mentioned, court fines, the tenant's obligated to pay rent and is failing to do so. The court can order full or partial payment into court, current. Right. Full or partial. The proposal here is to strike partial, so the court would only be able to order that full payment of rent be paid in the courts.

[Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Why are we doing that?

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: I can't answer that. That's a policy question for you all.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Mark will answer that for us.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: So what it would do is it would remove the discretion from the court to be able to order partial payment at the outset, okay? I would say that. Subsection G Judiciary. Subsection G allows a tenant to buy motion and apply to reduce the amount. Okay? That was struck at one point to remove full discretionary authority from the court and only require full payment in all instances, But the judiciary committee felt that that was, I guess, a step too far, and so they have kept the subsection chief. So the court would have to order full payment initially, and then at any point, the tenant could come in and by motion apply to reduce that amount and the court could reduce that amount based on the motion. But you understand that it would take steps. It would take additional steps of the defendant, the tenant, to be able to have partial payment because initially, the court would only be able to afford. Pool.

[Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: When you say steps, I hear lawyer, and I'm thinking the tenant, and I'm like, why are we making it have to file a motion in order for the judge just use some discretion to say, you know what? I see these conditions. Why do you, I don't know putting my pin at this great

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: question and yes sir yeah potentially lead to

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: additional Potentially but remember this is a huge percent of legal aid cases. Even so it's time.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: I think lawyers got enough work. I don't disagree. Okay, so then you have a new language, the subsection I, which is the parties can come to an agreement at any time and apply by motion to reduce the amount. They didn't want to take the descriptor. Ideally, you're trying to incentivize the parties to come to some sort of agreement as to what should be paid in, or should the case be dismissed, and should the tenant leave, or should the tenant stay? Ideally, you don't wanna be taken up before it's done. Right? Subsection I, parties can come to an agreement and by motion of blotting. Property remaining after the eviction, and here's where I was saying a second ago, sometimes in statute they're using the word eviction instead of eviction. Currently, it says that a landlord can dispose of property after the conclusion of the ejectment action. And you have this A1 here. Fifteen days after the writ of possession is served, or, forget immediately right now, or upon the landlord being legally restored to possession of the dwelling unit. There's some confusion about what that means, about whether the fifteen days applies possession being served or fifteen days upon the landlord being legally restored to possession of the dwelling unit. There is some confusion. We will probably need to spend a little bit of time talking about this in further detail. The change here would say that immediately upon the landlord being legally restored to possession, the landlord can dispose of the property that remains. That is a slight difference between what is under current statutory section, and it's also going to depend on under what reason is the landlord being issued the writ of possession. What do I mean by that? Under a normal case, when you get to the conclusion, if determines the that the plaintiff landlord is entitled to possession, they issue the writ, the writ gets served by the sheriff, and the sheriff has to wait at least fourteen days before they come back and physically remove the individual from the property. After the initial. After you serve the writ of possession, two weeks later, the sheriff has to wait a minimum of two weeks before they come If somebody to move voluntarily. Under some provisions, that timeframe is shorter. If it's because of the, it can be shorter if it's because of payment of rent into court and the tenant's failure to pay rent into court properly, or if it's an unlawful occupant. If you're removing an unlawful occupant,

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: A you've 14 sublancey who was not allowed to be.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: Correct, that could be an unlawful occupant. Then the timeframe between when the writ of possession is served to when his share comes back and executes could be significantly shorter, could be seven days. There's even a proposal that it'd be five days. So that's the timeframe to keep in mind as far as when this immediately would go into effect. It could also be longer. The court could order that it be longer. The court could order that you serve it and you have to wait twenty one days. The court has that discretion. I'm simply highlighting for you that it is a change of what is under the current statute. Is it a significant change under the current statute? It's going depend on the circumstances.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Jack.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: It may be a good stopping point because we're going to move into the new ejectment process.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Okay, still in the judiciary, and we will have, by next week when we go through this, we will have the full minimum. So we're going to probably devote Fridays to this bill because this is our biggest one of our biggest challenges. So I think we'll probably do Friday just on this bill. That's okay.

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: Pardon me, I would be, this is what I will do in preparation for next Friday. I imagine that we can get through the remainder of the walkthrough in one more session. I will have the visual for the timeframes. I will have that for you. Okay, a chart of Yes ma'am, I will have a section by section for you.

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Thank

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: you. Understand that it can be difficult to do a section. The section by section is going to be lengthy because I have to articulate what each section is doing, summarizing it, but I can't leave things out. So I will provide you a section by section summary, but it will be quite lengthy, I'm No. Just letting you

[Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Much appreciated. And given that none of us are lawyers, my plea always with is with the lawyers is if you could do it in lay language as much lay language as possible. I do. Because even some of our section bisections are quite legal, which is great. It's just, if we're gonna try and make it a useful document, help us understand. Cam, thank you. This has been a huge lift on your part. You've been working on this all fall with us. We're really grateful. Thank you for all this work. And, we will take this up again next Friday. I would urge us all, I am gonna be sending out this weekend, the landlord tenant task force summary of what they found out, which, you know, the challenges. But what we're trying problem we're trying to solve is in that document. So I would encourage us all to take a peek at it. You'll remember Emily Krasno came and presented it to us. Anyway, I'm going to email that all to you probably tomorrow. Okay? Very good. Great. Everybody, thank you. Thank you all of you who are in the viewosphere, the outer limits, wherever you are. Thank you. Have a great weekend. Bye. See you

[Cameron Woodall (Legislative Counsel)]: next Tuesday.