SENATE BILL 451 - TALKING POINTS

1.  Landlords are experiencing substantial losses from the lengthy process required to evict tenants who don’t pay their rent.

 2.  Landlords depend on their rental income to pay for the cost of maintaining their property, and to pay their mortgage, real estate taxes, and insurance costs.  If the rent isn’t paid, not only do they lose any profit, but they also have to cover all these costs themselves.  They have only two options: either charge higher rents to their good tenants who pay, or absorb the losses out of their own family’s budget.  Neither of these is fair.

3.  Senate Bill 451 is now out of committee.  There is a possibility that it will come up for a vote on the Senate Floor next week.  If it becomes law, it would reduce the current lengthy eviction process by 10 days.  We are asking the Senator to PLEASE VOTE FOR THIS BILL.

4.  There are three steps in the current eviction process

    a.  The landlord must schedule a hearing with the District Justice.  Under current law, this takes from 7 to 21 days.

    b.  After receiving a favorable judgment at the hearing, the landlord must wait another 10 days to allow the tenant to appeal.

    c.  The landlord may then obtain a court order for a constable to evict the tenant. The constable is required to give the tenant another 10 days notice before evicting them.

5.  Because Landlords have to pay about $100 in court costs to file an eviction action, we consider doing so a last resort.  We always try to collect the rent by sending reminders, calling the tenant, and trying to work out a payment arrangement before filing.  So, the rent is at least 30 days late even before the above process even starts.  Then, the process takes from 27 to 41 days.  Every day that goes by means another day’s loss in rent.

6.  Senate Bill 451 reduces the total time by 10 days.  It does this by letting the the tenant’s appeal period overlap the constable’s notice period.

7.  The eviction process always used to allow these two time periods to overlap.

When the process was changed a number of years ago, the law which was enacted provided for an overlap.  However, after the law was passed, the courts eliminated the overlap, because the legislature had not provide a mechanism to stop the eviction if the tenant appealed the judgment or paid the amount due after the eviction order had been issued.  Senate Bill 451 fixes this problem by requiring the Landlord to file an affidavit with the District Justice just before before the eviction is executed, stating that the has not paid the judgment amount, and has not filed an appeal.

8.  Landlords believe in fairness and due process.  We know that that some delay is necessary to insure this.  However, where it is possible to reduce the delay without affecting fairness and due process, this should be done.

Senate Bill 451 reduces the delay by 10 days, and still maintains a fair process.  PLEASE VOTE IN FAVOR OF THE BILL.

PLEASE MAKE SURE TO THANK YOUR SENATOR!

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Last modified: February 09, 2004