Eviction moratorium

[klmama]

Did you all hear about the moratorium on eviction from rental property for those who are unable to make rent?  It's good through Dec. 31.  It's not automatic, though.  Renters seeking protection from eviction need to read the order, fill out this declaration, and give it to the landlord; if it's not completed, landlords can still evict them.  

[Guest]

Is that Federal in the US? 

I thought in Maryland, our governor-issued moratorium was still in effect. We are LLs and property managers and, thankfully, we don’t have anyone paying no rent. We did reduce it for a few months while under SAH orders. 

TBH, I am not completely in favor of an eviction moratorium. I have mixed feelings on it, because, while I don’t think people should be at risk of losing housing because of pandemic orders, at the same time, I don’t see how it is rightful for LLs to be required to provide a good/service for free. 

I still had to pay tens of thousands of dollars in property taxes...no moratorium there...

[DoraBora]

It was federally ordered (by the CDC, so there's a question about whether it's even legal), but it isn't an across-the-board, unconditional moratorium.  Tenants have to meet certain criteria to qualify for protection.

[mumto2]

In England there is an eviction ban that seems to be causing many problems for landlords.  They still owe their mortgages etc. while receiving no income.

[Valley Girl]

4 hours ago, Quill said:

Is that Federal in the US? 

I thought in Maryland, our governor-issued moratorium was still in effect. We are LLs and property managers and, thankfully, we don’t have anyone paying no rent. We did reduce it for a few months while under SAH orders. 

TBH, I am not completely in favor of an eviction moratorium. I have mixed feelings on it, because, while I don’t think people should be at risk of losing housing because of pandemic orders, at the same time, I don’t see how it is rightful for LLs to be required to provide a good/service for free. 

I still had to pay tens of thousands of dollars in property taxes...no moratorium there...

Early in the pandemic there didn't seem to be much real empathy on this board for people facing major, life-altering economic losses as a result of the pandemic closures. (It's just money after all.) I'm not sure you'll get much compassion on this topic now. Obviously nobody wants people out on the street, and that's what some people are truly facing without. But, yeah, being expected to cough up the payments when your income has been slashed as well doesn't seem right either. I'll bet most landlords aren't independently wealthy. I don't know what the answer is or how this gets dealt with equitably. Or even if it can be.

[Bambam]

Yes, I've wondered about this. If I'm a landlord and depend upon the rent to make the mortgage payment, what happens to me? I'm pretty sure the bank still wants the mortgage payment. Or if I owe it directly to another person, I'm pretty sure they still want the payment too. 

[catz]

Right, doing it like this makes no sense to me.  Help people needing help.  If people are food or housing insecure, get them through the storm.  Don't push the burden to another group.  Plenty of small time land lords really can't absorb their tenants missing rent for extended periods of time.   My dad was a small time landlord for many years and it was pretty eye opening.  And he was an honest and responsive land lord. 

[Carol in Cal.]

This is going to drive landlords to sell out to big real estate companies, which is not in the best interests of the consumer.

[EmilyGF]

2 hours ago, FuzzyCatz said:

Right, doing it like this makes no sense to me.  Help people needing help.  If people are food or housing insecure, get them through the storm.  Don't push the burden to another group.  Plenty of small time land lords really can't absorb their tenants missing rent for extended periods of time.   My dad was a small time landlord for many years and it was pretty eye opening.  And he was an honest and responsive land lord. 

An eviction moratorium seemed like it made sense when there were extreme shelter-in-place rules and people were scared that moving people around would cause a rise in cases. It doesn't make any sense now that people can go on vacation and to bars. If we don't care enough as a country to pay the rent of people who can't afford it, we shouldn't make their landlords shoulder the cost.

Emily

[EmilyGF]

9 minutes ago, kdsuomi said:

We still can't legally go on vacation (against the shelter at home we still have in place but is ignored), and bars are still closed. However, CA has its own eviction moratorium, and it has an anti-foreclosure clause for small landlords.

But do landlords have a way to get the money after the the moratorium is over? And do they still have to pay property taxes and still owe their mortgage from the time during the moratorium? For the landlords, this is just shoving off the inevitable. I think the above posters are right; this is just a great way to transfer holdings from small landlords to large. We've had a lot of that happen in our neighborhood and the rents have gone way up.

Emily

[SKL]

I've seen headlines, but I have not read into them.

I wonder what the declaration says.  Maybe it is enough to prevent most people from abusing this kind of relief.

If a lot of people use this, then the next question is, what relief are the landlords going to receive?  Landlords don't all have deep pockets either.  Some of them are legitimately poor themselves, or on the edge and already suffering from shutdowns etc.

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, kdsuomi said:

We still can't legally go on vacation (against the shelter at home we still have in place but is ignored), and bars are still closed. However, CA has its own eviction moratorium, and it has an anti-foreclosure clause for small landlords.

That’s nice. However, what really annoys me about the eviction moratorium is this: the rentals are our livelihood. We don’t just rent out houses because we think it’s nice to provide homes for people. This is how we put bread on our own table. (I’m not kvetching at *you personally*, kdsuomi. I’m just using your post as a jumping off point.) 

I mean I don’t really understand this idea of, “Oh, don’t fret little small-time landlord. We won’t let your properties be foreclosed on, either!” Okay, well do we just sit tight on thousands of lost dollars in income?*

*Noting: fortunately, our renters have paid. We have not lost thousands of dollars in income. But that’s mostly luck at this point, because we happen to have all good tenants right now and none of the give-an-inch, take-a-mile types we have dealt with before. Only one tenant in seven failed to pay one month. 

[SKL]

Hmm, the declaration is only good through December 2020, at which time the landlord can demand full pay, penalties, interest, etc., or kick you out on your hiney (unless they extend it) ....

Seems this would have pretty limited impact, but what do I know ....

[Guest]

Just now, SKL said:

Hmm, the declaration is only good through December 2020, at which time the landlord can demand full pay, penalties, interest, etc., or kick you out on your hiney (unless they extend it) ....

Seems this would have pretty limited impact, but what do I know ....

This is why I didn’t avail myself of some of the other pandemic “holidays,” like payroll tax deferment or health insurance premium deferment. I would still have to pay it; just later. That seemed much worse to me than just scraping it up as required. 

[SKL]

1 minute ago, Quill said:

This is why I didn’t avail myself of some of the other pandemic “holidays,” like payroll tax deferment or health insurance premium deferment. I would still have to pay it; just later. That seemed much worse to me than just scraping it up as required. 

Yeah, but they might make sense if your income was actually shut down for a while but you didn't want to fire everyone.  A lot of small businesses are/were in that situation.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, SKL said:

Yeah, but they might make sense if your income was actually shut down for a while but you didn't want to fire everyone.  A lot of small businesses are/were in that situation.

Yes. I understand that. I don’t think it was bad that it was available, but it wasn’t something I wanted to use because I felt so much more insecure about having to pay twice as much in the unknown future than paying it now. But I understand how many may have had no choice because there simply was not enough cash flow to do that. 

[Carol in Cal.]

4 hours ago, SKL said:

Hmm, the declaration is only good through December 2020, at which time the landlord can demand full pay, penalties, interest, etc., or kick you out on your hiney (unless they extend it) ....

Seems this would have pretty limited impact, but what do I know ....

Yeah but...once people stop paying they usually can't get current IME.  So having to allow them to stay on the premise that they will pay you later, when they won't, means that much more income that you can't figure on ever getting, even though it is owed to you.  I mean, you might go to court and get a judgement for it, but it is extremely difficult and expensive to enforce such a judgement.

[Ausmumof3]

I think here there’s some kind of similar thing but the tenants have to prove they have lost income due to COVID.  It should be accompanied by pause on interest and council rates etc for landlords to make sense, or at least to landlords who can prove they’ve lost income to the pandemic.  And it should be a case of deferred interest that keeps accumulating.  As far as lost income that does suck but I guess it’s no different to the many other people who have lost their jobs etc.  So many people have lost income due to the pandemic, pilots, surgeons who do elective surgery only, flight attendants, travel businesses.  

[Valley Girl]

6 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

I think here there’s some kind of similar thing but the tenants have to prove they have lost income due to COVID.  It should be accompanied by pause on interest and council rates etc for landlords to make sense, or at least to landlords who can prove they’ve lost income to the pandemic.  And it should be a case of deferred interest that keeps accumulating.  As far as lost income that does suck but I guess it’s no different to the many other people who have lost their jobs etc.  So many people have lost income due to the pandemic, pilots, surgeons who do elective surgery only, flight attendants, travel businesses.  

I think the difference is that, unlike landlords in these cases, pilots aren't still being required to fly planes without compensation, etc. There's been more than enough economic hurt to go around. It stinks.

[Ausmumof3]

13 minutes ago, Valley Girl said:

I think the difference is that, unlike landlords in these cases, pilots aren't still being required to fly planes without compensation, etc. There's been more than enough economic hurt to go around. It stinks.

Yeah I guess you still have repair costs on your buildings etc.  Maybe it’s more comparable to the airports etc where the facilities still have to be maintained.

It should be more means tested for sure, so tenants can’t abuse it by not paying when they can.  But I don’t see that having mass evictions in the middle of a pandemic is going to help control the pandemic either.  Homelessness will only make things far far worse. The only other safe alternative I can see is more government support payments for tenants with lost income. 
 

on the pilot thing a royal flying doctor job came up here.  Apparently usually they have a handful of applicants and this time they had over 100.

Edited September 15, 2020 by Ausmumof3

[ktgrok]

8 hours ago, mumto2 said:

In England there is an eviction ban that seems to be causing many problems for landlords.  They still owe their mortgages etc. while receiving no income.

 

8 hours ago, Bambam said:

Yes, I've wondered about this. If I'm a landlord and depend upon the rent to make the mortgage payment, what happens to me? I'm pretty sure the bank still wants the mortgage payment. Or if I owe it directly to another person, I'm pretty sure they still want the payment too. 

Many/Most mortgages are actually giving Covid deferments as well. My husband has been on partial furlough since this started, which qualified us for mortgage forebearance. I don't know what we would have done, otherwise, in all honesty. At the end of the forbearance we still owe the money, but we can turn that amount into a separate, interest free loan that is due when we sell the house/pay off the mortgage. 

So landlords likely don't have to worry about paying the mortgage, but I don't know about property taxes. 

It definitely would have made more sense to pay the people with the lost income directly, but would be more complicated. 

Edited September 15, 2020 by Ktgrok

[mumto2]

1 hour ago, Ktgrok said:

 

 

So landlords likely don't have to worry about paying the mortgage, but I don't know about property taxes. 

It definitely would have made more sense to pay the people with the lost income directly, but would be more complicated. 

The in England situation is that mortgages on rental property are excluded from the deferment schemes, no idea about here.  In our area of England there are no apartment rentals from a large corporate entities.  That does not exist so pretty much all rentals are owned by normal people and are let through what we would call real estate agents.  For many owning(and mortgaging) 2 or 3 flats is their retirement savings.  They live off that income so now they owe their mortgage payments and have no money coming in for other essentials.

 

For those living in greater London it is very common to rent a flat in London to live in and owning a retirement home near where we lived and rent it out, using the rent to pay for your retirement home.  Obviously its a mess for those landlords especially those whose London jobs are now redundant.......British papers are talking about it.