Hello all. I have been a lurker on this site for many years. I wanted to give you a heads up concerning a national eviction bill that our US senator Michael Bennet is proposing. Please Google his name (there is only one "t" at the end) with eviction and read it for yourself. We had a local landlord meeting with one of his regional directors last night and there were many angry landlords here. Honestly, I don't why the Feds want to stick their noses in local laws. The director got an earful from about 30 of us. Of course, he was completely clueless about tenant/landlord law as I believe Senator Bennet is. Thanks for your time.

You said that he is "proposing a bill", but he hasn't yet, right? I thought all he had done so far was start with an op-ed about it and then did up a "Fact Sheet." And all that was from November. Is there anything more recent than that and/or a bill being proposed at this point?

Don't get me wrong, I think he will eventually propose one, but the way you worded it made be go looking for something new (such as a bill being proposed), and I couldn't find anything yet.

- John...

So, since we seems to have so many people against it, can you tell us specifically what you don't like? I've read through it and, so far, it doesn't seem 100% terrible as is being implied.

Some of the things that I think are not too bad:

1. A national eviction database. It isn't clear who would be able to access this, but it looks like it may be for "all interested parties." I'd LOVE to be able to look at a national eviction database. :)

2. Emergency assistance funds for those behind on rent might actually work to our advantage. And it would be funded from competitive grants and matching funds from local government. I'm not for most hand-outs, but at least they'd be handing it to us! :)

Now, I'm not a fan of all of the increased free legal representation, sure. I get that. Is that your main concern? To be honest, I think most of us can avoid this by picking better tenants. Most of the people that would use free legal services forever to try to stay are people that I don't normally end up with.

What I get when it comes to the rare eviction are people that start out fine -- are employed and doing well -- and then lose their jobs or something. For those people, these changes would actually probably help me as a LL more than hurt.

And, again, we're not even at a "proposed bill" phase yet, so I'm still waiting for some fine print. It seems very early in the process right now. It's just a "Fact Sheet" of some ideas.

- John...

Hi John and thanks for you thoughtful reply. My concerns are as follows:

1) There was no mention of who will be responsible for doling out the funds. In my area of Colorado we have excellent tenant/landlord local agencies (government and private) that help tenants. We also had a massive flood here in 2013 and found that federal agencies took a long time to get funds distributed. The regional director spoke about creating another agency to distribute the funds.

2) I have a huge issue with funding lawyers here in Colorado. According to some of the landlords at the meeting, there have been legal teams lurking at eviction hearings. They have delayed evictions for a few of the landlords. More money lost. I do my own evictions but if I have to hire a lawyer my rents will have to go up to compensate my costs.

3) The mediation already exists here. When you go to court the judge demands that you mediate. And most landlords have already tried to mediate and reach a plan with the tenants. A separate "community" court that they are proposing will increase costs for the landlord because if that fails you will have to go to county court to get the FED. More delays. There is also a statement on the fact sheet about it "taking longer to evict" but nothing about compensating the landlord.

4) The national eviction database will have to be very careful. I do my own criminal checks on my tenants. Here in Colorado, once the papers are filed, it automatically is listed as an FED on the tenants record. You must look at the actual case to see if it was dismissed. I have also run into tenants who had no idea that an eviction was filed on them. Many of the large apartment complexes have lawyers on retainer. Here's the scenario: A three day pay or quit notice is posted. The tenant actually quits. The FED papers are posted on the door (you do not have to have personal service in CO) even though they are not in the unit. The FED proceeds without the tenant even knowing and they don't show up. The lawyers are paid for going to court. It shows up as an eviction on their record. So, just not renting to anyone who has an eviction on their record can be complicated.

5) Because the laws vary greatly from state to state this makes it a problem on a national level.

6) I believe that their are better solutions out there and we as landlords can provide them. I was hoping this would be a topic of discussion among landlords on the local level. The group provided some thoughts to the regional director to take back to the senator.

I believe in training tenants , to help them avoid troubles.

My theory is landlords evict, tenant blames landlord, no one learns anything. Tenants din’t Just get better in their own. They need leadership.

I would much rather see tenant training classes provided free of charge than any sort of eviction help. The eviction help trains tenants that it’s the EVIL landlord screwing them over. Never mind the tenant’s behavior.

Screen all you want, but if the next pool of tenants coming up isn’t getting any training, the pickings of ‘good’ prospects gets slimmer and slimmer...

Handymomma: Here would be my take on the things you listed:

1. Well, I think that is because it isn't a bill yet or even a proposal. It's just an early "fact sheet" on what he'd like to accomplish. We'll have to wait to see how he intends to fund it. I agree that can be worrisome, but we just don't have any info there yet. When he proposes a bill, then we'll really want to take a look.

2. Agreed -- this is the part that also concerned me.

3. Same here -- mediation is often pushed/forced. But his idea is to create a court to handle these instead of having the cases -- which often end at mediation anyhow -- go through the current court system. This may indeed save money. That being said, I always turn down mediation and want to be in front of the judge/magistrate. It is not clear if we'd still be able to do that.

4. The problem is that so many states do NOT have good eviction records. And none of them seem tied to any national DB. In my opinion, a move to a national database is a good idea looking toward the future -- even if we don't get exactly what we want the first time around. So, I'd likely support a national eviction database. The fact that your state seems to have an issue with getting people listed too easily (?) is a separate concern that needs to be fixed. That being said, his plan also tries to do that (limit people getting things on their record that they shouldn't). I still think that's a minor side-issue though.

5. Agreed -- and I'd therefore support some nationalization on such laws. This might actually HELP with that problem.

6. I'd be open to other ideas, of course. I was just saying that, so far, I don't see the current state of this idea as being that bad. And, again, it is just an idea at this point. No bill or even proposed bill.

- John...

The fed needs to keep their noise out of it. Let each state handle the court process.

If there needs to be a national eviction list this can be handled via the 3 credit reporting agencies.

I think we can save the senator some real money by letting him know that evictions occur most of the time due to unwise decisions of the tenants to not leave the property when they need to do so.

I actually left him a message asking for his response. Here is what I wrote: "Senator Bennet, I don't live in your area or even your state, but as a landlord I was interested in your plan to tackle the eviction crisis. I would like to give you my perspective as someone who has been a landlord for 30 years. If tenants have extreme circumstances come up, most landlords like myself will work with the tenants to end the lease so they can move somewhere else that they can afford. Landlords don't want tenants who can't pay and we definitely don't want to go to court if the tenant will move out and return the property in a timely manner. However, most of the time, the tenants just put off the inevitable instead of making wise choices for themselves and their families. It would be very beneficial if you would speak to others you know who are judges, lawyers, senators, etc. who are landlords and get their perspective on this issue also. Thank you for taking the time to read this."

Yea - I cant say I have ever heard anyone say ... "we dont have enough laws"

10th Amendment to the US Constitution:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

your senator should be recalled by the CO citizens to teach all Politicians a constitutional lesson