Extended, again

Emperor Biden has again extended the CDC eviction ban, this time through July 31. They claim that this is the final time it will be extended. I am not holding my breath.

This is royally screwing landlords. I will use Orange County, Florida (the location of Orlando) as an example. As a landlord, the qualifications are:

• Waive all late fees, penalties and interest related to the tenant’s past-due rent
• Accept payment made pursuant to this program as full and complete payment by the tenant for all past-due rent and associated fees accrued and owed.
• Release the tenant from any obligation to pay any rent accrued and owed that exceeds the amount of the program payment
• Withdraw any eviction and collections actions that they, or one of their agents or associates, filed against the tenant for failure to pay rent and associated fees owed.
• They must agree to comply with the terms and conditions of this program, including the submission of any documentation requested by the County to confirm and verify the program application.

So, why is this screwing landlords? Keep in mind that evictions have been banned since April 2020. The funds paid will do the following:

• Cover a tenant’s documented past-due rent only for the time period beginning on April 1, 2020 to present and up to one-month prospective rent and up to one-month prospective rent;
• Assistance can be provided for up to 12 months of arrears in past-due rent and one month of prospective rent not to exceed a maximum of $20,000. NOTE: One-month prospective rent cannot be provided if rental arrears are $20,000 or more.)

The eviction moratorium has been in place for 16 months, because April 2020 was 16 months ago. As soon as you take the money, you are not permitted to go after the tenant for another dime.

That means any apartment that was renting for more than $1,660 a month, or more than a year, or including late fees means accepting less than was owed. Also, if the lease specifies that the tenant pay things like utilities, trash removal, yard waste, or any other fees, those are not covered by the program, even though Florida law says the landlord has to provide them if the tenant doesn’t pay for them. You can’t sue them.

The average rent in the Orlando area is $1,500 a month for a two bedroom. If a tenant had stopped paying rent in April, they would be $24,000 in arrears as of July 1. Now the program only pays for 12 months of back rent, so the maximum paid would be $18,000. The landlord is out $6,000. To add insult to injury, since the payment is considered full and complete, the landlord must even return the security deposit.

This is why landlords say that it is killing them. This entire thing is government sanctioned theft. The majority of the nation’s landlords are individual investors, like my wife and me. One in four of these individual investor-landlords has a tenant that is behind in rent. By inserting itself into private contracts, the government has stolen our property simply because it wants to.

Why are they doing this? Make no mistake, this isn’t about COVID. No, the disease is just the excuse. Read this story and understand. The subject of the story is RETIRED. Here is the reason:

He and his wife have never been evicted. However, insufficient retirement savings, difficulty in getting rehired and a lack of affordable housing have left many older Americans especially vulnerable to financial shocks like the one from the pandemic.

How would COVID hurt a retired person? It isn’t like they lost their job. They have been living in rented homes for over a year without having to pay rent, can’t waste money by going out. No, this is a pure money grab, yet landlords are the ones being called greedy.

Now the LA Sheriff wants the state of California to declare a state of emergency, so that government officials can use the authority granted thereby to seize homes for the homeless.

This is communism. Pure and simple. It is tyranny, it is unconstitutional. Claiming that people need housing so landlords must provide it at their expense is no different than using the same reason to force restaurants or farmers to give away free food. This is abject slavery.

The Democrats want to give away free college, free homes, free health care, what next? Who will be next to bear the burden of this government?