Iowa bill would make it easier for landlords to evict tenants

DES MOINES — Iowa Senate Republicans advanced a bill Wednesday — with the intent to amend it later — that would make it easier for landlords to evict tenants with a shorter timeline.

Representatives with the Home Builders Association of Iowa, Greater Iowa Apartment Association and Iowa Manufactured Housing Association said the bill aims to standardize and clarify landlord-tenant laws, particularly about notice requirements and unlawful lease provisions, and provide flexibility for landlords and tenants to work out payment plans.

Critics said Senate Study Bill 3102 would create more housing instability and weaken tenant protections at a time of rising rents and eviction filings.

Sen. Dan Dawson, R-Council Bluffs, highlighted the need to address an ambiguous area of state law that’s created perceived roadblocks or impediments “into the service” Iowa landlords provide. “Operating off of old case law” with Iowa magistrates left to interpret it “isn't the best way to go about” providing clarity in the law, he said.

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Lisa Davis-Cook from the Iowa Association for Justice expressed concerns about the bill, including the change in notice provision and the potential for landlords to enforce illegal provisions in leases. The organization, which represents Iowa’s trial lawyers, is registered opposed to the bill, along with Common Good Iowa.

Under current law, landlords must serve a three-day notice for non-payment of rent and their intent to terminate the rental agreement in three days if the rent is not paid. If the tenant does not pay the rent, the landlord may file an eviction case.

Under current law, any period ending on a weekend or holiday automatically is extended to the next full business day. The bill would change that to allow the last day to fall on a Saturday, Sunday or federal holiday.

Doing so would put tenants in a bind, shortening the timeline for tenants to respond if the notice is served late on a Friday before a three-day holiday weekend, Davis-Cook said.

Andy Conlin, a lobbyist representing the Iowa Manufactured Housing Association, said the change aims to fix a “misinterpretation” by Iowa magistrates that has “created essentially new notice requirements and thrown out evictions as a result.”

The bill also would allow landlords to include otherwise prohibited provisions in rental agreements as long as they aren’t “enforced,” extends the timeline for peaceable possession of a property to 90 days before barring eviction, and changes the definition of rent to include utilities, late fees and other payments made by the tenant to the landlord under the agreement that may be the basis for eviction — not just base rent.

Prohibited rental agreement provisions allowed

SSB 3102 would allow landlords to use prohibited rental agreements so long as they don’t actually enforce the prohibited provisions. Under current law, a landlord using a rental agreement known to be prohibited grants a tenant an action to recover damages.

Courts would have to determine at what point a provision has been “enforced” as that is not defined in code, noted Senate Minority Leader Pam Jochum, D-Dubuque, and other opponents,

“Not everybody knows landlord/tenant law. A tenant may see a provision in a lease and not realize it's illegal,” Davis-Cook said. “And then their landlord enforces it and they have no idea that it shouldn't be enforced in the first place.”

Conlin said the provision is meant to protect landlords from lawsuits for unenforceable provisions in landlord-tenant agreements due to recent changes in law. He said multifamily rental property owners have been subject to class action lawsuits in other states shortly after purchasing the property because the previous owner had outdated provisions in the lease that hadn't been revised.

“And typically those happen not because landlords are malicious in any way, but because the law changes and they haven't gotten to updating their leases, or they weren't aware of a law change,” Conlin said.

Changes to eviction

The legislation would extend “peaceable possession” requirements from 30 days to 90 days. Peaceful possession refers to the legal right of a person to occupy and use a piece of property without interference or challenge.

Davis-Cook said 30 days is just long enough for a landlord to provide notice, file eviction and receive judgment from the court. Extending it would allow landlords to make repeated attempts or to pile up insurmountable bills before bringing an eviction action.

“Meaning that a landlord could sit on an eviction for up to 90 days before they actually take action on it,” she said. “ … So it will cause a lot of confusion for tenants who may get a notice, may get caught up (on rent), but there's still that opportunity for the landlord to go out 90 days and still evict them, is my understanding.”

Conlin argued the bill gives landlords opportunity to work with tenants to come up with some type of rental payment agreement.

“We think this gives people, both landlords and tenants, more flexibility to work out some type of payment plan without the landlord losing the ability to collect the rent that they're owed,” he said.

Redefining rent

The bill redefines rent to allow landlords to evict tenants for non-payment of utilities, late fees, administrative fees or other fees intended to be paid to the landlord.

“It would allow landlords if there is money owed (beyond base rent) to collect those fees from their tenant through the eviction process, if it comes to that,” Conlin said. “And that should make it easier for the landlord to be whole and therefore make the city be whole” for unpaid municipal utility bills for water, sewer, garbage and other services.

Sen. Mike Klimesh, R-Spillville, who chaired the subcommittee hearing, said it is “almost impossible” for cities to collect unpaid utilities from renters “unless they go after the property owner.”

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“The rub is the property owner didn’t actually accrue the expenses. The tenant accrued the expenses,” Klimesh said.

Reaction

The Rev. Lizzie Gilman, an Episcopal priest in Des Moines, shared her experience witnessing evictions in her neighborhood and worried about the “unintended consequences” of the bill.

“I have counseled people who have come into the church during evictions simply because their landlords don't understand these laws,” Gillman said. “ … I read the law myself, and as somebody who is just a witness to all of this activity that happens frequently in our neighborhood, I myself do not know if I could adequately talk to my neighbors about this law.”

Matt Chapman, a mobile home resident and activist from Waukee, urged the subcommittee to consider the impact of the bill would have on vulnerable Iowans on fixed incomes who are elderly and disabled that have seen rents double in the last five years under out-of-state mobile home park owners.

“I would ask you take a really clear eye and sober view of what is happening in these parks and why we're letting out-of-state entities abuse vulnerable Iowans,” Chapman said. “ … We keep passing bill after bill after bill for them. It's making it easier and easier for them to hurt Iowans.”

Klimesh said the bill needs work, but voted with Dawson to advance it to continue the conversation. The bill now heads to the full Senate Ways and Means Committee.

Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com