Mandatory free legal aid for tenants facing eviction in CT
Looks as if this is going to become law. The only time I had a tenant (being evicted for non-payment of rent, it's always for non-payment of rent) get help from legal aid, they managed to string it out for an additional three months, which of course meant another three months of lost rent for us. Tenant of course was judgement-proof, by reason of having nothing to garnish. They used audita querela so many times that the legal aid lawyer herself was ashamed - the tenant refused to comply with every negotiated settlement as agreed to in front of the mediator. Each time they'd claim audita querela ("I took my child to the ER" at no expense to herself for some imagined minor issue, "so I shouldn't have to move"), the court would give them another hearing date. There are so many tricks they can use, and each one, no matter how contrived and absurd, the court would give them another hearing date, thus extending their tenancy, during which of course they paid no rent.
The State has already gotten as much as 18 months' free housing for the poor and those who refuse to pay rent, on the property owners' backs, under the eviction moratorium. Seems to me that the issue here is the State's desire to string out the period of free rent, without it costing the State a penny. As for the State's money for paying off tenants' back rent, virtually no money has actually been paid out to landlords. We were lucky - we had only one of 32 tenants, and she was only one month behind, due to serious Covid illness. We and she did ALL the paperwork (and boy was there ever a lot of it), and still, months later, nothing.
For me, I think this is the last straw. The market is so high right now for multis in CT. We run our own evictions, unless we are afraid of the tenant or their illegally brought in criminal associates (which is not infrequently the case), in which case we pay a lawyer to do it. But if the tenants have legal representation, the law and the courts are so prejudiced in favor of the non-paying tenant, that I'm ready to sell it all. It's really a pity, since we provide good safe housing at very reasonable rates. But if we cannot evict a non-paying tenant, we cannot run the business, cannot provide rental housing. I don't know who will be able to. In the end, what will happen is that the price of housing will go up, and the supply of housing for the poor will decrease, both in number and quality of units. I don't think I want to stick around for the ride. I think we're done.