A House subcommittee investigating eviction practices by landlords during the pandemic said four companies engaged in “abusive” tactics to evict renters from their homes despite a federal moratorium. issued a scathing report.
the report is release thursdayafter a year of investigation and hearings by a commission that looked into the business practices of so-called corporate landlords that led to eviction applications against tens of thousands of renters during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The committee focused primarily on four companies, including single-family home rental company Invitation Homes and weekly rental company Siegel Group. According to the report, from March 2020 to July 2021, four people filed nearly 15,000 eviction lawsuits against her.
Princeton University’s Eviction Lab said that in the markets it tracked, all landlords filed 495,216 eviction lawsuits during the period the subcommittee investigated.
“The abusive eviction practices described in this report are reprehensible under any circumstances, but unconscionable during a once-in-a-century economic and public health crisis. , in a statement.
According to the report, Invitation Homes has “misleadingly downplayed” the impact of pandemic eviction practices on Fannie Mae, the government-backed mortgage company that provided Invitation Homes with $1 billion in funding in 2017. – Family rental company with over 83,000 properties.
The Siegel Group, which operates under the name Siegel Suites, was described as “uniquely awful.” The company operates about 12,000 apartments in his eight states, according to the report, and is under a moratorium on “deceptive and potentially illegal apartments to prevent tenants from understanding protection from eviction.” I have been involved in a lot of practices,” he said. The commission also found that Siegel used harassment tactics to evict tenants without filing an eviction action.
Clyburn wrote to federal agencies about Invitation Homes and Siegel Group asking them to consider their actions.
A representative for Invitation Homes said the commission did not find the company’s actions illegal.
“At a time when we should be focusing on adding much-needed supply to the nation’s housing market, the commission has chosen to pursue a fault-finding mandate instead,” said spokesperson Christie Dejaret. I’m sorry.
Siegel said in a statement that he was surprised by the report, adding that he had “always committed to complying with the letter and spirit of the law.”
The commission also examined the eviction practices of Pretium Partners, another large single-family rental housing operator, and Ventron Management, which operates 8,000 apartments in 26 states. Pretium said in a statement that it is abiding by a federal moratorium and that residents subject to it “have never been evicted for nonpayment of rent.”
Ventron could not be reached immediately for comment.
The eviction moratorium is widely believed to have prevented millions of people from losing their homes during the pandemic. But they often did not prevent landlords from beginning eviction actions during the pandemic.After the federal moratorium ended last fall, some landlords moved quickly to evict tenants. I was able to.
Submissions created another problem for renters. This is because tenants often leave permanent imprints in court records that can be used against them in the future. The mere filing of an eviction lawsuit against a person, sometimes referred to as the “scarlet E,” is sometimes used as a reason for landlords to refuse to rent, even if the lawsuit is dismissed.
Some states are trying to address the issue by sealing evictions lodged during the pandemic.