 This is a partnership of the Vermont Attorney General's Office, the Association of Africans Living in Vermont, the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance, the Vermont Institute for Community and International Involvement, and Caroline Fund. We also have generous support from the ACLU of Vermont. So I want to thank everybody who is joining us remotely for this virtual presentation, and I'm really excited about the panel that we have assembled to talk about renting in Vermont because it's so crucial at this time of national pandemic, and we all know that housing is absolutely essential and has been part and parcel of keeping people healthy and safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. So first I want to introduce Jean Murray with Vermont Legal Aid. Jean has been a staff attorney at Legal Aid since 1998. She has practiced landlord-tenant law in Massachusetts and in Vermont for 33 years. Vermont Legal Aid has a housing for everyone law project funded in response to the pandemic. It's there to help Vermonters obtain rent assistance from the BRAP program, prevent eviction, and Jean is the team leader for Vermont Legal Aid's court cases team. Thank you, Jean, for agreeing to be here tonight. Next, I'd like to introduce Angela Zaikowski. Angela is the director of the Vermont Landlord Association, a trade association for Vermont landlords. She's a practicing attorney with an active landlord-tenant practice based in Shelburne, Vermont. She's admitted to practice in the Vermont courts and federal court. Angela is a regular presenter of landlord-tenant law and best management practices seminars for both attorneys and realtors as continuing legal education and private landlords and property managers. She is currently hosting a monthly landlord management series that has covered topics from lead paint to fair housing to rental assistance. Thank you, Angela, for joining us. And finally, I want to welcome Judge Helen Tour. Judge Tour was appointed as a Superior Court Judge by Governor Howard Dean in June of 1999. She's the chair of the Civil Division Oversight Committee, and she's been a member of numerous committees and boards serving the state of Vermont. Prior to being appointed a judge, Judge Tour was the chief of the Civil Division at the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Vermont for 10 years. Before that, she was an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York, also in the Civil Division. Prior to that, she was an associate in the litigation department at a large New York City law firm, and Judge Tour were so thrilled to have you participating in this panel tonight. Thank you for joining us. So, we have a really impressive array of experts to share with you information and resources that can assist both landlords and tenants as they navigate the really challenging world of renting in Vermont. And you know, at the outset, I think that as the world turned upside down for the last year and a half, as this terrible disease has spread around the country, housing really became a central ingredient into arresting the spread of the disease. And I think it's just important to acknowledge that there's been a great deal of time and resources and thought put into the importance of housing as a precondition to help me to stop the spread of COVID-19. So I really want to put the pandemic front and center for purposes of our discussion tonight because that's really what's on everybody's minds. And I want to engage you, our panelists, in a discussion of what it means. I mean, we have a landscape of sort of normal process procedure and landlord-tenant relationships in the state of Vermont. But that all changed with the pandemic. And there were new rules and new processes, and everyone has had to adapt. And I think we would be remiss if we didn't acknowledge the economic burden that has been placed on Vermont families, whether you're a tenant or whether you're a landlord. But there's been severe economic disruption to our regular means of doing business and of remaining housed. So with that, I wonder if we could talk about some of the resources that are available to Vermonters in order to help them navigate the pandemic, especially as we contemplate, perhaps, beginning to emerge from the really worst effects of the pandemic as vaccination rates go up and as people begin to start to think about a return to normal, such as it is, and whatever that means. But I think it would be really useful if we could start at the outset talking about how to connect people to resources. And so this is open really for the group. But I wonder, Angela, if you want to share with us your perspective, and maybe we can share a slide on this topic. Perfect. Thank you, Chris. I think the main resource for landlords and tenants to be aware of right now is the Vermont Emergency Rental Assistance Program. So you'll hear us refer to that as VWRAP. This is the most recent iteration of rent assistance. It's a large program. If any of you participated in the 2020 RHSP program, that program had $25 million. This new VWRAP program is starting at $110 million. So there's a lot of money to be spent here. And there's opportunities for tenants to get their rent situation squared away, to make landlords whole in terms of getting those rent payments made, not only some rental arrearage, so money that's owed by tenants, but there's also opportunities here for tenants to have rent paid going forward. And rent going forward for a considerable amount of time. We're talking 12, 15, 18 months. So there's opportunities here to really help sort of the economic situation for both renters and landlords. So that program is live. It's being run through Vermont State Housing Authority. We put the website where you can find the application up here. And it covers and can cover more than just rent. So rent's a component. If you are a tenant and you're having issues with your utility payments in early June, there will be an opportunity to get assistance with that. That part of the program hasn't quite launched yet, but it is coming. There's opportunities to have assistance for moving into a new apartment. So if you need to move for some reason, you can get first, last security, and then rent going forward for a new rental. And you can also get qualified for mediation through the VRAP program. So there's a mediation program that is once again launching. I have up on the screen here. If you need application assistance, the Vermont Home Ownership Centers are a place that can help what I've been told between when this slide was developed yesterday and presentation today. So see information is changing constantly. This is sort of the world we live in these days. Is that for basic application questions, they're encouraging folks, landlords and tenants to call the call center. So there is a call center associated with this program and with this application process. That number, sorry, we do not have it up on the screen is 833-488-3727. You can also find it on the VRAP webpage. So if you copy the link and go to the website, the phone number is up there. The call center is for application questions, document questions, the Home Ownership Centers. So that application assistance is for folks who maybe need a little bit more assistance with scanning documents, uploading documents, need some some additional help, in-person help. So don't maybe go to the Home Ownership Centers first, start with the call center. And then if you need additional assistance, one of the Home Ownership Centers can can assist you. And they are divided up by county. So depending on where you live, you would call a various different agency. And I put it up also in a map form, because I know people process information differently. And so for some folks, it's easier to look at a map and say which one is mine, as opposed to reading a whole bunch of words on a screen. So this is just the same information in a different format. And Angela, can you explain to our viewers how, who can apply? Is this, you know, the tenant applies for this assistant? The landlord can apply? Do they both have to jointly apply? How does it really work? If somebody walks into one of these offices or calls the call center? So so those are almost two separate questions. So the tenant does have to apply. Because the determination of who's eligible and eligibility under the program is determined by the tenant's household income. So the tenant has to participate. They have to provide documentation of of their income and proof of income. The landlord also needs to participate or should participate. And there is a different section for the landlord to put their information. So the landlord starts their process by uploading a W9. And those forms are available right on on the website. And they create an account landlord creates an account. And then when the tenants information is put in, they can link the two accounts get linked and so you can see them and track, you know, what's happening, what payments have been made, when have payments been made. On the tenant side, the tenant initiates that. Jean probably has more versed in that side of the platform than than I am and can maybe give some helpful pointers and tips for what types of information people need to have gathered together first, which will make the application run a lot more smoothly. What about that, Jean? What what information do people need to have together in order to apply for these resources? So tenants apply as one member of the household is the one that's filling out the application, but a tenant household is all the people who are living together who have promised to pay rent to a landlord. That's the group of people whose household income counts. And so the eligibility factors are you have to be obligated to pay rent on a residential dwelling in Vermont. And you can show that with a current lease that shows the current amount of rent and the address of the premises. If you have a written thing that doesn't show those, then you don't need to provide that and you can rely on some other ways of proving that you're obligated to pay rent at a residential dwelling in Vermont. The second thing and this is on the application. You need to attest that you've had some financial hardship due to COVID, which could be from a lot of things. I don't know anybody who doesn't have financial hardship due to COVID, whether you had things that cost more or you lost some income because you couldn't work full time or something happened. So everybody has had some sort of financial hardship due to COVID. And I also believe that everybody is at risk of housing instability and homelessness due to COVID. At least most of the people who are financially eligible for this are going to find that they have a at-risk factor. One at-risk factor could be you're behind on rent. There you go. And I think a number of people are or you could be behind on utilities. You could be paying more than 30% of your income for rent. And the last and most important is the financial eligibility, which is the household. All the household members' income together has to be less than 80% area median income. But there's a thing you can pick whether you're going to show your household income based on your 2020 annual income if that was lower than your current income, or you can show it based on your current income. So in other words, if you didn't have a lot of income last year, but you're OK this year, you could still be eligible based on last year's income. Or if you had enough income last year, but things are falling apart in your current income or your household size has changed and you have lower income now, you could be eligible on your current income. And that is your choice that you get to make, which way you want to show that eligibility factor. And so you're going to need, if you have that lease that has current amount of rent and your address, that's a document that you need. You need documents to show your in your household income for all household members, whether it's 2020 annual income or current income. So that could be current income will be pay stubs, things like that, annual income be your one of four or your annual benefit statement. OK. Jean, I think we may be losing you there. Angela, can you just talk a little about the non-rent resources until we get Jean back? Absolutely. So we are going to be relaunching the landlord tenant mediation program that ran briefly at the end of 2020. And it is going to be back. It's anticipated the middle of June for launch. We've had to make a few programmatic changes for that, mostly related to having income qualifications or qualifying for the program based on income. And what the mediation program is, is it provides and pays for a professional mediator to meet with the landlord and the tenant to see to try to resolve the dispute, whether it's rent related, whether it's communication related, whether it's you're making too much noise and disturbing the neighbors. You know, it's just it's facilitating a conversation to see if it can be worked through that doesn't so it doesn't result in an eviction. It might not, but it's the cost is covered for for the parties. And when I say parties, you don't actually have to have a pending court case to participate in this program. So if you just are in a dispute with your landlord or you're in a dispute with your tenant, this may be a way to resolve those issues without having to go to court, without having to go through that process. So we ran it in the end of 2020. It was, I think, pretty successful for the folks that participated. And it was a good way for them to work out some issues. And everybody was able to then move forward with the relationship. So it was very positive. And we're very happy that it's going to be coming back for folks. Sounds like a very useful resource. And before we transition and I want to give a little time for Jean to reconnect here, but talk about the importance of communication. So as I'm listening to the application process and the need for both parties, the landlords and the tenants to equally have an interest in accessing resources to help ensure that rent is current or rent might be paid forward and talk a little about the importance of that relationship and that communication both vis-a-vis the process, but also maybe in the context of the mediation program as well. Right. Nice. Yeah, I think Jean, Jean has her hand up. Oh, great. So I I'm sorry, my internet goes in and out. The mediation program, people also have to be financially eligible for. But if you're financially eligible, a lawyer from Vermont Legal Aid will represent you in the mediation. That's one of the things I want to say. One of the things we learned last year about communication and cooperation was that a fantastic amount of landlords and tenants in Vermont cooperate with each other. That that I know we haven't quite slipped down to myths, but there's a myth that landlords and tenants don't get along. And I got to say, I believed in that myth until last year when I saw everybody working to gather to get rent paid for for people. And most of the applications in the program we were able to run last year were aided by landlords. This year, because the rules are coming down from the federal government, it's absolutely essential that tenants apply, but that doesn't mean landlords can't help them with all of these things. So that's what I was going to say about communication. And I've got to say that the VWAP program has been rolling out a little slowly. There are some glitches they kind of make they could make you feel frustrated or defeated, whether it's a landlord trying to get in or a tenant trying to get through the application. And I would just urge right now patients and communication and understanding with each other. I think we we can do it. The program is going to get up. It's got a lot of money to give to Vermonters so that they can use this money to make sure that all their their bills are met. But it's going to take a little bit of patience. And we are working really hard to make it an easier program to run right now. Thank you for that. I have a question and it's a useful insight for all of us to bear in mind as we navigate our time together this evening. Someone has asked VWAP, can you please explain the acronyms when you first use them? Thank you. So can we just remind or it may have been on one of the slides, but if it's not, can you fill in the blank for us? Absolutely, it's the Vermont Emergency Rental Assistance Program because we insist on having acronyms for everything. It was shortened to VWAP. Thank you. And that's a good reminder. I want to encourage all of the participants and viewers who are watching this evening to use the Q&A function at the bottom of your screen because you can submit questions in real time and we will take them up and answer them as best we can. So thank you for that. One last point on the pandemic. I have a question about the court process during the pandemic for Judge Tuer. But before I turn to that, in preparation for this, there was some discussion and just it's really remarkable how many resources have become available. And it strikes me that, yes, it's a very unusual time. But at the same time, it's remarkable that these resources have become available to keep people housed. And what does that mean from the landlord associations perspective or from Vermont legal aid's perspective in terms of your advocacy for the folks that you serve? And what does that mean for Vermonters in the context of housing stability because it is very unusual that this much federal money comes to the state and some state money, too, to actually help people directly to essentially pay the rent? I mean, I think it's been I think it's been a really good thing for both renters and for landlords. You know, particularly with our RHSP program, we had a lot of situations where there was a lot of rent owed by tenants. Landlords had been carrying that debt, carrying that money. Maybe they'd started an eviction. Maybe they hadn't got quite to that spot yet. But that program allowed those landlords to become whole with the money that was owed and for the tenants to get out from underneath that debt. So it was a really it's been very beneficial to both sides. I want to just explain what RHSP is. Sorry, rental housing stabilization program. So it was the rent assistance program in 2020. So a thing that I want to say about housing stability and what it means to Vermont to have this money is that we did a study a few years ago and found that about 70 to 75 percent of all the evictions that are ever filed in court are due to nonpayment of rent. And with the program that we had last year with the CARES Act funding, we found that the average grant to people to catch them up was about $2,000. And we know from our study that people by the time a landlord takes them to court, they owe about $2,000, but to get out of court, it costs about $7,500 by the time all is said and done with court costs and attorney's fees and the extra months that have come up. So to have a fund to pay the rent to prevent the eviction on the for the landlords and tenants, it's much more cost effective and it keeps people out of court. And I guess the last thing I want to add about people not going to court or being threatened with eviction is the other thing we learned in the pandemic last year is it is. Of consequence, if you lose your housing to eviction, because where do you go when you lose your housing? We don't have enough affordable housing in Vermont. And Vermont didn't want anybody to be homeless on the street during the pandemic. And so use some emergency money to keep people housed in motels. But as all of that begins to go away, we really don't want people to lose their housing right now. There's no place to go. The real estate market, the rental market is very tight. So it would just be better if we before anybody ever went to court, if they could use rent assistance money to pay their landlord and stay where they are. I have another question. I just want to ask before we leave this topic and turn to some other items. Is the mediation program for tenants whose landlord is an entity such as Champlain Housing Trust rather than a private individual? If the tenant qualifies, it doesn't matter what the landlord entity is. So, yes, that particular tenant would qualify. And the thing with to keep in mind with mediation is that both parties have to agree to mediate. So you can't force somebody to come to mediation. But if there's already some level of communication or advocates are involved, it's should I would think it would be likely that an entity would be interested in a mediation. OK, before we turn from the pandemic writ large to sort of what happens or what the nature of the rights and responsibilities are with respect to landlords and tenants, Judge Tour, how has this affected the courts? Because the courts are the place where traditionally, if there's a dispute, it may end up coming to court if mediation fails or if the parties can't resolve it themselves. And I know a lot of people who are watching this have probably heard about this eviction moratorium during this period of time. So just can you tell us a little about how that's impacted the courts and your work and maybe to the extent I'm not going to ask you to speculate. But you know, what sort of comes next in terms of how would court process begin again? Right. So as Chris just said, there has been a law in effect for most of the pandemic that was aimed at keeping people in their homes. The theory, you know, the connection to covid being that being homeless was a high risk factor for getting sick, that you know, you're you're living with other people, your couchsurfing, etc. So the court process has basically been on hold for most evictions for many, many months. There are exceptions in the law such as if the landlord can show that there's criminal activity occurring in the apartment, such as drug dealing, if there are threats to other people's health, which could involve, you know, people who are hoarding and there are rats and that sort of thing that can involve things. I've had cases involving, for example, needles being left, you know, in the hallways where children are, that sort of thing. So there is a process. There has been a process for landlords to ask to proceed with an eviction despite the state, if they could reach a certain level of, you know, showing the court some evidence to support that. So we would have a hearing and the tenant would get notice and would be able to come in and say, wait, that's not true. You know, it's the neighbor who's dealing drugs or whatever. And at least in my experience, there have not been very many cases that have gone forward. It's been a really small number. So most cases have been on hold. I should add that the ones that did go forward have been looking a lot like this. They've been done on, well, we don't use Zoom, but a similar platform called WebEx. And so people have not been coming to the courthouse. We can make exceptions to that. But the Vermont courts have essentially closed most hearings to the public and to parties, you know, live parties to protect everybody. I'm sure everybody knows the governor is talking about lifting at least some, if not all of the limitations that have been in effect. If we hit 80 percent vaccination, which could happen soon. We don't know exactly what that will look like. The there's sort of a trigger when the emergency completely ends. Most eviction cases still are stayed for another 30 days. And so there's sort of a little lead time for us to start scheduling things again and sort of figuring out what's going to happen. But I can't tell you exactly what it's going to look like. We're actually having conversations. In fact, Jean and Angela are involved in those conversations also with court staff and other lawyers and other judges to try and figure out how we're going to transition. And it's a little bit complicated because cases stopped at different places in the case. You know, some people had just found out they were being sued. Some people were ready for trial. Some people had something in writing they were supposed to be responding to. And we said, stop. So somehow we have to let everybody know, OK, it's starting again. And here's what happens next, but we haven't quite figured out how that's going to work yet. OK, that's one other thing that the Supreme Court has said that starting in mid June, the courts can start having more live hearings. But exactly which ones will be live has not been decided and may vary from county to county, at least for some period of time. So some notices, you know, to landlords and tenants may say, this is a remote hearing. Here's the log in the way people log in today. And some may say it's a live hearing. Great, thank you. We'll stay tuned for more information about that. It has been a big change for the courts and the usual process and for the parties. So one last quick question. I think it's quick that just came in. Does the assistance that's available for folks in the resources that we've just been talking about, can that help with mortgage payments? Not through the VWRAP program, but I did put up on one of the slides that Vermont Housing Finance Agency has restarted their mortgage assistance program. And that's now available. And the link to that was up. Let me go back and grab it. V H F A dot org. You can get to it just by going to their main website. And it's right at the top, a banner right at the top. Right. And for viewers who have to either join us late or dropping on and dropping off as they can and as time allows, we will show these slides again during the presentation. So be patient or stay tuned or you can tune in later through Cable Access or other avenues to get that information again. So thank you, Angela, for that. So taking a step back from the pandemic generally and anticipating that there is going to eventually be a reopening and a more normal standard set of processes for dealing with landlord tenant relations, court process and everything else, can I think it might be useful for our viewers and participants tonight to hear from you, Jean and Angela in particular about what are the balance of rights and duties generally speaking in rental housing arrangements? How does it work? What are the obligations? What what are folks getting into in terms of what's provided, what's promised on both sides of the equation? So we have a law, the landlord tenant law is a statute that, you know, if you ever get in the dispute and bring it to the court, the court has to read the statute. But in the Residential Rental Agreements Act, there's actually a fairly even balance of rights and duties. So, for instance, in residential rental agreements, tenants have an obligation to pay rent. They don't get to wait for a bill. There's a rent day and they have an obligation to pay rent on that day without demand. And landlords have the right to regain possession through court process if they don't receive the rent or if somebody violates the Residential Rental Agreements Act. Tenants have the duty to maintain the premises and not damage it and keep it in compliance or not do anything to cause it to be out of compliance with the rental housing health code or any other kind of codes. And landlords have a duty to always rent what they call a habitable premises. One that is safe fit for human habitation. And that includes it must have facilities to make heat and hot water, basic structural integrity and a number of other things. So landlords have to supply a premises that has that and tenants can't damage it. Tenants cannot. I was going to say tenants can't withhold reason unreasonably withhold access. And that has been a thing this year. We might want to talk about that a little bit. And tenant, the landlord's right to access is not unlimited. It is specified the reasons landlords can enter and how much notice they have to give in order to be able to enter. So those are some of the some of the balances in the residential rental agreement. And I think sort of following up on that, one of the other big sort of rights and responsibilities or obligations under the statute in particular is tenants have an obligation to report issues to their landlord. So that kind of ties into the, you know, tenants obligation to keep the unit in compliance and responsible for the condition to some extent. And in the same vein, the landlord then has an obligation to repair those items that need to be repaired, even if the tenant broke it. So, you know, the financial consequence of the tenant breaking something is different from the landlord's obligation to have it repaired and to make sure it's in good working order. So that's sort of, I think, another big one. And then there'll be some things that could come from the lease agreement. So the parties could have a written or a verbal you can't have a verbal lease in Vermont, those are allowed. But if you have a written agreement, sometimes it can have some other obligations for for both parties. Think these are things that tend to be a little bit more like rules and regulations, right? Can you smoke? Can you not smoke? Can you have marijuana in your apartment or not? Are there noise rules? Are there what happens with the trash? Like who's responsible for that? Who pays for utilities? So a lot of the more sort of day to day type things you can find a lot of times in the lease agreement. Can I just jump in with one thing? This isn't exactly a requirement, but one of the things that we see a lot is the law does sometimes allow tenants to not pay rent until things are fixed. For example, if they report, you know, the toilet isn't working or whatever. But what we see a lot once things get to court is that tenants don't understand that withholding the rent means that you get to not pay for a while, but you don't necessarily get to not pay forever. And so if anybody is advising someone to withhold rent, they really should tell them to hold on to that money, not to spend it because they may need to pay it later. And so what happens is a tenant says, you know, I didn't pay for three months because they wouldn't fix it. And then we're in court and they're so far behind and the court might find, well, yeah, you didn't have to pay the whole rent. But you should have paid half of it because, you know, the other bathroom was working or whatever. And this becomes a problem a lot of times for tenants, they didn't understand that at some point they may need to come up with that money. And it's gone by then. Yeah, it strikes me that in addition to rights and responsibilities, one thing that is often overlooked in the discussion about the laws that govern the conduct of the parties and what's going to happen in a legal sense goes back to what we were talking about during the resources discussion, which is like, there's a relationship here. And maybe it's a contractual relationship, but it strikes me that both parties have a really vested interest in from their own perspectives about what's happening in the place, right? If you're the renter, this is your home. You're living there. You have your children potentially or others that you care about who are there, you welcome visitors to your home. Maybe you keep, you know, you have pets. And if you're the landlord, this might be it's not just a rental unit, it might have special meaning. You've invested it, you've fixed it up. Maybe it was your first home that you held on to or a home that you inherited from a parent. So there's a lot sort of emotionally invested in both parties and the importance of having that ability to communicate and understand that relationship with one another. My sense is probably can go a long way to addressing many of the kinds of common questions and or misunderstandings that might come up between the parties. I mean, if I if I can also jump in here, we hear we hear a lot and we spend a lot of time talking about the court process, talking about sort of the poorly behaving tenants, the poorly behaving landlords. And for the most part, I think what we have seen is that those are sort of the exception. Those are the minority in this group of people and that landlords and tenants don't have an adversarial relationship. It's symbiotic, right? You depend on each other and for the most part, it works. And people have good communication skills and they. The tenant fulfills their obligations and the landlord fulfills their obligations and everybody moves marry along. It's when that relationship breaks down that we end up in court or that we have a problem. And and those are by far fewer of the landlord tenant relationships in the state than the not, right? I think the numbers we have are on a normal year. There's roughly eighteen hundredish evictions and there's like seventy five seventy six thousand rental units. I mean, that's a very small percentage of problems. And, you know, even even when people come to court, I'm surprised at how frequently the landlord has tried so hard to assist the tenant before it got to that point. You know, they've they've given them month after month of, yeah, OK, I'll wait. You know, they really often are trying to help and it's just come to a point where there just isn't any money. But it's a good. It makes me feel good to see that they're working together. Well, let's you've raised some some common myths. And I wonder if we can talk about others that are out there in terms of, you know, sort of common beliefs that people have in the context of what they might think of as their rights or responsibilities that can lead to misunderstanding and ultimately be not helpful to to the party. So I just wonder if you all can share with us your sense of what some of those common things are. I mean, I think we've kind of touched on one. A big one is around access. And so there is a statute that prescribes when and how a landlord can access a tenant's unit. And, you know, number one on that statute is with the tenant's consent. And the rest of it continues, which shall not be unreasonably withheld. So there is an obligation on the tenant to, in some circumstances, allow the landlord and even without sort of the standard 48 hours notice. Now, it depends. You know, do you have to let the landlord in all the time? No, but just be aware that that is an obligation in the statute. And otherwise, the landlord can give you a 48 hour notice that they're going to come in between nine a.m. and nine p.m. Those timeframes are set out in the statute and they can actually come in without your consent, right? You they don't have to gain your consent if they've given you that 48 hours notice. Now, is it better if the two parties are working together and finding a time that works and everybody's comfortable and knows what's happening? Yes. But I think, you know, one of the myths is that even if a landlord has given you that 48 hour notice, the tenant can say no. I mean, technically under the statute, you can't. But you gene, I see Gene's going to jump in here with. I have a question before you leave this point, though. And maybe it goes to might go to Gene's comment, too. Do can tenants stay on the premises during the showing? You know, while the landlord is there, or can a landlord insist that a tenant leave? No, no. What about if it's a, what if it's about a, there's a perspective other, you know, maybe the lease is coming to an end and it's a prospective renter or potential buyer for the unit. So Chris, let me, so one of the reasons that this year it's been very complicated is because people were told to stay safe, stay home and socially distance. So all of the things that landlords would have wanted to come into houses for, people were reluctant to let landlords in. And so what we urge people to do was make special arrangements. So that if it was necessary for the landlord to come in, that people could feel safe and respect social distance. The statute, as I say, is a limited right of access for the landlord. There's only four reasons the landlord can come in when necessary to inspect the premises. And I think that means necessary inspections, not unnecessary ones. When necessary to make agreed repairs altered, necessary or agreed repairs alterations or improvements to supply agreed services or to exhibit the dwelling unit to perspective or actual purchasers or renters, anybody. Like sometimes you have to show that. So those are the reasons the landlord comes in. And the ones I hear that it's kind of gone wrong is like we all have different personalities and some landlords are really nervous and or they don't realize that they're doing it but they're acting as if the tenant's place is their place and they keep coming in repeatedly. No, it's the tenant's place. And even though landlords have a right of access, it's limited by the statute to when it's necessary to come in. And this past year, people needed to really communicate and try to figure out how to feel good about having somebody come in to your safe zone when folks were saying. And we've seen a lot of transitions in that regard, right? Lots of landlords have gone to virtual showings. They aren't doing in-person showings for prospective tenants even now. So there has been sort of an adjustment to the times in keeping folks safe and not sort of parading other people through a tenant's unit while they're still there. So there's been opportunities for people to get creative and find solutions. All right. Can you get evicted in the winter in Vermont? Yeah. Yeah, yes. But a lot of people think that you can't and I have to say when I became a judge, I didn't know the answer to that question either, so. Good to know. So someone mentioned rent withholding earlier. I think judge tour, that was you. Are there conditions aside from the minor repairs that might be at issue and perhaps the landlord's obligation to make those repairs? Can the tenant just stop paying? Let me, I'm the lawyer for the tenants. I want tenants to know you have to put it in writing to your landlord. If you want to get a repair. And that's what you want. You want to get a repair. So you have to put it in writing to your landlord and you can't withhold rent unless the repair that's needed materially affects health and safety like the toilet doesn't work, like the door doesn't close in its winter, like there's no heat or not adequate heat which can happen a lot where the furnace is crapping out and it's just not giving you enough heat. It has to materially affect health and safety. A dripping faucet will not allow you to withhold rent but a non flushing toilet will. That's the kind of distinction. And the landlord has a reasonable amount of time after getting your notice to make the repair. So it's not immediate. I send you the notice and now I get to not pay the rent and it's not 30 days. A lot of people think that, oh, if it's not fixed in 30 days, that's it. The statute says reasonable time and because it may depend on what the repair is. It's very difficult in Vermont to replace a failed septic system in the middle of the winter. Now maybe there's other things the landlord will have to do in the meantime to have things functioning but it is going to depend on what needs to be done. I can tell you right now from the building standpoint, trying to get materials is months out. Like basic window reorders is three months out where it's normally roughly six weeks. So we're seeing very long delays and being able to get things to make repairs. But you're not talking about then the landlord doesn't have to make the repair. They need to come up with a temporary fix. The one that I think comes up in the summer sometimes is the wells run dry and there's no water. The landlord has to supply water. Even if that means getting a water truck. A lot of landlords end up doing bottle delivery or something. And man, I would hate to be a landlord if that's what happened to the well for my tenant ran dry because what a hassle. But you can't say, oops, I don't have a way to fix it. You have to figure out how to fix it. There are two other I think common issues that frequently come up and there are often questions around. One is around visitation. Who can come and stay with a tenant in for how long? And some of this might go to what the law says it might relate to what the public housing administration says or it might be contained in a contract in the lease itself. And so I just wonder, can you all speak to that issue of visitation and length or duration of visitation from third parties who are not leaseholders? So Chris, you said that a lease might prohibit visitors for a private tenant and a private landlord where there's no subsidy involved, I do not think a lease can prohibit visitors. That's because the tenant has possession and the landlord doesn't have possession anymore. And if the tenant wants a visitor, they can have a visitor. But the rub is what happens when the visitor starts to live there if there is a written rental agreement that says nobody can live here unless I give permission, then somebody cannot just move in with you without a landlord's permission. But in terms of visiting, like if your mother comes and stays for two weeks, the landlord doesn't have anything to say about it or whatever. But what if they write it into the contract nonetheless? Well, that's unenforceable and doesn't work. Right, okay. A tenant has a right to have visitors. What we will see in Lisa sometimes is trying to put some parameters over defining when somebody crosses from a visitor to a resident, sometimes by time limit. So they're challenging. There's no real clear directives under the law or in statute that says when somebody crosses over. And it's a very factual question. I think Judge Torr may be able to weigh in a little bit because she hears some of these types of cases where is the person living there or not? It's frequently in court. Yeah, actually that issue doesn't come up that often but that's why I have a job because there are disputes that aren't clear and both sides may have an argument that makes sense. And I have to figure out which one actually is the best argument. So those are the kind of situations where people come in and they're going to put on their evidence and the tenant is gonna say, look, it was only on Tuesdays and he was just here to babysit. And the landlord's gonna say, yeah, but I have pictures of you there five days a week. And those are the kinds of things that people have to actually have proof and presenting court to sort out those disputes. Yeah. And for tenants who receive subsidies. So there's two kinds of subsidies. One kind is the subsidy goes with the building and the other kind is you get a voucher and you can rent with the private landlord. But both of those kind of subsidies depend on the tenant's household income and they prohibit tenants from having somebody living there without their income being counted in terms of how much the tenants portion of the rent is gonna be. So for those, for tenants with subsidies, which I just checked again, there's about 13,000 tenants in Vermont that have subsidies. The subsidizing rules say they cannot have a visitor for longer than 14 days. And sometimes, no, I'm just gonna quit there. I think the other takeaway here when we're talking about visitors and guests is that tenants are actually responsible for the behavior of their guests. And so if a tenant's inviting somebody in who even if they are a guest is being disruptive or causing problems in the rental unit or in the building, the tenant who's inviting that person in can be putting their own housing at risk by having that person there at the property. So tenants can get evicted for the behavior of their guests or be held responsible for damage that their guests do. So I think that sometimes falls into this myth. Well, it wasn't me, it was my friend who was visiting. Well. And can I just add one of the problematic areas there that arises is when a domestic violence victim is living with an abuser who is creating other problems in the apartment building or whatever. And that's a really tough situation because the lease is in her name, but she is responsible for him and yet she can't control him because she's the victim of that situation. It's a really tough situation and that can create problems. And there are some other protections for victims. There was a new statute section that was added a few years ago that outlines some parameters and some ways for people who are victims in that situation to either get out of their lease or have people removed or have the locks changed. So there are some additional tools there for tenants in that situation. I have a new question from one of our viewers and participants that I wanna ask our panel. If a landlord sells a building and the lease is still active, for example, has six months left, will the lease transfer to the new owner until the end of the lease term or can the new owner terminate the lease early? We're seeing many landlords selling buildings as the market is getting more competitive. Well, I would say if there's a lease that guarantees the tenant a certain term of months or years that the lease, the new owner has to honor the lease. There are some technicalities, but generally the new owner has to honor the lease and let the tenant stay, cannot break the lease just because there's a new owner. I agree and so does my junior associate. And this does create problems when buyers don't quite realize what they're getting into. And for example, I had a case this year where somebody had purchased a building right before the eviction stay and was unable to proceed with an eviction and was sort of partway through renovating the building and had one person left in the building. And they just hadn't foreseen that having a tenant there that they hadn't worked out and a deal with for them to leave could really create a problem. So sometimes people who are buying buildings don't really think through how they're gonna deal with that situation and it could be a problem. So one last one, while we're talking about sort of common issues that surface and it has to do with utilities. So the question is, I mean, can a landlord just go and shut off utilities to the premises? I think we can all agree that would seem wrong. If it happens or if a shutoff occurs, is a tenant allowed to go and essentially establish the utility in their own name? Can they go and get utility services provided to the unit? Let's be clear. The landlord cannot have a utility shutoff. Utility companies, if the account is in the tenant's name, can. So sometimes we have disputes or issues related to that. And for most utilities, the tenant should be able to establish service or they may wanna call Vermont Legal Aid and get some legal assistance for dealing with that situation. Yeah, Chris, you know about this one for water shutoffs. Usually in a building, water is going to be in the landlord's name because it's usually water is tied to the town's ability to take the house away. So the landlord's leave those in their name, but if the landlord hasn't paid the water, there's an ability for the tenant to put the water in their name and keep water service going. So that's- And deduct it from the rent. And deduct it from the, thank you, Chris, and deduct it from the rent. So Chris used to work at Legal Aid and he did that. So other things, like I've had questions where the landlord went and flipped the breaker. Can I go flip it back? Yup. Yes, you can. So we're not trying to, it is absolutely illegal. It is literally called in the Residential Rental Agreements Act, illegal eviction. If the landlord does anything to try to end utilities or lock people out or take any space that they've been able to use before away. And what happens when the landlord does that and people call Legal Aid, I give people a call and say, don't do that because I'm gonna take you to court and you're gonna have to pay my attorney's fees and the judge is gonna give you an order that you have to turn that back on. And that usually works. And we just see those cases. I mean, that's one thing people should realize is although we often think of the landlord being the one filing a lawsuit to evict a tenant, tenants can file a lawsuit against the landlord also. And we do get cases like that and we do treat them as emergencies when it's made clear, if it's winter and we get a filing that says, my landlord turned off the heat because they want me to leave. We're gonna take that up right away. And we're gonna sometimes if there's enough evidence of that we might issue an emergency order saying, turn it on right now and we're gonna have a hearing in three days. So we do try to address those emergency situations when cases are filed by tenants. Well, that is a great segue because I really wanna talk about the process and all of you are expert in the process. But before we do, just I know that sometimes people have to log off earlier. They can't stay present for an entire presentation right up until 7.30. So I'm hoping that we can just briefly show the resource slides from the beginning of the presentation a second time. So if anyone joined late, they can see where to go and how to access help. Because I think one of the things that everyone has spoken about is the importance of being able to access resources as a result of this pandemic. So I'm gonna share my screen again. And Chris, when you did it before you did share your whole screen. Well, I guess you still are. Yeah, if you hit slide show then the slide comes up bigger. From beginning. Yeah, so this was the first slide and this shows people what is available and what the Vermont Emergency Rental Assistance Program can provide them, back rent, rent paid ahead, money to move, utility payments, et cetera, and maybe qualification for mediation. And then where to go to apply. And Angela, thank you for putting together this very useful map. So you can see geographically where in the state you can access an application to apply. And I think that's one of the things is if you're behind or if you're a service provider. Chris, those are for hands-on help. So if you need help uploading documents or some other sort of technical help, those are the places to go. Otherwise it's the E-R-A-P dot V-S-H-A dot org. So the V-Rap Vermont Emergency Rental Assistance Program page where you would go to apply. And we're being told that if you have questions about the application or questions about what documents you need to call the call center associated with this page. And so that's again, my apologies that that phone number didn't make it onto the slide, but it's 833-488-3727. And I think the main takeaway is if you're in a position where this money could really help you, don't wait, apply for it and see if you qualify. And that can go a long way to assuring your housing stability. And that's true for the tenant and it's true in terms of making the landlord whole. So really, really important. But Chris, I just wanna add that the processing part of this program is having some issues. So yes, you can start an application right away. Don't get discouraged, keep at it. And your application, if you're below 80% AMI will be approved and your landlord will get paid eventually. But right now. It takes some time. There's a lot of things to verify, a lot of information to upload and it will take some time. So it's not like you can log in and find out in 15 minutes whether you're eligible. It takes a little bit longer to do this application than it does to file your taxes online. Okay, so we're hearing a call for patience which is always important. And patience is important in terms of the court's procedure as well sometimes. And so Judge Tuer, I'm wondering if you can help acquaint our viewers with just generally speaking from a sort of 5,000 foot level, how does it work when the parties come to court? Sure. So the first thing that usually happens if you are the person filing cases that you're filing paperwork with the court and then you have to generally have the sheriff's servant on whoever you're suing. So you're the plaintiff if you're filing it, you're the defendant if you're being sued. And so if you're the defendant, the first thing that often happens is the sheriff shows up at your door, I should back up. If we're talking about evictions, the landlord first has to give a written notice asking the tenant to leave. And there are requirements about what timeframe they have to give depending on the kind of lease, how long they've lived there, et cetera. And I'm not gonna try to explain all that because it's somewhat complicated, but you can lose a case just because you didn't give the right amount of notice. So it is important. And some landlords who try to represent themselves do make mistakes with that, which can be disappointing for them. But once they've done that, if they've done that and the time has expired and the tenant has not left, then they can file the case in court. It gets served on the other side. One thing that's really important for someone who's being sued, and in this situation we're talking mostly about tenants, is not to ignore the paperwork. If there's a notice that says you have a court hearing to show up, whether that's remotely or live, and if there is a complaint to file an answer, and if nothing else to let the court know that you wanna be part of the case and give us your address and contact information. If someone gets sued and doesn't respond at all, they're likely to lose because we're only hearing one side of the case and that can happen pretty quickly. So one thing I would say is for both sides, it's always best to get a lawyer if you can. And for tenants, often legal aid can help you, even if they can't come to court, they can help you with paperwork. And obviously for landlords, Angela has an association that provides some assistance and explaining and so forth. And I don't know more about that, she can tell you. But there's a lot of information for both sides on the court's website. And Chris, if you can throw up the slide on the Vermont Judiciary Resources, there's a link there, it's kind of long, but there's a whole section on landlord tenant cases. I think it's, there you go. So if you go to that section, both sides can find some really helpful information about how the court process works and forms for a complaint, for an answer, for motions, which are asking the judge to do something. And the other link there is a way to obtain a lawyer either for a reduced rate or for a short service. In other words, you can actually hire a lawyer to just help you for a part of a case. You could have them for one hour to help you write some paperwork and not necessarily pay them to represent you on the whole case. And the Vermont Bar Association can help you find that kind of lawyer if you don't qualify for free services, which depends obviously on your income. So I guess the most important general thing I wanna say is that court can be complicated for both sides if they don't have legal training because there are a lot of rules that can make or break a case. And those have to do with deadlines for when you have to file paperwork. They have to do with some of the things we've talked about about whether the landlord gave proper notice to leave, whether a tenant gave a proper written notice to the landlord that something was broken. All of those things can be why someone wins or loses in a court case. Let's see, the other thing that is really important is people don't always realize that anything they file with the court, they have to give a copy to the other side. And that's because the court is, we are not on either side. My job is to consider both sides to be neutral. And I can't talk privately to one side or the other. If Angela and Jean are both involved in the case, I can't have a conversation with one of them. I have to have them both there to talk to. And the same thing with the written materials. Everybody has to know what's going on in court. It's an open process. There's a lot of terminology that can be confusing to people. And if you could put up the slide of the terms, I can just run through sort of how the process works and what some of these things mean. So the notice to quit or notice to vacate is the letter that I talked about that the landlord has to send before going to court. The summons and complain are the two pieces of paper. The complaint is the landlord saying, here's why I want to evict this person and here's why I want an order to have them pay. And I should add that most eviction cases involve two things that the landlord's asking for. One is I'd like this person to be evicted. And the other is I would like what we call a money judgment, which is an order from the court saying, and you owe X amount of past due rent and you have to pay it someday, even though you can't pay it now necessarily. The summons is a piece of paper that says, you are being sued and tells you some information about filing an answer, how much time you have to do that, et cetera. So often the very first packet that a tenant gets also includes what's called a motion to pay rent into court or a motion to escrow rent. And what that means is the landlord is asking the court to order that the tenant make regular rent payments pursuant to the lease, but pay it to the court while the case is going on. And that sounds kind of funny, but the way it's set up in the law is that if the judge finds that the tenant should be making those payments and determines what the right amount is, et cetera. And then the tenant misses a payment. The landlord has the right to get them out quickly. And that's really within a week of being delivered paperwork from the court by a sheriff saying you didn't pay and you have to leave. It's a very, very important piece of paper that motion that order to pay rent. So one of the things that has happened in recent years is some of the courts now have volunteer lawyers at the courthouse to help in these hearings, to help the tenants negotiate with the landlords or advocating court for them. And sometimes that's to work out an agreement when a tenant realizes there's just no way I'm ever gonna be able to come up with the money that I really do owe and the best thing to do is move on. Those things can be worked out in those kinds of hearings. But if the tenant doesn't come to that hearing that order is probably gonna get issued. If the tenant does come, the tenant has the opportunity to say, judge, yeah, I know the lease says $800, but the stove hasn't worked for six months. The heat isn't working. I shouldn't have to pay the full rent. And we might say, you're right. Maybe you have to pay $400, not 800. The tenant may be able to prove that in fact they have paid the rent. I've had cases where they come in and show they did pay it. They put it in the landlord's slot in the landlord just didn't pick up their envelopes. So it's really important that the tenant come and present whatever evidence they have at those hearings. And so if there's an order that says, you get this sort of formal paperwork and you're the tenant and it says, you're ordered to pay rent into court. That doesn't mean you lost your case, right? That's correct. That's correct. And it's very confusing because there are all these pieces to the case. Usually what happens, I should say, not every case is the same. Some don't even have a motion to pay rent into court. Some don't have anything to do with rent, right? Some cases are based on the fact that, you know, you're causing trouble in the apartment and I just want you out or your lease is up and I want my grandmother to move into the apartment and I have a right at a certain point to ask you to leave. So that every case can be different. But most of the time when it has to do with rent, there's gonna be a motion like this. And the first step is that rent escrow hearing. But after that, both sides have the right to ask each other for information. Like I want all your copies of all the rent receipts because I didn't keep them, but you should have them. They both get to request information and we typically will have what's called a status conference at least once where we're talking about, you know, can you work it out? Is there, has the tenant being able to maybe get some funds from another source? You know, there are places that will help people with that rent and that can include things like churches that can include in various parts of the state, different kinds of organization that have funds, have grants to help people. And so sometimes cases will get resolved and everybody's happy and it gets dismissed. And so we have these conferences often to sort of see where things are going. But ultimately most cases are resolved either by a motion which I'll explain in a minute or by a trial and the trial is, can be with a jury. It can be just with a judge. If we're heading towards a trial we might have something called a pre-trial conference where we say how long a trial do we need? That could happen also at a status conference but we would talk about, you know, how many witnesses are there? Is this half a day? Are there 20 witnesses or are there three? And we would discuss how much time to schedule it for and when to schedule it. But there can be motions that come to the judge which are basically written document saying judge we should win this case without a trial and here's why. And there are a lot of different kinds. One of the common ones is what we call a motion for default judgment. And that's when the tenant doesn't respond at all to the paperwork. And so back to my point, you always wanna respond if you get sued and file something with the court and tell the court that you disagree and you don't wanna leave and you wanna hearing and so forth. But if the tenant gets the paperwork what happens is we get proof that the sheriff delivered it the landlord files that with the court and if they don't respond and generally have 21 days to file papers in response to that complaint. The landlord can file this motion and say we should win because they're not even showing up and a lot of cases get resolved that way. So show up. Judge to your point, I think that the Vermont courts and Jean and Angela jump in but I think the Vermont courts do an exceptional job of encouraging people to participate and explaining in lay person's terms what is happening and what's going to happen especially for those parties who aren't represented by a lawyer and who are just appearing themselves and are trying to learn what is happening. And I just always view the Vermont judiciary as a place where in that context, in that setting very good about explaining to both sides here's what's happening, here's what's going to happen. If you don't understand something you can essentially raise your hand and ask the judge what something means or what you need to do and the judge is always. It's really not that scary, right? I mean, we do try to be a place where we can have a conversation. I know people are often very scared when they come to court, understandably. I'm usually wearing that black robe that's hanging back there. It looks a little scarier than how I am now. But yeah, we want people to understand the process. We want people to have a fair opportunity to present their case on both sides. And I should add, we have, particularly in some areas of the state there are a lot of landlords who don't have lawyers either. So we have both sides who don't understand the terminology and don't know the process. And we do our best to try and explain it and sort of help people. But I should also say, a judge cannot, we can explain the process and terms and so forth. We can't help one side and say, here's what you should be doing to win. We can't do that even if I know that. I can't help one side more than the other. I have to sort of help both sides. And that can just be a tough situation when you know somebody's blowing it but it's really not our job. We're not allowed to help one side, more than the other. One thing I wanna just add and that is that at trials or at Rennesco hearings or other kinds of motion hearings where we're going to be hearing testimony, which is just people talking under oath. It's really important for people on both sides to bring paperwork that relates to the case and to have it there to show the judge. Right now, that means submitting it to the court in advance so that we have it in our computer system because we're doing everything electronically and the hearing notices tell people that but people need to read that and understand that. The kinds of things that you might wanna bring would be a copy of the lease. Sometimes the tenant has a different lease than the landlord because it changed over time. If you have a second lease, you wanna make sure you bring it so the right one is there. If the fight is over whether you paid rent in February, if you have a receipt for a money order or you have a canceled check or you got a receipt from the landlord, you wanna bring all that stuff. Pictures of the overflowing toilet, whatever it is. So it's really important that you prepare for these hearings and get as much of the information in advance to show the judge or to show the jury as you possibly can. It's about 7.15. And so I just wanna remind the panel we need to wrap up by 7.30. And I do want to make sure that if there are any questions at the end we have time for that. So participants please send us your Q and A questions on the message board and we will try to take those. Judge, what happens after judgment issues? So the judgment is the order at the end of the case and it can, as I said, it can usually it will address two things whether the tenant has to leave, whether the tenant owes money. And if it's about money, it's good for eight years and then it has to get renewed for another eight years which can go on forever. But if someone forgets, then it's done after eight years. And it's just a piece of paper that says the judge says that you owe this money to the person. It doesn't magically make the money appear but the person who won that judgment can take steps to try to collect that. And that the most common one that we see in this kind of case is asking the court to what most people will call garnish wages in Vermont. It's called trustee process. And that means they are asking to, you know have the judge say that X amount of money is gonna come out of every paycheck to go to the landlord to pay what you owe them. And I should add this is in all kinds of cases we're talking eviction cases now but these judgments can be for all kinds of things you know a contract, you didn't pay a credit card or whatever it might be. So one thing that's really great about Vermont which is not true in all states is that we have a hearing before we do that. In some states people can automatically start taking money out if the tenant doesn't ask for a hearing. We always give you the opportunity to come to court and say judge I cannot afford to have money taken out of my paycheck. But again, same point you've got to come to that hearing when you get that notice so that we can hear that information and consider how much money you have. And we have restrictions that don't allow us to order those kinds of payments if you have a certain, you know if your income is too lower, your expenses are too high. And so telling us, you know, I have three kids this is what I spend on food this is what I, et cetera, et cetera. We consider that and if you're getting under any government benefits we are not allowed to order that you make payments or that you have money taken out like that. So again, we don't know that unless you come and tell us that really important to do that. One other thing, the writ of possession which is on this chart is just an order from the judge that tells the sheriff, go to the house give them notice they have to leave. One thing we don't do in Vermont is throw all your stuff on the sidewalk which they do do in some other states. There are rules about what happens if the tenant leaves things in the apartment after they leave and storage and all that and I won't get into that but it doesn't end up on the sidewalk and the sheriff doesn't come and say leave now the order will give them a certain number of days which typically is either seven days or 14 days. And the tenant, if the tenant has not shown up throughout the case and they suddenly get that order they do have the right to come to court and explain they had a good reason why they didn't respond earlier. I was in the hospital, I didn't know this was happening whatever it is and we can stop that writ the judge can reconsider and sometimes we do and sometimes we go back and redo the whole case because they had a good reason that they didn't show up earlier. So you can always ask a judge to intervene and change something I guess is the message there. So Chris, I want to say that during this particular time as the pandemic is ending and the courts are reopening it is so important that tenants not be evicted for non-payment of rent. We've already talked to you about there's a rent assistance program but the legislature has also funded Vermont Legal Aid to represent tenants if they get a summons and complaint and help them negotiate with their landlord to get the landlord paid and the court case dismissed. And so if you're below the income threshold which is 80% area median income which for other it translates into three or 400% of poverty it's not a really very low threshold. A lot of people in Vermont will apply to it because median income in Vermont is like $50,000 and depending on your household size. So people with a household of three with maybe only $65,000 a year income could meet this depending on which county you live in. So if you're looking at court papers that have to do with non-payment of rent call Legal Aid. We will help you get the rent assistance money and negotiate with your landlord to get the case dismissed. And Jean, that help is for free, correct? For free, yeah. And there is a chart up on the VRAP website that shows what the area median income is based on household size by county. So it changes by county around the state. So if you wanted to get just a rough sense of what the number is, they're higher than people think. So. And that website again, erap.vsha.org. Yes. This has been a really interesting conversation and I just wanna thank each of you for providing so much helpful information. I wonder if we can close with just your general observation about having worked in this area offering your expertise to so many parties whether it be through the court's judge tour or whether it be providing that information to landlords, Angela or to tenants, Jean. What do you take away from where we've been over the last year and a half and where can we go as a state in ensuring stable housing for Vermonters? We need more housing. And non-payment eviction is entirely preventable and much cheaper to do than what we currently do. And once you take away the tension and I'd actually like Angela to talk about this because I've heard her talk about it before. Once you take away the tension of non-payment between landlords and tenants, housing is much more stable. And if the tension is caused by non-payment, we don't have to do it this way. We had enough housing and enough money. Yeah, I think we've seen unprecedented levels of cooperation between landlords and tenants. And yes, we've had some spectacular conflicts but we see those sort of normally. But I think to Jean's point, if we have a process and a way to fund assistance sort of more permanently that people can access to stay out of the eviction process, it benefits everybody, landlords and tenants. It just sort of closes the loop and keeps that stressor off. May help the courts too. Right, I think the courts are really hopeful that these funds and the mediation program are going to be able to resolve a lot of the cases that would otherwise have to come through the court system. Well, thank you all very much for this talk and this conversation. I think there's a lot here to consider and my hope is that for those Vermonters who are in need, whether you're a landlord or a tenant, you will apply to access the resources that are currently available, understanding that it may take a little time and it may require some navigation but really apply for those funds and that can go a long way to resolving some of the tension in these circumstances. And then lastly, I would say for those viewers who still have questions or if you haven't offered a question during the course of this discussion, please reach out to the Vermont Landlords Association or to Vermont Legal Aid because they are experts and they are here to help you. So if you have questions, they can direct you to other resources if that's appropriate or they may be able to help you themselves but they have a lot of great information and expertise to share. And with that, we are about at the end of our time. I wanna thank each of you again, Angela Zajkowski, the Vermont Landlord Association, Jean Murray with Vermont Legal Aid and Judge Tour from the Vermont Superior Court. Thank you all so much for spending part of your evening with us. Thank you, Chris. Thanks, Chris. Thanks, Chris. Thank you.