 our fellow legislators perspective we could just get a quick overview of the thinking and where the house is and then we'll go to David Hall and do a walk through of the bill and then we'll start opening up for our witnesses and discussions but I'd like to like hear from Tom for maybe five minutes and then David for 10 and then hear from witnesses including the administration switch boxes on me Tom hi hey well I decided to block myself out until we got to this point so thank you very much for all you've been doing over there yeah thank you thank you for for having me in and I'm gonna do this and then duck out because everybody here is gonna be able to answer the questions far better than I am we did this as everybody knows on the 12th or so of March the house anyway was given the directive to start working on a COVID response for areas in our portfolio and of course it came up very quickly that the three things that are in 11.1 were the first things that came and it became the most important things to come out of our committee and they do go hand-in-hand with some of the COVID response that came out of commerce in other committees but basically there's three parts in the bill as it stands and the first part is about family leave the second part is about homelessness mitigation and the third part is about rental evictions and I think the strongest work in the bill right now is in the rental evictions this was a longest process of trying to get the language right we had the parameters as early as March 13th about what we wanted to do but as we all know with eviction processes are not just simply saying you can't do you can't effect there have to be many many nuances dealt with and what is truly impressive over the last couple of weeks while it's not while it was pretty tedious at times in terms of the language and in doing it in a zoom setting or in a phone setting rather than face-to-face the work that was done between Vermont Legal Aid and Vermont Landlord Association the judiciary the advocates early on VHCB was a was a heavy participant early on we talked to AHS and DCF about some of the aspects of the homelessness mitigation a lot of which has been done but now there's the issue of funding ongoing capacity issues so what you're gonna be looking at is is is the result of that work again I think the most important piece of it is gonna be the rental eviction but I wouldn't I wouldn't ignore the other pieces right now as well the our committee I sent an email to Senator Clarkson and Senator Sorak in last night just with a quick update of how our committee has left this given that the Senate is in a in a closer place to passing bills it's we were fine with taking you taking this language and working on it and passing it back to us to finish up our committee was pretty exhausted by the end of yesterday in talking about this simply because of the the details that went into it and getting and getting this eviction protection process right as right as we could possibly get it and so I'm hoping that when you look at it you'll also take a look at um for instance the there is a number associated with an appropriation in terms of the homelessness mitigation by the end of yesterday we felt like that language was we weren't comfortable necessarily putting that into a finished bill at this time but that's something for you to consider that you know without knowing how much federal money is coming and how much money might be available in our general fund we thought that just simply implying that and this is not in the bill this is just in the message that I sent which was saying that we were comfortable with pervading the message that it's the extent that funds are available we would like to see this funding go to DCF so that it can address these purposes that are in the bill in terms of the family leave portion we think we can handle that or address that after this set after this particular portion of the bill is passed I think that's something that we'll see as an ongoing need rather than an immediate need so that's really um it was it was good to hear from the senate last week and and and try to work together in a way that we haven't worked with try to expedite this I think the stakeholders have all emphasized how important it is to get a statewide program in place when it comes to addressing eviction protections and not just eviction protections but also everything that goes along with it we don't want to put landlords out of business we don't want to put people on streets you know and then that was the that was the problem we had to solve here through our existing legal system and so there's a session law this isn't changing anything in the underlying statute this is all in response to the covid crisis and um you know I hope you guys I expect you guys do good work on it and you know David David has worked um hand in hand with the advocates to get the language right and again everybody who's here judge gerson jeed murray and and angela have all been um have all been in our committee testifying this week on the bill so I think you'll find that there's some unanimity in the language um there may be some questions about are is there going to be more to be put forward but again that's up to you guys to to determine so I appreciate the opportunity to fill you in answer I'll be happy to answer any questions before you get to David um if not then I'll take off okay uh thank you very much I'm looking on our web page and the last document I see I think from David Hall is draft 8.1 am I missing oh I thought faith and Denise were posting 11.1 uh oh I see I see I see it now it's under Damien thank you it's under Damien Leonard it probably should be under David Hall it should be under David and it yeah David well Damien was the initial attorney on this and he did the um family work he did the first draft on this and then when it went started go further David of course came in to to lend his expertise to the um to the rental housing portion of it the other thing that did not get handled in this bill because um and this is the interesting part between uh while you are our sister committee on many issues you are also the sister committee to commerce and one of the issues that came up in this conversation that I don't think is fully addressed here is the aspect of commercial rent right um and so that's just something to leave out there we felt comfortable with residential rental processes not commercial that's something that the bankers association will probably be able to um give you good information on about what's what's happening in that world but I commercial commercial leases are not are in our portfolio so that portion was not included in this bill this was strictly for residential at this point in time may may I just say uh chair Tom thank you for that uh we had Betsy Bishop in it was a little rushed at the end of our meeting and they are uh they may need to be a second bill because they will take more time if our objective is to get roll this out fast and uh then I think that that is a separate issue and so it's a very different and it's a very different creature um I would encourage us to think about that and move fast on it but move fast maybe in a separate bill for later in the week that's fine I mean this just does this bill does have include this does include language on mortgages um as well and and just I think what's come up to is this notion of of how we're going to once this bill is put into place of how we're going to message this bill there have been some concerns raised by by folks like VHFA or and others who are concerned that people will consider this a rent holiday and that it is clear in the bill that that is not the case uh this is not this is not an opportunity for you to not pay rent if you're able to do so um this is strictly emergency situations if you're unable to do so during during this crisis and so um that's a fine line that's a that's going to be a messaging thing coming from our our respective leaderships to make sure that when this bill is put into place that we are um we are not telling people that they can stop paying rent or stop paying their mortgage what we're saying is that if they are being negatively affected financially that there are some protections in place until until things straighten out a little bit right let me ask you one question I'll let you go Tom thank you again um the time frame of this moratorium is how long in the bill and is that where you were originally when you first started talking about it and has that changed at all uh it has I mean we originally our original uh work on this said when the emergency is declared over that there would be a period of 60 days where this would still move out the through negotiations again with the stakeholders and they'll be able to clarify as with anything relating to residential statute uh Landlord tenant law it is um there's all these notice requirements is all and when it comes to the Ritz the number of Ritz that are being drawn up legally and they'll be able to go through it but we had put a blanket 60 days which got changed in the in the first next draft you know a couple of weeks ago when we started meeting by zoom um down to 30 days because people felt that that was sufficient in order to restart the processes and they've been refined since and you'll hear that from David and the advocates about each particular each particular um instance has a slightly different time frame to it so it's not it's not as simple as saying 60 or 30 days so um we talked about this a little bit at our all senate meeting and um one of a concern that I have is that the situation we're laboring under right now is not ideal but there is the possibility of further legislation on residential evictions down the road and in the camp of uh not sure if we've gotten it right or heard from any everybody and all the interplay that happens in a normal legislative process I think what we're going to be talking about uh is how far out we want to go in this um um with this bill uh without further ado one of the things I'm thinking about and what I've heard is that there is potentially substantial help in the federal law to address these situations that could get at the health problems of people potentially being put out with without having an ability to find alternative housing and as you well know it's a nightmare out there trying to understand all the ins and outs of the federal law which will become clearer over the next week so um money was a key part of your bill at one point uh it's the flip side of what we're doing here in terms of prevention of the health crisis so we're going to take a look at how far out this bill goes and needs to go knowing that we could pass subsequent legislation to try and be somewhat more nimble uh with this uh if you think that's fine uh I just want to let you know that's one of the thoughts that at least I've I've been having no I think that's fine I think that's um you know again by we put the number in there and back in back in March as a placeholder because that was when we were doing the back of the envelope math on what it would take to fill the the hop grants in terms of rental reages or rental assistance programs that may or may not exist already you know it's just it was a it was a real immediate indication of what we thought the size of the problem was going to be especially in the short term but the way that this has been managed since then is really trying to say that there's an emergency period and during the emergency period certain things can and can't happen and then once the emergency period ends what will happen after that um that's and so it it lends itself to being viewed in a longer term but that's not the money part of it the money part of it I mean it may be in terms of what courts will need eventually down the line or what we'll need for rental arrearages but I think that um the other aspects of this including the homelessness mitigation again at by the end by the end of yesterday we didn't feel comfortable we didn't feel comfortable saying that five million was the number we're not an appropriating committee but we really want to make sure that that the money that has been appropriated can be used if it can be used for these purposes that it is absolutely being spent on these on these needs and like you said it's too still too you may know more by Wednesday of next week about how that money can be spent um and that would that would be ideal so I you know at this point we we wanted to get you the language we wanted you to do your work on it and be able to pass it because you're again going to be in the position to do that a little bit sooner than we are and and certainly we want to be able to get to a point where where when we're able to vote as a as a caucus of the whole that we'll be able to do so on a bill that really really gets it across it's really become clear as more people have become aware of some of the housing issues especially now with the turn of the turn of the month where rent is due people are people are nervous about what may happen so basically we're just do your work and and then you know stay in touch and we'll we'll continue to work together on it and in in in a way that we really aren't able to do otherwise one one final question I promise this time I'll let you go that came up also in our in our all senate meeting was do you have a handle or were you working under any assumption as to the numbers of people out there presently who are down the line in terms of rates of possession that are not theoretically protected by the court's administrative order right now no not in terms of actual numbers we were concentrating on the numbers that we were concentrating on was trying to get the same rules across 14 counties first of all you know there have been protections put in place by by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac there have been protections put in place by HUD oriented properties but you know we're talking about upwards of 65 percent perhaps or more of of rental buildings or rental units that are funded in some way by any of those any of those federal programs we don't know that there we don't know that we're going to miss anybody in those programs and again we don't know everything about those programs yet so we're still talking about at the very least 35 percent of the people of renters who may be in this boat of potential of potential eviction protections in terms of just buildings that don't have any money that's attached to the federal government or the state government in any way so but no not in terms of I mean I perhaps the perhaps the advocates will have a better idea of what they've seen and what they would expect under normal circumstances and then what they might be expecting under these circumstances but we don't have a we don't have a number there we were just concentrating on trying to do something that was statewide rather than rather than a county by a time we saw what happened in Chittin County where there's an order was put forward but we wanted to make sure that we had the same rules going on across the whole state thank you very much Tom we appreciate it let you go now all right thank you senator I appreciate the time do good work thank you thanks okay David Paul are you there I'm here okay so I'm having a little trouble on my end pulling up the bill I mean I have it but it's frozen let me see if I can try something else I'm sharing my screen if it helps any of you right I see it it says you're viewing David Hall's screen but I'm not able to scroll at all oh that's well from from my share I'm controlling the okay my screen is going section seven yes is there a way to get to the beginning of the or is this with the part of the bill that we're talking about only this part well sections one through six deal with the family leave provisions that okay that's the answer to the mystery okay why don't you uh proceed and walk us through what you have let me turn off my I'm sorry okay uh further your the record that we're keeping my name is David Hall sorry Michael we've sort of lost your audio I'm here I just went on to mute so I'm going to put my I'll leave my thing on unmuted but if David could go forward can you hear me now yes okay okay as you discussed section seven here is the appropriation section I understand this may come out or it may be modified to remove the number and say something like to the extent funds are available but for now section seven is a live appropriation in this draft section eight is the charge to DCF DHCD BHCB and other partners as necessary to administer funding for emergency relief specifically necessitated by the spread of COVID-19 somebody needs to mute their phone please I'm sorry go ahead sure um so these uh we've looked at these before I don't know we don't really need to go through them now unless you want to but these are basically the services that are being performed currently by DCF and the hop programs and you know it just essentially is a cross the board service for housing search stability mediation follow-up or rearages security posits short-term assistance etc you know they're supposed to develop a process criteria I understand this may also be streamlined to say that they can just use whatever existing protocols they have you know there haven't been a lot of discussions frankly about whether DCF is the right place for this to go this charge if it's the right charge the scope of the services etc I want to flag those but I'm going to move on to the eviction piece unless you have specific questions on section eight oh please proceed okay so uh section nine moves on to ejectment and foreclosure actions and I just I want to note from the very beginning that right now this deals expressly with uh residential mortgage foreclosures and with evictions it does not at this point I think it still needs to be clarified whether this is going to address commercial leases so if it's going to include that we need to say so if it's not I think you need to say so right now it right now it's kind of in a gray area in subsection eight is a couple of definitions to go with this piece the emergency period is the period beginning with this declaration of the state of emergency on March 13th and ending 30 days after the governor terminates the state of emergency by declaration so that's a defined term in this draft it is the period of emergency plus 30 days after the governor terminates a state of emergency and he has to do so by declaration to turn this bill off so to speak right and that that had changed from the last draft it was 60 days wasn't it I don't know if it was in the last draft it's 60 but that's 60 is where it started right right thank you um okay and the foreclosure is the foreclosure action brought uh under 12 vsa chapter 72 172 against a dwelling house if you are going to limit the scope of this just to residential then I would probably recommend a third definition here just to say that when you are talking about an ejection action you are referring to an action against the residential property under 9 vsa 137 and 12 vsa 169 um but I'll leave that to you so the duties here you have seen this piece before it's a little broader um in its scope the purpose of this subsection b is to explicitly state you know duties going forward uh that are not sort of paused by this bill so under b one this this act would not relieve a tenant of the obligation to pay rent under two this this would not relieve a tenant in a pending ejection action of the obligation to pay rent into court pursuant to an existing order under 12 vsa 48 53 a so if you've already got that order in and the tenant is paying rent into court under that section this does not turn that off they are still obligated to continue making those payments pursuant to the order under b three this does not relieve a borrower and a residential loan agreement of the obligation to make timely payments pursuant to the terms of the loan agreement and then four this is a piece that was uh negotiated by the stakeholders extensively and I think at this point they're all happy with it um under four it would not limit a court's ability to act in an emergency pursuant to administrative order 49 issued by the supreme court as amended including when a landlord terminates a tenancy pursuant to nine vsa section 44 67 b two based on criminal activity the legal drug activity or acts of violence any of which threaten the health or safety of other residents so I just like could I put a flag there for further discussion at some point you know when we get to discussing it well um I think we should uh in some ways take some questions uh as we go um I think I I have a question on this section as well so why don't you go for it Allison okay um David the the one thing that's been raised for me in my neck of the woods is there was a question from a landlord about physical extreme physical damage to a an apartment so I suppose we could interpret this as threatening the health and safety but it limits it all only the people uh extreme physical damage to a property is also something I'd love to have us at least think about sure so let let me say um that subdivision b four is meant to preserve basically the status quo under a o 49 and right under that standard it is in the discretion of the superior court to determine what an emergency landlord tenant situation is and whether or not they're going to hear that case or that motion or that whatever and whether they're going to act on it that is reserved specifically under this order right and the addition here in lines 13 through 15 again I think that is to included to expressly say uh you know what is implicit and is already the law which is right subdivision b2 here those those bases criminal activity drug activity acts of violence those are things that could be considered emergency circumstances that a court would hear but you know the function of b4 is not to create some other standard than what the administrative order has got it is just building on and being more explicit in some area okay fine so you're saying that the judge could could consider that at any extreme action yes right okay I'm fine with that and it leaves it in the court you know I mean you could this could right this could be constructed in a way that says notwithstanding everything going on in this bill in cases of extreme damage or immediate threat to health a court shall hear that action immediately right but that's what this does thanks okay so my my question to see if I can articulate this is and Judge Greerson may comment when he testifies on this presently as I understand the emergency power is that there is a moratorium on doing the preliminary eviction filing and in the most commonplace instance a payment for non payment into court process and then it becomes from that point forward it becomes a ministerial act to to reduce this to by by the court clerk and then by a sheriff to proceed with the eviction the off-ramp that the court has on the administrative order is generally applicable for a landlord probably to get beyond the administrative orders scope of its moratorium there are a lot of tenants out there that are unaware of anything we're doing and they're already they're already at a point where they haven't paid their rent and are subject to administrative acts going forward and would never think to comment ask the court for an administrative for an emergency relief here what we're doing in this bill is we're saying okay there's there are these people out there and we're going to have to try and find out how many are subject to rits of possession without any further court involvement and we want to stay those rits of possession in this case so I guess what I'm asking is that limit the court's ability to act in an emergency pursuant to administrative order does that a does that envision the court stepping in and blocking execution of a writ of possession already and is that power already there and does do we already have the ability to stop these evictions going forward both theoretically and practically I don't know if you if you follow that question or if you can answer it or whether we should wait to judge Geerson well I might welcome his insights let me say that this bill I mean if you pass this it goes a step further and it says new general rule moratorium on pending actions new actions any orders any rits or anything else period everything hits pause when this takes effect and it is unpaused some things are going to happen at different times under the different subsections of this bill but generally we are hitting the pause button on absolutely everything and so the question becomes all right what should be the scope of any exception to that blanket moratorium and again pursuant to senator Clarkson's point in question you could have said or you can say we're going to make exceptions for these circumstances minute you know whatever it happens to be issue rits already in action let them keep going or only we're only going to hear a case if there's damage or health but it doesn't do that it says blanket stop on everything right before says except if it's an emergency under AO 49 and so under that order the courts have said you know we're we're going to hit pause on everything in the court except for this list of things that we consider to be emergency circumstances included among those things is landlord tenant emergency you know I don't know procedures actions whatever you want to say it's a one-liner it's very narrow and so it's been left to the discretion of each court each superior court to decide what that's going to look like and so you have things like chitlin county where it's a very extensive limitation for a period of time on what they're willing to hear and what actions they'll take other courts haven't done anything yet and so so could could there be the equivalent of a blanket moratorium under the status quo sure if every superior court took this approach but every superior court right now has the authority and the discretion to decide what is an emergency in the landlord tenant context what are we going to hear and what are we going to do and so this would create the general rule pause everything and then if you can show that it's an emergency the courts would still have the ability under before to take that on is that right okay is is judge grison on the line yes okay so i guess my question simply put judge grison is is if there was a possession that has been long-standing out there even before covid 19 presented itself is a o 49 something that a a tenant could go in and say i uh i can't find another place to live i have an emergency here under a o 49 right now does an individual court have the ability to stay uh a rid of possession judge grison right i think the answer is yes but i'd also like to hear he he was with us he may need to unmute himself i mean sadly with david's document up we can't see everybody okay so let's let you hear me now yes there is okay um so i i was saying i agreed with david's analysis and in response to your question senator shrotkin under a o 49 either a landlord or a tenant can seek an emergency order from the court um and so if a tenant was going to be dispossessed and had no other place to go uh they have a right to file um with the court and lay out whatever the facts are um and the court could consider that but there is a latter latter part of this this bill that david hasn't gotten to yet that talks about rits of possession that have already been executed and they are under this bill if you they are stayed as well so even if there's an outstanding writ today yesterday a week ago a month ago that action on the service of the writ has been stayed by this bill and if there was ever a question about it the tenant would be able to seek relief from the court under a o 49 okay all right thank you question michael if i i i would like to go back for a second to uh section b four in terms of the particular activities that could result in eviction if i read it literally there are three things criminal acts illegal drug activity or acts of violence and then it's qualified any of which meeting those three activities uh i can envision a situation for example in which a tenant allows a huge amount of garbage or human waste to accumulate within the act within the the property or allows the water to run such that water runs into another tenant's property now none of those are criminal they're not illegal drug activity nor are they acts of violence uh i wonder if that qualified clause is sufficient to clearly cover all of those activities i think david answered that when i asked about physical and i would be interested in what judge greerson's opinion of that might be well keep in mind it's my opinion senator of what i think this language says and i believe that uh b four is broad enough so that the circumstances you just described would fall under the court's authority under a o 49 um i don't see the additional language of criminal activity drug activity or violence as limiting the court's authority i view that as something that says it's including this activity but it does not by including those that type of behavior prohibit the landlord uh from um from seeking relief under a o 49 because of the circumstances you describe and even the circumstances that senator clarkson described um extreme damage to property uh could in in and of itself be criminal activity if if it's uh right unlawful miss jeff unlawful destruction so the kind of behavior you're talking about quite frankly may qualify as criminal behavior but even if it didn't uh senator rock it i think the court that is broad enough for the court to continue to act as circumstances require fine thank you uh michael i know josh hanford has to leave in 10 minutes and oh that's right i didn't know that okay i i believe he he can unmute himself josh is that still correct because if if so obvious i have i have 30 minutes oh okay i thought you said you had to leave by 10 30 okay so let's do this then i did i wasn't aware of that let's um hold our questions on going through the bill at this point and then we'll hear from josh so he can leave in a timely fashion because if we go we could take a long time going through the bill if we ask questions right now so the rules have changed a little bit and let's let's move forward sure i'll be quick subsection c we've looked at this this address is pending foreclosure and ejection action so this says when this act takes effect all pending actions for ejection and actions for foreclosure are stayed until the end of the emergency period so that's the state of emergency declaration plus 30 days under to a court of the state before which any matter is stayed shall issue necessary orders and provide notice to the parties of the state not later than five days out of the effective date of this act i understand that that time frame is not realistic for the court um and probably needs to be not five days under the new for new foreclosure and ejection actions so during the emergency period the landlord may commit an ejection an action a mortgage lender can commence a foreclosure proceeding but it's subject to one two three and four here you can the plaintiff can only commence the action by filing and not by service the court has to stay the action as of the date of filing until the end of the emergency period plaintiff shall not attempt to serve and a sheriff or constable shall not serve any civil process and then the deadline for completing service will be pushed back for the 60 days after the emergency period ends so everything in these new cases from the filing to the service are just going to be paused until the emergency period ends so he deals with rits of possession that aren't yet issued so during the emergency period the court will not issue a writ of possession in any ejection action and in any foreclosure action under f rits of possession already issued so three things here one a writ that was issued by a court prior to the effective date of this act is stayed as of the start date of the emergency period and resumes running when the governor terminates the state of emergency by declaration but notice that that's a different time and this was negotiated by the stakeholders so if it's a writ of possession that was already issued before the emergency they are it is paused but it unpauses upon the declaration not at the end of the emergency period under two if a writ of possession was issued but not executed prior to the effective date of the act and after the governor terminates this data emergency by declaration under a the plaintiff has to serve or re-serve the writ to the defendant b the plaintiff shall be restored to possession not sooner than 14 days after service under three if a writ was served but not executed prior to the effective date then the sheriff or constable who served the writ shall coordinate with the court to determine how to notify the defendant of the stay of the execution date so that was a little bit different from the last time you saw it previously the suggestion was that the sheriff or constable would have the duty to provide written notice on the defendant that there was a stay this is changed so that the sheriff or constable will work with the court and they will determine how best to notify the defendant that it's been in state whether that's certified mail or email or I don't know what else there's discretion there figure out the most effective means uh collaboratively I'm going to break my rule just for a second here can you just be clear with us yes the committee um the difference between serving a writ of possession and executing your position yeah so if you think of the writ of possession as is sort of moving in three phases um it's first just after there's a judgment and the court has decided that uh the landlord or the owner needs is has the legal right to be restored then it issues the writ of possession that goes to a sheriff or constable who serves it and they actually that is service of the writ the execution comes after that and execution is the period if there's a date that comes with your served written it says this writ is going to be executed not sooner than 14 days from now but it'll usually have a date right it's my understanding and that is the date on which the tenant has to be off of the property and if that date comes and they are not off of the property then the sheriff or constable uh shall remove them from the property that is the execution and in Vermont there is no self-help you can't do a constructive eviction by cutting off the power or locking the doors you can't move everybody stuffed out onto the front yard this this eviction and ejectment has to to happen according to these steps and it has to be the sheriff or constable who executes the writ and accomplishes the change and physical possession of the property is it is it uh always the case that there's a specific date when that's going to occur that's put on the writ of possession that's I believe so I mean there are people who deal with this stuff in real life more than I do but I believe there is always a date of execution yes okay thank you judge and and I I think the reason for us to act quickly is that this is where some of the uncertainty is right now for a handful of people and maybe Jean or Angela can when we get to them can give us a better notion of how many people are in this kind of funny limbo between service and execution but in in my mind this is the concerning group that may be affected by this bill is that right I think David they're effective for sure yeah this bill yeah okay would be you know the difference between them when losing possession and not right exactly okay okay um I'm going to keep moving in the interest of time gee yeah rent escrow hearings um so I believe we have looked at this before this is after the emergency period has ended and we're starting back up with rent escrow hearings under 12 vsa 48 53 a so in the first 45 days after the emergency period ends and one of these hearings comes up um then there's a this is going to be to deal with the problem of how much rent you actually have to pay into court um right now under the current law you would have to pay not only the rent as it's accruing during the pendency of the action but also all of the back rent essentially since the action began so if this emergency goes on for six or seven months these actions start back up under the current law a tenant who is ordered to pay rent into court at that time is going to have to pay all of the rent that is accrued during the entire emergency period so that could be six seven eight twelve months who knows right that assumes that they haven't been paying rent sure so this would be where landlord brings files in motion for an order to for the court to to order the defendant to pay into rent because there's been non-payment so the court has to find that you are obligated to pay and you didn't pay in that case they can order you to pay rent so the the change here from the the deviation from the statute here is that the rent accrual from what is back rent what's owed your rearage whatever you want to call it it will basically start from the end of the emergency period or the date of the service of this motion um depending on when it was filed but the the net result is going to be that everybody is paying back rent only from the end of the emergency period or later i can go through the words but i'm trying to hurry unless you have questions okay can you just explain for i guess the general rationale is that basically uh relieving tenants of back rent that the landlords never going to be able to get well it it relieves the tenant of the obligation of showing up to court and being in a court issuing an order that requires the court to collect back rent from the time a suit was begun and coming out of let's say an eight month emergency where people aren't working and maybe they haven't been paying rent because they can't then they'll show up to court and they'll be ordered to pay eight thousand dollars in the court because they've missed eight months of rent payment so to avoid that problem um the amount that would have to be paid at back rent would be measured from the end of the emergency period or from the time the motion was served if it was served after this act takes effect so the question i hear you asking is well what happens to the landlord who now has eight months of back rent that's unpaid um fair question you know the action will proceed if the if the tenant pays rent in the court and yeah they're legally on the hook to have paid it so you know the tenant can still lose and the landlord would still have the legal right to receive that money whether the tenant has it i don't know ideally uh whatever funding you provide will help the landlords and the tenants in those situations i assume we'll ask angela that question um my guess is that the premises that we're still assuming that the tenant is going to be moved out and that's the primary goal at that point and to the extent that they can get some money during the pendency of the action that's what the landlords want and they're not that concerned with um the lost rent over the period of of the of the uh of the crisis so so i do want to note under two here there is further discretion in the court it may reduce the amount of rent the defendant must pay after considering a tenants ability to pay due to circumstances arising in the emergency period and b whether the tenant made good faith attempts to secure available emergency rental payment funds so the court could set the the amount at zero or a hundred dollars or two hundred dollars based on the circumstances it's going to be a case by case decision but the court will have that discretion again this is only for motions for this kind of order that are going to happen in that first 45 days after that we go back to the default standard in section 4853 a so two more pieces here under subsection h uh notwithstanding any other provision of this act an ejectment action for breach of a rental agreement pursuant to 9 vsa 44 67 b may proceed in court when the governor terminates the state of emergency by declaration so this this gives a 30 day jump um on these types of actions and the basis that's referenced here in subsection b there's there's two of them it's a breach of a material term of the rental agreement or b two which we've already seen above which is the criminal activity legal drug activity etc so if an ejectment action is proceeding on one of those bases then it can restart as soon as the governor declares an end to the state of emergency doesn't have to wait until the end of the emergency period has got it okay last piece subsection i this was formally a change to the underlying statute which requires notarization it has been modified so that only applies during the emergency period so during the emergency period notwithstanding for vsa 27 b a party may file any document that otherwise require notarization by including the statement i declare it's true and accurate best of my knowledge i'll be so the one addition here is starting on line 13 it says i will be subject to the penalty of perjury the statute ends there and in the addition is this last clause or other sanctions in the discretion of the court so um this gives the court some flexibility about what maybe they can impose some other sanction if somebody has filed a false document or a false attestation and these other two pieces two and three just follow the underlying statute right great thank you so that's all i have and i'm going to stop unless there's questions and let other people and you're you're with us for the duration i am indeed okay so uh denise uh and faith i can see where this is headed it's already 10 30 uh i'm i'm thinking that our second issue we may not get to today there's a lot of work and discussion that needs to take place here um so why uh why don't you call the witnesses or get in touch with the witnesses for the unemployment small business piece um and tell them uh that we're not going to go forward with that today i unless people have objections and see a real need to get that information done i think we really need to focus on this particular bill today and i think there's going to be a lot of questions so um anybody on the committee have concerns with that or feel differently no i i think that's good particularly because uh we have the small business uh solution task force meeting at 130 right right okay um so if you can call those witnesses and let them know we're probably going to postpone them we'll get back to them uh we'll postpone them to to monday or tuesday but for them to just stay tuned uh can we hear from josh okay thank you as to what the governor uh or the administration's position on this concept at this point is and if they've reviewed the bill whether they have specific concerns sure can you hear me now yes josh yeah okay so for the record josh handford um first thanks senator rock and junior committee and also representative stevens and his committee on this work and the stakeholders um they've done a great job of coming to agreement here um this new version addresses many of the concerns that i brought up before about the public safety issues and the need for those evictions in many cases to to go forward um also the funding piece i know there might be more time needed on that but that's kind of critical uh as well um the sort of flexibility that's given under the existing language is something we support um you know we will work with the cares act and the various funding that's going to come through on that to leverage and work um with this appropriation if it moves forward uh but the latest uh conversation about what's going to happen with certain payments um that haven't been paid the landlords during this period um might not being satisfied could have a substantial impact on some properties um so i i know the idea is to move this eviction part forward quickly maybe come back to that funding i think that the federal funding is going to be a big help but there will be holes um a lot of that's going to go through you know housing vouchers rental assistance that is not going to touch all the these situations um but i'll just leave it at that um so the governor particularly on the the governor's position on this um the governor has not been able to review and respond to this bill he has it last night um you know but like i said many of the issues we raised earlier have been addressed with this new version and really commend the the work of the stakeholders to get to this point i think that um you know it's been brought up that other states have issued executive orders to stop evictions much faster you know we've looked at the new hampshire order for example um they don't have a court process to go through that their eviction process is much quicker um and so that was a consideration um and the governor looking at an executive order in in vermont um that new hampshire order was reviewed pretty thoroughly and they have a much different process um i think the main point here it was raised by many in the committee is sort of the balance that we're trying to strike here relief um from these evictions during this this time in the interest of public safety and the balance of folks this not sending the wrong message that it's okay to not pay your your rent or your mortgage in what that might mean um you know i know uh senator shrockin represents deepens you receive you know that those comments from v h f a about industry sort of concerns and that's the balance we're trying to strike here and what the ultimate message of this will be and and some of that's out of our control you know the media how they look at what this bill says and blast you know that there's an eviction and and rents don't have to be paid that that's still up some concern um but the work that's been done is a good step forward i can't give you the exact governor's position on this today but i will assure you that it's being looked at um and that this is good progress so that's all i really have if there's any questions i'd be happy to try to answer could you hear me now i can hear you now we can hear you say i'm just trying to do with my mute uh thank you very much that's uh very helpful and encouraging um i think there'll probably be more work to be done on this issue even if this bill goes forward um and we're committed to to doing that i mean we're in strange circumstances here and trying to get some immediate action but that doesn't mean we're finished so thank you and uh does any of the committee members have any questions for josh uh may i ask one michael absolutely uh michael i mean josh did you see did you hear tom describe um if we took the money out just because that will slow down the bill for next week uh tom had talked about his committee being more comfortable at the moment with uh inserting the language to the extent available through federal government funds appropriated will and then deal with section eight are you will would would have you had a chance to see that and would you support i mean you're not saying whether you fully support it at the moment but is that sort of the direction you're hoping will go in rather than a specific amount but just yeah i heard representative stevens i i mean i think that's fair with what you guys are trying to consider and how to move this um and we don't have the answers either about the federal funds and what if the five million was the right number or not and clearly um dcf and how they're going to minister this there's a lot to still be figured out there but the effort to to to keep that section in there that you know appropriation to be determined or something is is appreciated that there's still a placeholder there okay thanks yeah and um my response to that is that i would want to talk with the rules committee and the appropriations committee because i don't want to inadvertently slow down this bill right with an appropriation section in there we we haven't dealt with this stuff it's kind of crazy you know does this bill then have to go to appropriations for a review and does that set us back a day does it set us back exactly until we next meet we don't know whether we have remote voting yet uh so those kinds of questions also need to be answered but rest assured that um i think a very significant piece of this issue is on the spending end as as well that makes uh people comes up with an equitable solution that tries to make people whole uh as to the fullest extent possible um okay uh let's move on uh one of the things that when we hear from the uh the landlords and the tenants and to a lesser extent from the courts is one of the things that i'm concerned about with this bill comes from experience we've already had in other bills we're moving fast and we don't have necessarily all the facts so we want to present uh prevent the hardship but we may want to skinny this bill down a bit and not deal with issues that are not immediately before us and for instance we don't know what the feds are going to do on the money and how that can help either shorten the time period of coverage of this bill or any of a lot of the words in this bill that deal with what happens after the um emergency goes away and i draw people's attention to the orders from the county court uh judges the those specific to chitin in and washington county and they seem to have addressed the same problem we're trying to deal with in a couple of sentences and paragraphs uh and that seems what i'm hearing is that seems to get at the heart of the problem that we need to face immediately for uh the tenants that may be evicted or homeowners that may be being foreclosed upon without getting into a lot of detail of how things are going to be dealing with in the future and we may have during for instance if we put this into effect for uh until the declaration is finished and we just dealt with the the stay and not where how things are going to be picked up later on i'm not minimizing the fact that we need to deal with those things but we may have more time to deal with them and we may get further input uh on those things so for instance when we were dealing with the unemployment stuff everything was a moving target from where we were learning about what the federal law did and where were we hearing from other stakeholders who have not been heard from and a whole raft of issues that came up either during or after the time we had to get that passed so i would like the testimony to in addition to telling us of the experience of these negotiations of you know why every piece of this bill is essential at this point if you know that we will continue to deal with this issue uh for issues that don't have the immediacy but we will continue to deal with them over the course of the next weeks and months so with that i'd like to um i'm looking for who's on the gene i'd like to hear from you next uh uh what where you've been in your negotiations and why you think every part of this bill is essential right now thank you um i'm gene murray i'm an attorney for mont legal aid um i want to say why uh we're a stakeholder on the tenant side um when you think about all of the evictions that get filed in vermont every year and that um the most recent data says that's a almost 1800 evictions get filed every year about 150 a month most of the defendants most of the tenants are not represented by counsel to a great extent the tenants that are represented by counsel are represented by vermont legal aid so as we have been sitting um here talking i have also been on the email with a lot of my colleagues um gathering the information about how many cases that we have worked on since administrative order 49 came out of the judiciary so administrative order 49 that stayed hearings that that's the essential thing that it did it said we're not going to hold any hearings unless they're an emergency um that came out on march 16th um since that time legal services vermont and vermont legal aid have filed i think we filed 22 uh motions to stay how we found these people um vermont legal aid called all of the sheriffs and said what uh ritsa possession are you holding and then we got the names of those people and called them and asked them to call us so we could file motions to stay um we also had people where we knew because we had worked out um settlement agreements for eviction cases that we knew that people had um ritsa possession coming up in other words the execution date had already been uh set and we knew that these were coming up because of settlements that we had been involved in and so that's where we got uh knowledge of 22 cases where ritsa possession were the dates were coming due since march 13th dates were coming due um and we found 22 of them and right now uh i think 10 or 11 stays have been granted and 11 uh motions for stay are pending um in the meantime individual county courts uh starting with chitenden washington um then Windsor and this morning windham have done that brief um stay but that that what that says is that uh they will they won't hold any hearings on ritsa possession and won't issue any which is fine which is great but that doesn't take care of the ones that were already agreed to and are already pending and those dates are coming up so this bill is needed to um stay all of those all across the state right so that's what we've been doing let me ask the question because i'm a little unclear so the 22 are where the ritsa possession have been issued i don't know if i can't remember whether it's by a judge or by the court clerk and that writ of possession has been served on the tenant and in that writ of possession it says two weeks from now i'm coming there if you're not out i'm going to move you out different ritsa possession have different number of days and so yes they these are ones that the the court has issued a writ of possession or the parties the landlord and tenant have agreed that a writ of possession will issue and that that and they've agreed as to the move out date and those were coming up where people um settled their cases and tenants walked out of court with possession in their hands that set a specific date um that's 20 that's 22 that you've found by calling the sheriffs or by they were your clients to begin with um yes and we have done a little bit of looking through dockets um but the court keeps a docket on every case and as i say there's 150 cases filed a month all across the state and so it's not that easy to find them by just looking at docket entries that would be a lot of docket entries to review okay but are all are all of those have they been all of them been served already by a sheriff or constable well we pulled back some from the sheriff's we found out where the sheriffs were holding them and hadn't yet served them okay they had them in there in baskets to serve okay some have already been served and some are already in the hands of the tenants because they walked out of court with them in their hands um okay and you're saying if they have been served the orders from these four counties doesn't cover that the sheriff is going to go out and and move people out of the houses if the people don't leave right neither administrative order 49 nor these four counties orders would uh stop the execution of the ritz that are in people's hands like for instance we um talked to the sheriff in caledonia county who is holding some ritz in his hand and he said um you know he whatever he needed to communicate with the tenants about this but he also told them to call legal aid so that legal aid could file motions to stay thank you for thank you is there any uh uh judge greeerson i know you you probably had conversations with the judges that have issued this why they didn't could they have and why didn't they order sheriffs who uh a written possession had been served uh to did they purposely they must have known that those people were still i don't want to be judgmental but at risk um did they purposely leave out that group of people senator i i have spoken with the judges um i can't tell you why they didn't issue orders broader than the ones that have been issued but keep in mind that with those five counties having issued these orders that leaves still leaves nine counties that haven't issued these these right and in the other issue as simplistic as the orders appear um so far they have not been challenged whether or not an individual judge can issue a standing order for a class of cases as opposed to an individual case based on its circumstances so i i can't tell you why the judges that issued these orders um didn't go further than they did um but there are still more than half of the counties out there that have not issued these kinds of orders and from what i understand will not be issuing similar orders so you right now you have a mix of orders out there relating to these issues and if nothing more the bill would resolve that right inconsistency i understand the rationale for of uniformity i was just it just struck me as curious is if they were trying to achieve uh a goal of dealing with this virus uh COVID-19 why they stopped short on uh a small number of people who are still in their homes and still in the process and why there were whether you knew of any rationale as to people who had been served with rits of possession wouldn't get the same protection and i can't speak to to that senator why they didn't go beyond what they did i i do agree with um gene that the the orders that have come out thus far do not protect somebody there's no stay on somebody who's already been served with the rid of possession some of the orders vary a little bit in their language but overall i would agree with with that statement okay thank you okay yeah that's helpful i i did want to say uh now i've lost my train of thought i would like one of the things about the the stakeholders in this um and angela can also speak to this is um legal aid is at this table because uh we represent a lot of tenants the people that represent a great deal of landlords landlord per month landlord association and we also heard from the attorney that um represents a lot of the large nonprofits um to work out these things we are really familiar with all the ins and outs of um eviction process and all the beginning and the middle end and so that's so the things in this order i believe um you wanted to talk about why all of these different pieces were uh necessary we wanted to be very specific about um that this is staying the cases staying the issuance of orders um staying the issuance of rits of possession staying the issuance of uh orders for for closure sale staying um executions of rits of possession and we took each of those independent actions and were very specific about it um there were some questions about rent into court process um the idea of rent into court in vermont system the court holds hearing on whether or not the landlord's complaint for eviction um should be granted whether the landlord should be granted possession and um how much money who owes to who so all of those are set up um to be regular trials um and because that process can take a couple of months vermont has a rent into court statute and the rent into court statute says at any time in the eviction process that the tenant becomes delinquent in any amount of rent not the whole rent or whatever they're just delinquent in any amount of rent the landlord can seek a rent into court order um so that there is money um there at the end of the case not necessarily all the money that the landlord is owed but there is some money while the case pens so at the when the case comes to judgment the court decides how much total money is owed to the landlord and so nothing about rent into court or this particular piece where we have us said at the time the rent into court hearing is held um it will be the rent owed from the end of the state of the emergency or service up until the rent into court day and then ongoing further um nothing about that process says that tenants don't owe the whole rent they owe the whole rent and what we are advising people um is that even if they have reduced income during the state of emergency they should be paying what rent they can because at the end of the day they're going to owe the whole thing um so that's I hope that clarifies a little bit about why the rent into court order pieces in there um because we expect that once the state of emergency is ended people will go back to work but it will take them a while to earn enough money to be able to pay um their whole rent into court um so the part that we went through with David Hall where it seemed to say that um new rent into court proceedings should only capture the rent from the time of uh that proceeding uh to uh we should start with the time of that proceeding and have a payment schedule going forward until uh the eviction takes place it sounded to me like what it said was that because of this stay uh at least in terms of what the court was ordering in the rent rent into court process would not include the period of the stay it may not um but the the point is it would be it would allow the tenant an ability to keep their apartment while the ejectment process got adjudicated so because they would be paying on a schedule going forward but it wouldn't um essentially preempt that process by saying hey today $8,000 is due um and oh you don't have it so get out now it is a what we what we assume is going to happen is that there will be rental relief money available that's one of the pieces of the rent into court which is um when the judges set rent into court where this bill would allow them for 40 days after the emergency period 45 days after the emergency period to consider the financial circumstances which is not currently in the law so it would just this is just a session law it would just be for this time um and in considering the tenants financial circumstances the judge could also consider whether the tenant availed themselves of available rental assistance funding during this time in other words we're really this is not for rent forgiveness this is this is we're trying to balance uh the responsibility of tenants um with what is practical during this period of time okay anybody have any questions for jean no let's move on to angela thank you senators rockin and the committee my name's angela zekowski i'm the director of the vermont landlords association i'm also a practicing attorney and i represent landlords throughout the state of vermont uh generally in eviction proceedings so i am very well versed on sort of the landlord side of the eviction process and a lot of the issues that they are facing um i just i want to let the committee know that while you are seeing this bill for the first time in this version this is something that behind the scenes many of us have been working on for a couple of weeks and what we have tried to bring you is a balanced bill where we have spent considerable time weighing both the rights and responsibilities for tenants and for landlords and given this sort of extreme situation that we have found ourselves in have tried to find a balance where we have protections that given the governor's order order going to provide uh some safety for people to stay in their homes but also balances the needs and interests of landlords and one of the biggest components to this bill is the funding piece and the expectation that some assistance is going to be available to help people make their rent payments landlords are being encouraged to communicate with their banks to inquire about mortgage forbearance to provide some relief for them on that regard i know some municipalities have extended tax payment deadlines without penalties or interest that also can provide some relief but this is a time when we all need to be in this together and so we have created this bill to try to do that to not only deal with this period of emergency but for a brief period after that as we know the courts are going to be dealing with a huge number of cases that they have to address that people are going to be newly back to work and trying to find a sort of collaborative approach to just keep the process and people safe and and moving forward and along with making sure landlords get rent payments or have some money coming in i'm happy to answer any specific questions that last point is i know we heard or at least last week we heard from Mr. Handy and it seemed like he wasn't necessarily comfortable that this bill or this proposal would have money coming in continuing to come into to landlords is he part of your association or are you hearing from landlords that differently what i what i'm hearing from landlords is they are wanting to know what resources are available for their tenants many of them are in communication with their tenants and will be passing that information along this bill in section eight contemplates expanding the emergency housing program beyond its current state to allow and i think the bill also would provide for some additional rules those are not things that have been worked out i mean one option would be to allow landlords to petition in for the rent payments if their tenants haven't done it those are not things that have specifically been worked out in this bill but could be a way to ensure that the money goes to landlords for rent payments given the mask angela question yes um angela how many of your landlords are applying to any of the sba programs uh you know that are available for small businesses because they're all basically small businesses right they they are and i'm i'm not entirely sure i know i've been providing them with that information and i believe the application today is the first day that actually applications are open or maybe even monday so we're not quite there yet that information has been provided to them um whether they're taking advantage of it i i don't know um but i am getting getting that out and i have received communication and information directly from some of the sba representatives great because there there is going to be obviously some assistance for them as small business owners or or not so small business owners absolutely absolutely and part of my job right now is just to get that information out to them so they know so uh it sounds like you would love like to have us keep section eight and you'd like to have us uh add the language that tom stevens was talking about to the extent that possible we would be putting money no matter where it originated state vets wherever uh into this yes i think section seven and section eight are critical components to this bill um whether modified a modified and more flexible section seven i i think that's probably prudent i understand that the number that was in there was a placeholder so that um from your perspective is critical even even if we were intent upon doing something in that area but we thought that provision would slow down the bill uh if the decision on the bill would change if we deleted it just to make sure we can get this passed quickly it doesn't have to go to the appropriations through the appropriations process i i have always said through this process that providing a funding mechanism for tenants and for landlords is critical um and i think it becomes more critical if we're talking about stopping the processes which allow landlords to deal with these financial issues um to the extent that it needs to be stripped out at this time to move this bill along um it it makes me uncomfortable because i think the funding is the critical piece here um and and providing that security okay do you have um the question of the ancillary pieces of this bill beyond the moratorium pieces um as i said before i'm a little uncomfortable uh in terms of not knowing what's what we're going to learn in the next 30 days on a number of fronts to be dealing with some of the detail in this bill i appreciate certainly as a former lobbyist the fact of all the work that's been done behind the scenes and it's uh it's actually very good news for for legislators to hear that's there's agreement among the stakeholders but uh to date but um the question of waiting on some of those pieces for more information with the full intent of maybe coming up with the exact same language a month from now but having having heard from everybody and knowing all the facts whether we need to add those pieces now and i guess what i'm thinking of is taking something like the court orders and adding the rits of possession executions of rits of possession that have been uh served and including to stay on execution of those and making a very simple bill i just would like to hear your response on that i'm not um necessarily wedded to that idea for sure yeah sure i i think one of the things that we were trying to do with bringing you a comprehensive bill is to give uh the landlords and tenants and the various folks who work with landlords and tenants some plan and some predictability and some certainty and understanding what they are going to be facing while we're under the state of emergency part of the issue that i think all of us are having is a level of uncertainty and so if we deal with just part of it now and say we're going to save the rest of it for later we still have a huge deal of uncertainty of what that's going to look like so i think the entire bill is important okay for that reason well i thank you for that and obviously the flip side is if we learn new things we could always amend the bill in accordance with that uh correct i appreciate the work you've done um okay that's that's great uh judge grison um i remember there was some administrative difficulties for the courts the last time i was involved in a hearing here has that been addressed in terms of a time frame of notices or have you been relieved of that obligation somehow well the the short answer no as i look at this draft um but during the course of the morning here i've had a chance to look at previous drafts where i thought the parties had agreed to eliminate i'm looking at the paragraph oh let's see it's under c tending foreclosure and ejectment actions and if you look at paragraph two it talks about the court would give notice not later than five days and i thought the parties had agreed to remove that at least an earlier draft of interim draft from one of the parties had eliminated that yes we we talked about that on tuesday i i thought that that was going to be changed to the time frame that you were going to add a more realistic time frame uh right i think well i think what i said was the five days wasn't realistic and i think would be a mistake to put any time frame because the reality is we would get out notice as soon as we can and having a arbitrary time doesn't seem to assist the process will either if you put in another time frame we'd either make it or we wouldn't but the the important things to get the the notices out there um so i would just suggest that it be left that we'll get notice out um um i thought i thought the part i thought the uh i thought angela and gene and the rest of the folks involved had agreed that that that time limit could come out and before i say anything further i would just say that um angela gene uh wendy morgan nancy cybeck have worked cybeck have worked extremely hard to bring this bill to where it is now and the court's involvement they've shared drafts as they've gone along the court had i'm going to say about a half a dozen relatively discreet issues that we wanted to address in the parties have addressed the concerns of the judiciary with the exception of this five-day limit which i thought was coming out in just the paragraph before it and i'll i'll explain that in a minute but other than that those two paragraphs um the court is comfortable with this bill and i understand you're concerned senator sorotkin about the simplicity of those other court orders but um i think and again you've heard me say it before i think what's important is consistency across the state in this bill i think attempts not only to address pending cases which is critical cases that may come up during this interim period which we don't know how long it's going to last but a framework that suggests a way at the end of this emergency period i can tell you the court obviously was cognizant of what they could be facing at the end of this emergency period they are also working towards a plan but i think everyone needs to have some plan and shape and we may have to change it so i do have one other change but i don't want to get into that unless the committee wants me to at this point um it would be helpful if you can do it quickly yes sure i can do it so i'm sorry sorry brine can we just hear from gene and and angel about the five days i mean what did you guys discuss that and what what's your in an earlier draft it had already been taken out so what i think is just a little bit of an accident here that that that's what i thought okay that would be my recollection as well so it would just say in paragraph two shall issue any necessary orders and provide notice to the parties of the state period do you have that david david yes i have thank you okay thank you and then if you go to the preceding paragraph and again gene and angel i think we had agreed on this it reads the last clause and outstanding orders in those actions are stayed that is a very broad concept and there may be orders that folks do not want stayed so the language that again in an earlier draft we had included was at the end of for where it says uh foreclosures under 12 vsa chapter 172 at that point the language was going to read as well as any outstanding orders in those actions which could lead to execution of a writ of possession against a tenant or resident are stayed until the end of the emergency period and then that language would make it clear that what we're dealing with is orders that would result in someone being removed from premises as opposed to any number of other orders that may be in effect and i think the parties had agreed to that language yes that's my recollection we had yes that is not language that i have i may david i i can send you that language okay thank you i would echo that i agree i think it just got left out of this draft okay so go ahead judge that those were the only changes otherwise as i said the parties um had worked hard to get the draft to this point and they had reflected other changes we had suggested so thank you the court supports this bill in its present form with those great minor changes thank you so we haven't talked very much about foreclosures what can uh gene uh what can you tell us about the discussions around that and have there been other stakeholders that have talked about that i mean we're doing a a bill here that not only limits evictions but limits uh foreclosure actions um well for both ejectment and foreclosure the um the landlord or the mortgagee can file the case and commence it so it's most if there's deadlines or or limitations those those actions can still be filed they just need to stay or pause right where they are the we legal aid in the past has done a lot with foreclosures and so i understand the foreclosure process and i can outline it for you but the notion is by the end of the foreclosure process after the redemption period has happened the plaintiff can seek a rid of possession which is a 30-day writ um and we know of of the 22 things that i mentioned at least one of the pending motions is to stay a rid of possession um in a foreclosure case so um at the end of a four well not the end it's not quite the end of a foreclosure case it's kind of in the middle because once the period of redemption has ended a lot of times the foreclosing mortgagee wants to have the property vacant so that they can move on to a foreclosure sale the standing orders in the i guess five because i franklin county has now um added a standing order similar to chitin in washington windsor and windham um says that they will stay all orders for foreclosure sale um but if there's rid of rits of possession outstanding in foreclosure cases just like there are rits of possession outstanding in ejectment cases um those need to be stayed too and so that's why foreclosures are included so i mean i guess the counterpart to the landlord association and these negotiations for foreclosures might be lending institutions uh have you been in contact with any lending institutions i know we heard um we're here briefly from chris i don't know that we have uh online but certainly there have been emails exchanged um have you been have you heard anything from any of those lending institutions with their potential issues with this legislation or did the house as far as you know um other than christilia i don't think we've heard anything um if wendy is on the call she may have had some contacts with uh some other people i mean christilia's argument was essentially foreclosure process is different it already takes a long time um and it is true that it there is the six month uh period of redemption between the time the case is filed a judgment is granted six month period of redemption is right in the statute and then there is a second period of redemption uh all the way up to the time of sale in other words if the homeowner can pay off everything they owe that's what redemption means um but there's cases in process um right by my count there's eight eight hundred and fifty two foreclosures filed a year and it doesn't really matter how long the process was before uh the period of redemption ends um right now we're got a number of cases where the period of redemption is ending and that a um rid of possession could be sought so uh that's why we included uh foreclosures um not that not to stop the beginning of the case because the beginning of the case can still happen right to stop the very end of the case right and there is an off ramp for foreclosures for the emergency situations like there is for evictions where the parties could go in and plead their case still um if there was an emergency uh yes and I I imagine emergency isn't going to be um as big of a thing in a foreclosure case as it might be in an eviction case um right we did have a conversation and we we did end up putting some things in there I believe at at the uh suggestion of the judiciary about the foreclosure um piece uh thinking about um empty properties but uh I remember seeing something on that but I don't know exactly what uh our feeling about so where a lot of times mortgage lenders or the foreclosing mortgagee is not necessarily a Vermont bank or somebody local a lot of times it is somebody who's um who's the servicer of a mortgage who is somebody from a national company and while they might believe that the place is already vacant our experience has been that the places aren't necessarily vacant um they may not have heard from the homeowner in a long time and I guess the difference for me is right in the landlord tenant um statute can properties um the tenants are required and landlords are required to check in with each other if they think that the property is vacant they're supposed to ascertain the intentions of the tenant um and that nothing exists like that in in the foreclosure process as a matter of fact by the time of foreclosing mortgagee which could be a national servicer is um on the scene the homeowner often doesn't have a number to call that will actually be answered by a person who knows what's going on so there are a lot of uh we have had more than one case of the bank thinking that the property was empty when it is actually still occupied so um so and the and the five counties that have initiated this countywide stay those apply to foreclosures equally well they they applied to in the the the wording from the five counties is fairly standard and it applies to anybody seeking a motion for a rid of possession but again that's just in five counties and at least the other I understand that yeah okay but it does apply to foreclosures not just evictions yes it would I believe okay and what is just what is the process I think I understand the process from an issuance of a rid of possession and service of a rid of possession to execution I think that's one of the key gaps we're trying to deal with on the eviction side right is that the same thing for a foreclosure that there is a rid of possession issued and served and then the person has to get out by a certain day in um in an eviction judgment it says um if judgment is granted to the statute literally says if judgment is granted to the plaintiff the court shall issue a rid of possession um in foreclosure the plaintiff the foreclosing mortgagee needs to make a motion for a rid of possession but okay so once once they get that rid of possession then it's the same thing it goes to the sheriff and the sheriff serves it and then executes it if during the period of time that the the homeowner doesn't get out then they can be moved out is that correct yes so um it the court does not send these things to the sheriff the plaintiff takes the rid of possession that's been issued by the court and delivers it to the sheriff risks of possession according to law are effective for 60 days in other words the date of execution mentioned in the rid of possession if it's not served the rid of possession expires by itself in 60 days is that right Angela did I get that right um that's that's correct so uh so plaintiffs when they have a rid of possession they all the sheriffs send the paperwork over to the sheriff and would know more about that than I would okay so let me let me interrupt you a couple of us have received an email from uh Chris Delia who would like to testify and he has been asking uh consistently to testify so I'd like to figure out a way if faith or Denise can let him be unmuted and he could uh tell us if he has any concerns or at least educate us on things we might need to know is that possible faith this is faith if Denise sends him an invitation and he sends me an email when he's ready we'll um open the meeting great okay we'll do that right now thank you um no I gotta get back to where I was yeah no no okay there we go um okay so uh does anybody have any further questions for any of our witnesses at this point while we await to hear from Chris no I'm I'm I'm comfortable with this uh I guess my one question is how we can facilitate the money piece making it flexible uh and um for the for the moment and and maybe having a talk with Jane to figure out how we could keep it out of appropriations okay we will do that I'm feeling like given the time frame here we may have to have a meeting on Monday um or hopefully not very long before we right and how does given that we're I understand from Becca that we're meeting Wednesday as a body right and so if we came to consent if we could agree and vote out this bill on Monday that gives us time to consider it on Wednesday right I would think so yeah okay so um while we're waiting for Chris I'd like to have a little bit of committee discussion on you know the levels of comfort with the bill and only other outstanding issues committee members uh may have um and specifically whether uh I guess we want to go the route sort of similar to what the house deadlines are or uh shorten them with the idea of continuing to look at it or leave them there and we find out new information and come back and amend the bill uh so it's open for discussion at this point I I think we're in a good place on this bill the one concern I have and it's ongoing is is the commercial leases which is I I had wanted after we finished this discussion to get a sense David about how complicated or not it would be to add something about commercial rent because again for small businesses like restaurants in particular the rental piece is really hanging over their heads so I I was hoping we could do something with it but it may be something we could do as a further action uh it's uh it's right I really appreciate that point I meant to raise it and I think probably the way to go if we're shooting for Wednesday is to make a commitment to take that issue up separately and uh we will find out you know how big of a an issue it is and how immediate of an issue it is uh I know there's a lot of help out there on the federal side for small businesses both landlords who are who are renting shopping centers or commercial businesses as well as the tenant restaurants uh but I think if we start opening that issue now uh we're going to slow down this which is pretty close to closure I agree and I just wanted to get a sense from David about how how difficult it is but maybe we could talk about that on Monday because we're our time is already short I think it would also be useful to the extent that we can get a sense of what the federal timelines are to provide us with more information because acting on this the federal information is really critical yeah I I share that belief but I've come around to the point that uh we're going to have to be nimble and flexible and we could we could do something different than what the house has suggested and we've continued to look at it over the next couple of weeks as we learn more from the Fed or we can we can do exactly or very similar to the house has done and also continue to look at it over the next couple of weeks and make a change so uh and I what we heard from the landlords lobbyist is that there's a certain degree of comfort they take in knowing that at least as a default placement going forward beyond the lifting of the declaration they have some plan from the legislature already and I think they've worked hard at it and you don't always find the landlords and tenants in agreement and I think you know part that's part of the I think part of the thing is that we're all in this together and people yeah back under Cheryl Dick we're a good chief I'm Cheryl a woman of many words Cheryl I said I'm glad to see the stakeholders agreeing and I agree that to have at least a skeleton of a plan beyond the emergency is something that is is necessary and if we need to change it we can always amend things so and and realistically the only thing that's going to happen immediately is the stay so we will have time to look at other issues um but I'm still waiting for Chris uh Denise any luck getting there a great moment I just heard from Chris no email yet it's coming some technical difficulty does that well we all theoretically our invitation would that work if we or oh we're not allowed to do that if we send it out we'll get Chris on shortly if you would just hang with us it would be great okay thank you anybody they have anything else to add at this point David there are a couple of changes that you've heard about um we can talk after as well and uh we can get that out to the committee as soon as possible uh do we want to set a time for Monday to button up this um finally um so why don't we just do 9 30 why don't we do 9 30 okay why don't we do 9 30 and we'll probably just do this and as long as it just takes us and we'll probably set another meeting for Tuesday at our usual time um from 9 30 to 11 45 with an agenda yet to be determined yeah and while we're waiting for Chris Delia can I just say I was I was disappointed I understood why dol needed to cancel on us but I'm actually hearing more about that issue than any other issue right now that people still cannot get through to dol and so I don't know how we can be supporting them better I don't know if they've been asking for what they need but more than any other issue that is what I'm hearing yeah and I think you're probably hearing more of it um it's I have a daughter-in-law who's living up here with us now who just lost her job state and she can't get through to the New York state yeah uh so it is a you know it is a question of resources and I I think one of the things I said to them when I was on the phone with them was you know what you need really has to come from you right we're a partner we don't know the minutiae of your system whether you can use more staff more it but there's dollars out there and we need to worry about repaying those dollars later if it's going to make a difference in terms of flattening the curve so we need to get these people um some support and uh so and we'll be talking about that if you want to join in on our task force call at what time is it one thirty one one thirty no it's not technically within our jurisdiction but I'm sure it's going to get there okay no question yeah it's in Cheryl's Cheryl you and chris have been tasked with the UI stuff right um we're doing with the um inequities and payments right right yep um okay I'm still waiting for chris I better charge my laptop here so if if we have a moment can I ask a question absolutely David so considering the discussion that you just had about commercial leases and whether you'll pursue that issue in another vehicle um can I go ahead and just add a small piece to this bill that expressly limits it to ejectment actions concerning residential leases oh right they had asked for that you'd ask for that on page 10 the uh before the duties you'd ask for that third definition if that's what you want uh I think we probably needed at this point um I I'm and then on maybe on Monday you could leave a little bit of room just to explain to us the complexities of the commercial lease intervention I yeah I think yeah you can I think you should put that in uh I think we will deal with that I mean I don't know if if those judge grison do you know whether um the orders in the five counties extends to commercial leases as well I'd have to reread them senator with that in mind I don't have one right in front of me but um I think they were geared I want to say they were geared to residential but I could be wrong on that okay jean may have uh David will probably not that really wouldn't change my opinion of how we should approach this at this point right I think we want to hear from some of the we did hear from one Jed Davis from the farmhouse group uh but we haven't heard from and actually that raises one other question I have for the stakeholders here um generally we've heard from some public entities public housing entities that they had some concern with the moratorium and I'm wondering I assume you've had discussions with them and I trust that their overarching concerns have been addressed uh there was some concern that it may affect uh bonding markets and the treasurer might have some issues so could could uh jean could you touch upon that a little bit um my understanding um from an email from more Collins uh a few days ago um that the CARES Act and the HUD um affects HUD funded properties and low income housing tax credit properties are not funded by HUD and so the CARES Act isn't specifically um addressing them which is why they're concerned about making sure they're funding for those kind of low income I'm echoing it's it's Chris Chris Dilley has joined us and Chris if you mute then we won't hear ourselves on the live stream thanks so much yep and welcome go ahead jean um so they were um they were they are concerned about making sure that there's rental assistance available for tenants in the uh low income tax credit properties it's concerned that you're you're worried about I think so I mean so we could deal with that in making sure that our appropriation language is not in any way uh limit ourselves to CARES Act funding if CARES Act money is restrictive because we have uh potential to use other monies as well to to make sure there's no um inequities perhaps there uh but so that's there has been no follow-up as far as you know um I will I will follow up with you and others to make sure there's no lingering issue there at this point right over the weekend I think the person to follow up with is the airheart from affordable housing pollution um my understanding is they they are still like wondering exactly what money is coming and where it's coming and and how to figure it out they they don't know yet they're they're worried about it I will get in touch with airheart we were playing uh email tag at 2 30 in the morning last night okay so chris you unmute yourself thank you uh I hope you will educate us and not throw a wrench in this whole thing at this point uh well good morning folks uh thank you for the opportunity to testify for your record chris deal your president of the vermont bankers association this is an interesting day for the banking industry and businesses in vermont because we have been spending the last five or six hours trying to get the paycheck protection act program up and running and while we got the guidance final guidance last night from treasury at about 6 30 I can tell you that the infrastructure behind the scenes was not ready and it is uh an incredible challenge trying to roll that out this morning that said I wanted to listen to your discussion this morning on this bill uh and senator to your point if we were talking here last week as I had testified with representative stevens committee and representative markouts committee I would have voiced opposition to the foreclosure portions of this bill for reasons that I will briefly go into but at this point it's clear to me that the train has left the station so I will still voice that opposition but it's not going to stop me from passing the bill at this point and the reason I offered the testimony last week is because the issue in the marketplace has really passed this discussion by we got to a point very early on in this crisis that we were working with borrowers and have been on both the commercial and residential side that none of my institutions were going to move with forward with foreclosure even if it was in process back of america jp more given chase have not moved forward with foreclosure the secondary markets have shut down the foreclosure process and listening to judge greerson the other day in his testimony and I had to call him just to verify even the courts have basically stayed anything that's going to go on with the foreclosure process so at this point in last week my view is why do we need a piece of legislation that has already been dealt with in the marketplace we recognize well first of all we don't want to throw anybody out of the homes we would love it if everybody paid their bills but that's not the reality in today's environment we are not going to throw anybody out of their homes because it creates more of the health care crisis than anything else so while I appreciate gene's testimony I felt it was important that I represent my industry and you you hear directly from us as to what we are doing and I can tell you I'm foreclosures we're not doing anything at this point and have no intent to do anything until we get out of this crisis and the courts are back up and running and then if there is a new normal we will get back to that so that was my opposition to the legislation but again the trains left the station so I understand that thank you and my apologies for not getting you into the committee last week I was had other things I was dealing with so I appreciate your coming on now and I think we're we're good to go unless anybody has any questions for Chris just Michael just just one question Chris does that apply to all foreclosures including commercial I well as you can imagine senator we are working countless hours regardless of what passed with congress last Friday we are working countless hours to try and help all of our borrowers both commercial and residential and that includes any number of approaches based on their individual circumstances so forbearance and so on the challenge you run into with commercial as you alluded to earlier senator saraq and the relationship between the commercial entity and the property owner that they're renting from and that's beyond our control we're actually on both sides of that because we've got a business that we've probably funded who's renting that space and then we've got the landlord that we probably funded who's leasing that space and but the purpose of eviction or the issue of eviction is really left up to them our goal working with the businesses right now whether it's the landlord or the tenant is to try and avail them of the ppp program to see whether they can access funding under that I can tell you right now just to give you a quick glimpse as of 9 30 this morning there were 50 applications excuse me 50 banks across the country that have filed 1123 applications and 402.5 million dollars had already been claimed under the program it's a 350 billion dollar program I'm concerned by the end of the day or Monday it's all drawn down and I'm more having to go back to congress to figure out what the next package looks like so this is you can't believe the pace this is moving that right now right program that hasn't rolled out yet I mean that's just rolling in a program that unfortunately as I had a conference call with our SBA director this morning I have four pages worth of questions from my bankers who are rolling out the program today without those questions being answered so I and I commend SBA they have done a phenomenal job this has really been treasury who's been driving the bus and developing the guidelines and I have to give them some credit because they did it in less than six days but every time you get the new guidelines comes out you get four pages worth of questions and it's tough to move forward on alone without knowing what the closing document even looks like or what you're certifying to so we're working through all of that today as we speak Chris could you um is there a way you can send me those updated numbers at the end of the business today if I get them I'm I'm not sure I'm going to get them my goal over the weekend is to send every legislature an update on what's happening out there as far as branches as far as working with individuals businesses and municipalities to give you an update on the implementation of the ppp program so that is my goal this weekend to put all of that together and get it out to every legislator okay is right we're having a meeting as you may know at one thirty that's going to include this issue it's just preliminary meeting but basically in my conversations with representative more cot we want to know how we can help industry the government other than getting out of their way but with resources and public relations education uh to help this along to so people know what's available and know that and not get confused by all the different portals they can go through so I don't know if you have any general thoughts at this point I know it's going to change by Monday you know yeah it's going to change within the next hour unfortunately but what I have found to be the best portal for overall resources for businesses in Vermont is what eccd is put together right because they're trying to incorporate everybody else's information uh as far as the ppp program if you've got businesses who are contacting you my recommendation is you get a hold of them and they need to communicate with their borrowers asap we've tried to or treasury tried to come up with a very streamlined application and information requirements but for small businesses we know that's going to be challenging you talk you ask a question of what we can do here's the reality for many of these businesses some will be able to take on the loans and afford to pay them back over a period of time but we're going to have a growing number of businesses in Vermont that need an outright grant right and if they can't qualify for the ppp program or if if the money's run out with the ppp program and they can't get in we don't have enough resources in Vermont to give grants out to the businesses the grant portion of the ppp program is the first eight weeks dealing with payroll or rent or mortgage payments and that's a number that people are going to have to try and put their arm get their arms around and that's the forgivable portion that they are going to be able to access but again if you can't get into the program because there's no more funding we the state of Vermont do not have enough grant monies to respond to the request I heard of a figure yesterday that the anticipated $350 billion is about five percent of the estimated need across the country oh my god you're kidding I guess you're suggesting that the money might run out by the end of the day or the weekend or well I'm suggest let me give myself a little bit more time I'm going to suggest that the money's probably going to be gone by early next week or the let me rephrase that the drawdown on the 350 billion will be gone by early next week it's then the question of what happens after that and in hearing from the treasury they recognize that they're going to have to probably go back and put another package in front of congress well congress as I understand it is out to April 20th which means they've got to get back in session they've got to review that package and they've got to reach agreement on it I heard yesterday on a call that some senators across the country are reluctant to go down that road until we see what this first program looks like in the rollout so there's so many moving pieces to this that people may have to wait two three four weeks before there's another pot of money that businesses may may be able to access it's just moving that quickly okay thank you very much let me leave you with this our banks are full steam ahead taking applications trying to get them into the sba portal which has already crashed several times and our goal is to try and get as much or as many of our borrowers on that drawdown list as possible before the funds run out right thank you very much yep so much for the promise of that program okay so chair our the senate rules committee starts in about four minutes and we are where would you like what would what do you want us to I would actually Becca could you carry our water on that and just find out whether if we vote this bill out on Monday can we get it on the calendar to be talked about I mean to I don't know whether we suspend the rules I guess and do everything in one day but can we get enough for discussion on that and also knowing that I will be speaking to Jane about any appropriations issues okay thank you sounds good okay bye bye thank you very much bye bye senator are you hello senator excuse me this is faith I just wanted to know if you want to end live stream please do