 Aloha, welcome to Condo Insider of ThinkTech Hawaii. I'm your host attorney in the line. Today, we're very pleased to have our guest, Nicholas Severson, managing attorney of the housing and consumer unit at the Legal Aid Society of Hawaii. And he's also currently serving as the interim managing attorney for Legal Aid's Maui office. His practice primarily includes housing discrimination cases and general landlord tenant disputes. He previously served as a staff attorney in Legal Aid's Maui office. Prior to graduating from Villanova University's law school and embarking on a legal career in 2019, he worked in higher education administration at the Drexel University and the University of Wyoming. Welcome, Nick. So today's session is called the info session with Legal Aid Maui office. As we all know, after the Maui fire, your office must be super busy with a lot of questions through hotlines and programs. So this will be a great opportunity for us to learn about all the efforts and the great programs, resources currently available for Lahaina residents. So pretty much I think I will give you the time and you can round the show today. Thank you so much. Great, yeah, thank you for having me. And thanks for inviting us to be a part of this conversation during this critical time in our community. So I guess I'll just start a little bit by talking about, I guess, Legal Aid's presence currently on Maui and kind of our role in sort of the legal landscape post-disaster. So just kind of broadly, the Legal Aid Society of Hawaii has offices on each of the major islands, including Maui. The Maui office, when fully staffed is three attorneys and four paralegals that handle a variety of legal issues, right? So everything from housing to, you know, vital documents to family law, consumer issues, a whole host of things. But certainly that is being reshaped post-fire, post-disaster, right? So we're trying to figure out how we can adapt and how we can be there to meet the needs of the community in this difficult time. So in the last few months, that's taken on a variety of forms and functions, right? First and foremost, being present in the community and making sure that we have staff available to, you know, meet with folks, complete intakes for folks that were able to assist and just talk through the range of legal issues that folks might be experiencing so we can provide some legal information, just to point folks in the right direction, right? I think so much of what we're seeing on the ground is that people have so many different issues that they're dealing with, right? And many issues that they might not even anticipate yet just because they're dealing with so many of the, you know, very extreme, very dire kind of day-to-day repercussions from the disaster. So we have staff that's available on a weekly basis at the Disaster Recovery Center out in Lahaina. We've had staff available at the Kahalui location and Kualani location as well previously. We also have staff on a weekly basis at CNHA's hub in Kahalui as well. And that's really meant to be an informal way to engage with folks, right? So again, sitting at tables, talking story with folks as they come up to talk about what they're experiencing, right? And try to answer questions and point them in the right direction. And then obviously we're getting out in the community, we're doing specific outreach and education. So targeted events last week, we were at a mortgage event that was held at the Hyatt in Kahalui. We've had staff at a keiki fair recently. We did a joint intake event with volunteer legal services, Hawaii. So kind of a whole host of things, right? To get out into the community, immigration clinics, really just trying to meet folks where they're at and help them, you know, whatever way we can, in addition to providing sort of the regular level of services that we do generally in our Maui office. So there must be a lot of, I guess, frequently asked questions. And then, you know, if you have a list of those questions, you know, tied to our audience, maybe, you know, for owners or residents living in condo buildings in connection with that, with a disaster, are you willing to share with us that answers to that frequently asked question list you have? Yeah, I'm happy to talk through a few of the things that we see with, you know, regular frequency, right? So I think maybe the first and biggest thing to talk about, and this is relatively recent news, I guess as of today, the foreclosure moratorium for federally backed mortgages has been extended. So previously, that was in place through November 6th. Obviously we're rapidly approaching that date. It's been extended into March, I believe March 6th. So for folks with federally backed mortgages that are dealing with all of the, you know, terrible ramifications of the fire, hopefully it provides a little bit of comfort and peace of mind to know that there's gonna be, you know, a longer runway for them to try to address issues related to that. For folks that have regular, you know, non federally backed mortgages, I guess, many of the lenders are really willing to work with folks and are trying to be accommodating given the very dire circumstances that individuals are experiencing. So if your mortgage is federally backed or not, you know, be sure that you're reaching up to your lender and trying to communicate with them what you're experiencing. And again, if it's federally backed, there's gonna be that very specific foreclosure moratorium that would be in place for you. And if not, your lender is hopefully able and willing to work with you to try to come up with some type of plan to avoid foreclosure and avoid some of those negative ramifications of the loss of property that occurred with the fires. So can you elaborate more on what is a federally backed mortgage? We know like a VA or USDA loans that are, but what about FHA, you know, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, are those all applicable? Yes, those are all applicable. And there's actually, your lender should be able to tell you whether your loan is federally backed or not. So that's usually the best place to start. If you do still have your paperwork from your mortgage, that's also a place to look to see if it's federally backed. There is a tool as well, and I don't have it linked in front of me here, but where you can actually look if your mortgage is in fact federally backed also. It's not always 100% accurate. So again, I would encourage folks to reach out to their lender directly, but it applies to more people than you think. More mortgages are federally backed, I think, than people realize based on the variety of programs and things that you had mentioned now. So I would encourage folks to again, contact our lender directly and see if their loan would be covered by that. For certain homeowners, their mortgage are not federally backed. What kind of income threshold they have to meet in order to get your office assistant to try to get legal assistant negotiating with lenders? Yeah, so the Legal Aid Society of Hawaii obviously were meant to primarily serve folks of lower income, right? So for most of our funding sources, there are income requirements, income and asset requirements. So generally speaking, folks would need to be below 125% of the federal poverty level. Although we have several grants that allow us to assist other individuals that may not meet that threshold. For example, anyone over the age of 60, we can assist because we have funding to serve the kapuna in our community, right? So that's one example. We also have some grants specific to the disaster that are a little bit more broad in their parameters. In terms of who we're able to assist and not having those same kind of restrictive asset or income requirements. So if folks are curious and wanna see if they qualify for assistance, I would certainly say to call our intake staff and complete an application. They're the ones that would know whether or not you qualify, right? And meet those grant requirements. And if you do qualify, then you can be routed to our office for further assistance. And if not, at a minimum, our intake staff could refer you to other resources or maybe other legal service entities in our community that could assist. I see. We just to cover the one biggest cost item on a homeowner. I mean, the other one probably is homeowners, the association dues or condominium association dues. When we volunteered with the legal hotline, all the attorneys reported back that that's one of the most frequently asked question is, what do I do when my building got burned down but I have still all these monthly dues keep accumulating as a homeowner? What are my options? Can you help shed some light on that? Yeah, so I guess I'll take a step back first and just talk a little bit about sort of how broad that is, right? So obviously there are condo buildings that were entirely destroyed. There are some areas where there are HOA fees where maybe only one or two of the properties are destroyed and the rest of the property be fine, for example. So the situation does vary from person to person and from situation to situation. The first place I would encourage folks to look in terms of what their obligations are would be the bylaws of their community, right? So each association operates differently and in terms of what type of insurance and other things your HOA fees would cover and what that would mean in terms of the disaster related impacts of the fire would vary from association to association. Unfortunately what happened on Maui is not unique, right? There's a lot of disasters that have happened across the country and across the world. So we are working currently with some of our national partners at the National Housing Law Project as well as the National Consumer Law Center to try to put our heads together on addressing that very problem that you describe because certainly there are folks that have lost everything, right? And yet the HOA fees are gonna continue to accumulate and it's gonna cause additional problems for that individual. So we're hoping to have additional resources that we can push out on that shortly. So I would definitely, again, if folks are experiencing that specific issue encourage them to reach out to Legal Aid and to check out our website as we make those materials available, as we kind of as a community work on getting our hands around that problem. If it's not confidential, can you share a little bit more information? You're talking about this relief, are there gonna be specific, let's say relief funds available to help people cover this period or it's more like a moratorium kind of legislation you guys are trying to push for what kind of direction we're heading on that issue. Right, so it's not really on the legislative front at least not to my knowledge. What we're trying to learn from some of our national partners is what the experience on the state and local level has been in some of these other places that have experienced disaster, right? So I think New Orleans post Katrina or after the paradise fires, things like that, right? So I think trying to understand that is gonna give us that Legal Aid and in the community more broadly a better understanding of programmatically what that might look like, right? Like what the state or local government or other entities, nonprofits and other folks may need to do to meet that need, right? Because we know that that need is out there. We know that folks are going to be saddled with large HOA bills that they're not gonna be able to pay and it's gonna fall in this gap of what's not gonna be covered by insurance or maybe other assistance that they would be getting through FEMA or other entities. So that's something that we're hoping to really better understand how it manifests and kind of what the scale of that is in order to try to figure out what the actual mechanisms of addressing that issue are. Okay, we covered homeowners. What about tenants? There's also investors who are landlords. In terms of that, what information can you share? Yeah, so in the wake of the disaster, the governor put out an emergency proclamation. In fact, the series of emergency proclamations that among other things addressed some of the landlord tenant issues that would arise post disaster, right? Among them, I guess first and foremost is a prohibition on rental increases on Maui. And that's island wide regardless of whether it's in the area that were impacted by the fire or not, right? So right now, at least through November 6th and obviously subject to further proclamation or extension from the governor, any type of rental increases would be strictly prohibited. Another thing that's prohibited right now is pursuing summary possession or eviction cases due to non-payment, right? So right now, and again, this is island wide on Maui. So regardless of whether or not it's in any of the fire impacted communities or not, a landlord cannot terminate a tenancy for non-payment. And that's true in terms of something as small as issuing a notice all the way through the actual court action. And the district court on Maui has actually taken the position of just dismissing new filings that allege non-payment, right? So understanding the governor's order and the goal of not further displacing individuals given the mass displacement that's already occurred because of the fire. Does this only apply to residential leases? Yes, it only applies to residential leases, it's correct. What about those, let's say lease hold, there's lease rent instead of like the rental agreement we're dealing with, like for example, Oahu there are a lot of properties that they are still lease hold. So there's going to be the lease rent, right? And then that's different because that's long-term. So in that kind of situation with that also, if there's a default on the lease rent, would this also bar that or no? That's a good question, I'm not entirely sure. I believe the way that the proclamation reads is that I don't believe that it would contemplate rent for lease hold properties but I'm not 100% sure on that, frankly. So why don't we go down the list of the other frequently asked questions your office is constantly dealing with? Yeah, so I guess I'll talk about another thing and that's just terminations of month to month tendencies with 45 day notice. As I'm sure most of the audience knows in the state of Hawaii, a month to month lease can be terminated with 45 days notice for any reason or no reason at all, right? Part of the emergency proclamation also addresses that and invokes a particular piece of the disaster statutes that basically says that the only way that a landlord can terminate a month to month lease during the period of proclamation. So again, this is through November 6th, consistent with what I was mentioning earlier about rent increases and evictions for non-payment would prohibit terminations of month to month tendencies unless the owner or immediate family member intends to occupy the property or if the home has been sold to a bona fide purchaser. So there's additional restrictions that are in place right now, again, presumably with the intent of keeping folks housed and causing greater disruption in the housing market. So are there any right now available resources besides the FEMA, besides as everybody's going through that insurance claim processing process any other government provided resources or really fund and so all these donations, Maui strong fund are there anything like that people can access and what would be the criteria for be eligible for that kind of relief? Yeah, so there's a lot of and I think this is part of what makes kind of post disaster landscape so difficult, right? Because there's so much information and so many really well intentioned folks and groups and government entities that are trying to fill these voids and make sure that resources are available for folks. Obviously FEMA is one that people are aware of and know and certainly they have a large presence on the ground at the disaster recovery centers that I was mentioning earlier as well as throughout different places on Maui currently. The small business administration also offers very low interest loans to folks that may need to rebuild their business or rebuild their home. And they also have a very big presence on Maui currently to try to get people the money, the resources they need to get back on their feet. I'd also plug United Policy Holders. So that's a nonprofit organization that can assist folks in navigating kind of the chaotic insurance situation that happens for many people post disaster and they also have a presence at the disaster recovery center. And to that end, I guess I'll make a plug for that. So as of right now, the disaster recovery centers are slated to remain open through the end of November. So I would encourage anyone in the community that's trying to understand what their resources are, what programs are available that that's a great place to start because there are a ton of folks that are there at tables from all these different organizations I mentioned and many, many more, other nonprofits, folks that have grants and different things that they can give out to individuals that need assistance, kind of all congregated in one place. So it's not a full on one stop shop but it's a great place to go to kind of work the room, talk to different individuals and see what's out there. So I would encourage individuals that haven't had the opportunity to make it out there or maybe haven't been there in a while as the need changes, the presence on the ground has changed and there's maybe some different organizations or different individuals in the community that are present there now that could maybe assist with different issues that weren't there before. I would encourage individuals that are seeking those resources to take advantage of those spots. I'd also plug the CNHA hub in Kahalui at Maui Mall that I mentioned earlier. They also have a great number of resources and individuals there that are able and willing to assist. So folks should definitely take advantage of those places in the community. Can people adjust to walk in or they need to make appointment in advance? Yeah, they're all walk-in. So at the Disaster Recovery Center in Lahaina and Kahalui, they're open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. from Monday through Saturday and it's walk-in. Maybe that whatever table you wanna go to, there's a few other people in line so you may have to wait a little bit. But generally speaking, it's walk-in and go around to the tables that you want to speak to and make time to speak with them. And then same thing with the CNHA site that I keep mentioning. They'll actually do intakes there in person as well. So they'll be able to kind of triage individuals to where they need to go, right? So when you come in, they'll ask you some questions about what you're looking for or who you're hoping to connect with and then they can kind of do that warm handoff so to speak to someone that's there that might be able to assist in that particular area that you're hoping to get information on. And of course, your organization also has a good website and there's like tons of information materials there people can access, right? Yeah, absolutely. I'd encourage folks to visit our website, legalaidhawaii.org, full of good information and constantly updated. So as again, the needs of the community evolve as things change, like I mentioned that the foreclosure moratorium being extended today or other resources or things being made available, we try to keep that updated so that individuals can access that. Great. So thank you so much for your time. And is there any upcoming event or organization wants to promote here? Or I heard that your office is also hiring, right? So you wanna share that information to the community with this venue? Yeah, that's great. So I'll put in a plug for that because the Maui staff is incredible and has done a great job to meet the needs of the community in this very difficult time while also handling their regular workload, right? But with that in mind, we have a managing attorney position that's open on Maui. We have a staff attorney position that's open on Maui. And we also have a disaster legal services attorney position that ideally would be based on Maui but there's some flexibility to that with the understanding obviously that there would be some travel back and forth to Maui in that role. But they're all positions that would be great to fill to better support our community and meet the needs that we know are there and know will be there as this recovery continues. So certainly would encourage folks to apply or pass that along if they know folks that might be interested. In terms of events, I will say tomorrow there's gonna be a Tongan resource fair at the Cameron Center in Wailuku. That'll be from three to eight if anyone is able to check that out and then just continuing to plug the events that we know the presence that we know is always available at the disaster recovery centers and the CNHA hub. And certainly be on the lookout for forthcoming events because we'll be continuing to try to be present in the community to meet the needs as they evolve. Thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate you joining us today. Sharon, all this great information resources. Thank you also for all the efforts you've put in helping our community. As I understand, you've been commuting between Oahu and Maui. That must be difficult for your work schedule, right? Yeah, we've been very busy, but I'm happy to be able to help. And I started my legal career on Maui like you mentioned in the intro. So I always have a soft spot for the community and the people there. So happy to go back and forth and try to help meet the needs of the community and thankful and grateful for everyone both in our organization and throughout the Maui and Greater Hawaii community that stepped up during the real difficult challenges that we've had as a community the last few months. Okay, thank you, Nick. I think our time is up. We'll wrap up today's program. Thank you again. Thank you so much for all your colleagues who worked hard to help people in Lahaina. Thank you.