Last Call For Eviction Prediction, Con't

With the Biden administration's CDC moratorium on evictions ending this month, it seems Ohio and Kentucky landlords will get an early start on procedures as the 6th Circuit has unanimously struck down the moratorium in four states.

 

A U.S. appeals court ruled on Friday that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lacked authority for the national moratorium it imposed last year on most residential evictions to help curb the spread of the coronavirus.

The ruling by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati means judges in Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio and Michigan are no longer bound by the moratorium, said Joshua Kahane, the lawyer who argued the case for a property manager.

The unanimous decision by the three-judge panel upheld a lower court ruling in March finding the CDC overstepped its authority when it issued the moratorium last year.

The opinion by Judges Alan Norris, Amul Thapar and John Bush said dealing with the evictions during the pandemic could not be delegated to the CDC under existing law.

"While landlords and tenants likely disagree on much, there is one thing both deserve: for their problems to be resolved by their elected representatives," wrote Judge Thapar in a concurring opinion.

The moratorium is set to expire on July 31 and the Biden administration said in June it would not grant further extensions. read more

The CDC issued a national eviction ban on all residential rental properties in September to facilitate self-isolation, contain the spread of COVID-19 and prevent homelessness.

It acted after the expiration of a narrower previous ban enacted by the U.S. Congress. The CDC's moratorium has been extended three times, once by Congress and twice by the agency itself.

The U.S. Supreme Court in June left the CDC ban in place by a 5-4 decision.

 

Hundreds of thousands nationwide will be evicted in the months ahead, right into the teeth of the delta variant, so I do hope that vaccination efforts are enough. But I fear that the end of the moratorium is going to be far more consequential than people realize, and the pain that comes from it will be miserable for hundreds of thousands, if not millions.