Gov. Scott Walker is expected to approve a bill the state Senate passed Tuesday modifying landlord-tenant relations, according to Attorney David Sparer, who said there are 50 provisions in the bill and “every one of them is … a reduction of the rights of tenants.”
Sparer continued at a city Landlord Tenant Issues Committee meeting Thursday that “there are many provisions … that really don’t make sense and in a number of cases ignore the normal process in the court,” including one dictating landlords’ eviction rights.
Sparer said many of the provisions in the bill change the way landlords currently interact with their tenants. For instance, one provision requires eviction trials occur no more than 30 days from when an individual is first in court. The previous law allowed some exceptions to be made in regards to the amount of time between an individual’s first day in court and his or her trial. According to Sparer, it is not feasible to have no exceptions to this law and still have it be effective.
Another provision in the bill gives landlords permission to claim the abandoned property of their evicted residents.
Sparer said the eviction provisions in the new state law “won’t really work in the real world and will create havoc for landlords and tenants.”
Under the new state law, Sparer said a landlord would be able to evict someone without a sheriff being present, as was previously the case. Furthermore, Sparer noted a landlord can immediately take all of the belongings an evicted resident leaves in their apartment, rather than being required to hold them for a certain period of time.
According to Sparer, the only way evicted residents will be able to recover their belongings is by proving they did not abandon them, which Sparer said he believes will be very difficult.
Committee members said if approved, this law will provide residents a great incentive to not go against their landlords’ wishes because it will also allow landlords to evict residents immediately, rather than give them 30 days notice as the law previously required them to.
The bill will not become law until Walker approves it.
