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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced on Monday a provisional rule that will allow tenants to sue debt collectors who violate the national eviction ban.
Homeowners’ attorneys and other debt collectors who misappropriate tenants could also face federal and state prosecution, the office said. In addition, these debt collectors must now provide tenants with a notice of their rights under the written eviction ban and an eviction notice is notified on the same date.
“No one should be evicted from their home without understanding their rights, and we will hold those debt collectors accountable for continuing illegal evictions,” CFPB interim director Dave Uejio said in a statement.
The announcement is a sign that the Biden administration intends to more aggressively enforce the national ban on evacuating Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued for the first time by the Trump administration in September.
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With coronavirus cases and unemployment rates still high, President Joe Biden has extended the moratorium until the end of June.
Research has shown that evacuations lead to significantly more coronavirus cases and deaths in one area.
Housing lawyers point out that the law has failed to protect many tenants because there have not been enough consequences for violating it.
There is no national evacuation database. But since the CDC ban went into effect, Jim Baker, executive director of the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, has counted more than 57,000 new eviction cases filed by corporate owners in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, Tennessee and Texas alone. During the same period, the Eviction Lab at Princeton University identified more than 218,000 evacuations in the five states and 19 cities it is pursuing.
“We are still seeing mass evictions, even with the CDC order,” Daniel Rose, an organizer of Housing Justice Now in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, told CNBC in December.
Evacuating tenants is a last resort, Bob Pinnegar, president of the National Apartments Association, told CNBC earlier this year. However, the past year has driven homeowners to the limit, he said.
“Over 50% of rental housing providers in the country are mother and pop owners, who rely on their few units as their only source of income,” he said. “Reserves are depleted and, in many cases, depleted.”
However, the consumer bureau said Monday that property attorneys or other debt collectors who evict tenants illegally or without informing them of the CDC ban could be prosecuted by federal agencies and state attorneys general. private actions by affected individuals.
“The rule directly addresses many of the issues that have undermined the moratorium, including tenants’ lack of knowledge of rights, abusive practices and minimal or no enforcement,” said Emily Benfer, an eviction expert and law professor at Wake Forest University.
The office also shared information on where tenants and landlords can find organizations to apply for the billions of dollars in rental aid approved in the latest incentive packages.