President Biden extends eviction moratorium until March 31: What renters should know
- At February 01, 2021
- By fhfla
- In News
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President Joe Biden issued an executive order extending eviction protections for the country’s 44 million rental households until March 31. The newly appointed director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, later confirmed that the eviction moratorium, which originated with the CDC, has been extended. Biden has also asked Congress to set aside $30 billion to help the more than 10 million households who were behind on rent last month by passing his $1.9 trillion stimulus package, unveiled earlier in the month. (The proposal would also fund more federal unemployment insurance and a third stimulus check.) That bill if passed would extend the eviction moratorium through September.
Over 107 million people — or about one-third of the US population — live in rental households, most of which have been protected by some form of an eviction moratorium since Congress passed the initial CARES Act back in March. The current order, which Congress extended in December, had been set to expire Jan. 31. It established a $25 billion rent relief fund but imposed income limits in order to qualify, with priority going to the lowest-earning households as well as those in which someone is currently unemployed.
Altogether, current eviction protections combine various elements taken from these laws and government orders, which means navigating it all can get a little confusing. Adding to the difficulty, some local jurisdictions have continued with evictions despite the nationwide ban. A January report (PDF) by the Jobs with Justice Education Fund traces $320 million in federal pandemic assistance to 197 corporate landlords who collectively filed 5,381 evictions between March and October.
The current eviction ban requires renters who’ve fallen behind on their rent to submit a signed declaration form to their landlord stating they’ve lost income due to the coronavirus pandemic and have made an effort to look for financial assistance, as well as a few other conditions. (This part is critical, more below.) We’ll unpack the national eviction moratorium to explain who is covered, what might not be covered and what you need to do now if you’re worried about getting evicted. In addition, we’ll look at other resources and options that are available to help you stay in your home, along with Biden’s American Rescue Plan proposal.
Who qualifies for financial assistance under the current law?
The stimulus bill Congress passed at the end of 2020 set aside $25 billion to be allocated to states ($400 million of that will go to territories and $800 million to native communities). To be considered for assistance drawn from those funds, renter households must meet three qualifications:
-Household income must not exceed 80% of the median income for the area in which you live.
-Must include at least one member who can demonstrate a risk of becoming homeless without assistance.
-Must include at least one household member who either qualifies for unemployment benefits or has experienced financial hardship due either directly or indirectly to the coronavirus pandemic.
Priority will be given to the most financially insecure among those households. That means the first households to receive aid should include:
-Households whose income does not exceed 50% of the area median income.
-Households with members who are currently unemployed and have been unemployed for 90 days or more.
Money received through this program is nontaxable.
What did the original national eviction ban cover?
The CDC instituted a national eviction moratorium by leveraging a 1944 public health law intended to curb the spread of a pandemic. Because homelessness can increase the spread of COVID-19, the order halts evictions across the US for anyone who has lost income due to the pandemic and has fallen behind on rent.
The federal mandate didn’t prohibit late fees (although some local ordinances do), nor did it let tenants off the hook for any back rent they owe. It also didn’t establish any kind of financial assistance fund to help renters get caught up — a safeguard some say is critical to preventing a massive wave of evictions when the ban eventually lifts. (Many cities and states, however, have set aside money to help with rent — keep reading for how to find assistance where you live.)
The order only halted evictions for not paying rent. Lease violations for other infractions — criminal conduct, becoming a nuisance and so on — are still enforceable with eviction. And it only protects renters who earn less than $99,000 per year or $198,000 for joint filers. Finally, renters had to print and sign an affidavit declaring their eligibility for protections (the next section breaks down those requirements).
What to do if you’re facing financial hardship today
If you’re in need of immediate shelter or emergency housing, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development maintains a state-by-state list of housing organizations in your area. Select your state from the drop-down menu for a list of resources near you.
In response to the coronavirus pandemic, many states and cities have expanded their available financial assistance for those who are struggling to pay rent. To see what programs might be available near you, find your state on this list of rent relief programs maintained by the National Low Income Housing Association.
Nonprofit 211.org connects those in need of help with essential community services in their area and has a specific portal for pandemic assistance. If you’re having trouble with your food budget or paying your housing bills, you can use 211.org’s online search tool or dial 211 on your phone to talk to someone who can try to help.
JustShelter.org is a nonprofit that puts tenants facing eviction in touch with local organizations that can help them to remain in their homes or, in worst-case scenarios, find emergency housing.
The online legal services chatbot at DoNotPay.com has a coronavirus financial relief tool that it says will identify which of the laws, ordinances and measures covering rent and evictions apply to you based on your location.
If you’re seriously delinquent or know you will be soon, you may want to consult a lawyer to better understand how laws in your area apply to your situation. Legal Aid provides attorneys free of charge to qualified clients who need help with civil matters such as evictions. You can locate the nearest Legal Aid office using this search tool.
If you can no longer afford rent on your current home, relocation might be an option. Average rental prices have declined across the US since February, according to an August report by Zillow. Apps like Zillow, Trulia and Zumper can help you find something more affordable. Just be aware that you may still be held responsible for any back rent you currently owe as well as any rent that accrues between now and the end of your lease (if you have one), whether or not you vacate.
Try asking your landlord for a rent reduction or extension
In almost all instances it’s probably best to work out an arrangement with your landlord or leasing agency, if at all possible. Although some landlords have reportedly reacted to the pandemic by putting even more pressure on tenants to pay up, other landlords have risen to the occasion, some going so far as to stop collecting rent payments for a period of time.
It may be worth approaching your landlord to see if you can pay less rent in the coming months, or spread payments for the next couple of months’ rent out over the next year. Just be wary of landlords who make excessive demands. For example, some have asked tenants to turn over their $1,200 stimulus check or any money received from charity as a condition for not filing an eviction order. Don’t agree to unreasonable conditions or terms you won’t be able to meet, especially if your city or state has enacted protections against such arrangements.
From Dale Smith & Clifford Colby, for CNET
Black Homeowners Face Discrimination in Appraisals
- At September 01, 2020
- By fhfla
- In News
- 0
Abena and Alex Horton wanted to take advantage of low home-refinance rates brought on by the coronavirus crisis. So in June, they took the first step in that process, welcoming a home appraiser into their four-bedroom, four-bath ranch-style house in Jacksonville, Fla.
The Hortons live just minutes from the Ortega River, in a predominantly white neighborhood of 1950s homes that tend to sell for $350,000 to $550,000. They had expected their home to appraise for around $450,000, but the appraiser felt differently, assigning a value of $330,000. Ms. Horton, who is Black, immediately suspected discrimination.
The couple’s bank agreed that the value was off and ordered a second appraisal. But before the new appraiser could arrive, Ms. Horton, a lawyer, began an experiment: She took all family photos off the mantle. Instead, she hung up a series of oil paintings of Mr. Horton, who is white, and his grandparents that had been in storage. Books by Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison were taken off the shelves, and holiday photo cards sent by friends were edited so that only those showing white families were left on display. On the day of the appraisal, Ms. Horton took the couple’s 6-year-old son on a shopping trip to Target, and left Mr. Horton alone at home to answer the door.
The new appraiser gave their home a value of $465,000 — a more than 40 percent increase from the first appraisal.
Race and housing policy have long been intertwined in the United States. Black Americans consistently struggle more than their white counterparts to be approved for home loans, and the specter of redlining — a practice that denied mortgages to people of color in certain neighborhoods — continues to drive down home values in Black neighborhoods.
Even in mixed-race and predominantly white neighborhoods, Black homeowners say, their homes are consistently appraised for less than those of their neighbors, stymieing their path toward building equity and further perpetuating income equality in the United States.
Home appraisers are bound by the Fair Housing Act of 1968 to not discriminate based on race, religion, national origin or gender. Appraisers can lose their license or even face prison time if they’re found to produce discriminatory appraisals. Title XI of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act, enacted in 1989, also binds appraisers to a standard of unbiased ethics and performance.
“My heart kind of broke,” Ms. Horton said. “I know what the issue was. And I knew what we needed to do to fix it, because in the Black community, it’s just common knowledge that you take your pictures down when you’re selling the house. But I didn’t think I had to worry about that with an appraisal.”
Appraisals, by nature, are subjective. And discrimination, particularly the subconscious biases and microaggressions that have risen to the fore in white America this summer following the death of George Floyd, is notoriously difficult to pinpoint.
Ms. Horton shared her experiment in a widely circulated Facebook post, earning 25,000 shares and more than 2,000 comments, many of which came from Black homeowners and carried the same message: This also happened to me.
In each comment, a repeated theme: Home appraisers, who work under codes of ethics but with little regulation and oversight, are often all that stands between the accumulation of home equity and the destruction of it for Black Americans.
Credit…Monica Jorge for The New York Times
After the first appraisal came up short on his house in an affluent, racially mixed suburb of Hartford, Conn., Stephen Richmond, an aerospace engineer, took down family photos and posters for Black movies and had a white neighbor stand in for him on a second appraisal. He was hoping to refinance; with the second report, he saw his home’s value go up $40,000 from the initial appraisal just a few weeks earlier.
In 2000, the American actor and comedian D.L. Hughley had an appraisal on his home in the Montevista Estates neighborhood of West Hills, a primarily white area in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles. Despite a steady uptick in the housing market and the addition of a pool and new hardwood floors, the house was appraised for nearly what he had bought it for three years earlier — $500,000.
In Mr. Hughley’s case, his bank flagged the report.
“They were like, this has to be some kind of mistake because in order for your house to have come in this low, it would have to be in some level of disrepair,” Mr. Hughley said.
The bank ordered a new appraisal, which came back $160,000 higher, and Mr. Hughley went on to sell the home for $770,000.
Mr. Hughley talks about the experience in his book, “Surrender, White People!”, a satirical look at white supremacy, which was published in June by Harper Collins and examines racial inequality in the United States across education, health care and the housing market.
“People always tell us to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. But what if you remove the straps?” he said. “You’re invested in the American dream, you have capital, you have a chip in the game. And the fact that somebody could summarily minimize my wealth just because of a bias, it seemed crazy to me.”
In response to the coronavirus pandemic, a federal ruling issued in March allowed appraisals for homes that were being sold to be done remotely in certain circumstances, temporarily pausing the need for interior home inspections. Those looking to refinance, however, still must complete an in-person appraisal.
In Mr. Hughley’s case, the appraiser was fired. Ms. Horton has filed a complaint with the Department of Housing and Urban Development; when contacted about her case, HUD said it had been assigned to the Jacksonville Human Rights Commission. The agency added that it receives a handful of similar complaints each year.
In 2018, researchers from Gallup and the Brookings Institution published a report on the widespread devaluation of Black-owned property in the United States, which they discussed in a 2019 hearing before the House Financial Services Subcommittee. The report found that a home in a majority Black neighborhood is likely to be valued for 23 percent less than a near-identical home in a majority-white neighborhood; it also determined this devaluation costs Black homeowners $156 billion in cumulative losses.
Many appraisers, both during the hearing and in the weeks after, defended their practice, noting that it’s their job to report on local market conditions, not set them.
“Is there a problem with poor and underserved communities in the United States? Yes. Is it the appraisal profession’s fault? No,” wrote Maureen Sweeney, a Chicago-based appraiser in a letter to the house subcommittee following the hearing. “It’s like blaming the canary for the bad air in the coal mine, or blaming the mirror for your bad hair day. Appraisers reflect the market; we do not create it.”
But what about a Black homeowner in a white neighborhood whose property is appraised for less than his neighbor’s? Whether appraisers are devaluing Black homes or entire Black neighborhoods, the core issue is the same, said Andre Perry, one of the writers of the Brookings Institution report and the author of “Know Your Price: Valuing Black Lives and Property in America’s Black Cities.”
“We still see Black people as risky,” Mr. Perry said. “White appraisers carry the same attitudes and beliefs of white America — the same attitudes that compelled Derek Chauvin to kneel casually on the neck of George Floyd are shared by other professionals in other fields. How does that choking out of America look in the appraisal industry? Through very low appraisals,” he said.
By
Courtesy of N.Y. Times
FHFA and FHA Extend Foreclosure and REO Eviction Moratoriums to end of 2020
- At August 28, 2020
- By fhfla
- In News
- 0
Foreclosure moratorium applies to Enterprise-backed mortgages; eviction moratorium applies to Enterprise-owned properties
Washington, D.C. – In order to help borrowers at risk of losing their home due to the coronavirus national emergency, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has announced that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Enterprises) will extend the moratoriums on single-family foreclosures and real estate owned (REO) evictions until at least December 31, 2020. The foreclosure moratorium applies to Enterprise-backed, single-family mortgages only. The REO eviction moratorium applies to properties that have been acquired by an Enterprise through foreclosure or deed-in-lieu of foreclosure transactions. The current moratoriums were set to expire on August 31, 2020.
“To help keep borrowers in their homes during the pandemic, FHFA is extending the Enterprises’ foreclosure and eviction moratoriums through the end of 2020,” said Director Mark Calabria. “This protects more than 28 million homeowners with an Enterprise-backed mortgage.”
Currently, FHFA projects additional expenses of $1.1 to 1.7 billion will be borne by the Enterprises due to the existing COVID-19 foreclosure moratorium and its extension. FHFA will continue to monitor the effect of coronavirus on the mortgage industry and update its policies as needed. To understand the protections and assistance offered by the government to those having trouble paying their mortgage, please visit the joint Department of Housing and Urban Development, FHFA, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau website at cfpb.gov/housing.
Click on the link below to view the HUD Mortgagee Letter, extending FHA’s foreclosure moratorium to 12/31/20 – https://www.hud.gov/sites/
Governor Desantis Extends Freeze on Evictions and Foreclosures to August 1st
- At June 30, 2020
- By fhfla
- In News
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