Evictions That Are Never Allowed

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As a landlord or property manager, you most likely believe that you have a right to evict any tenant who has not paid their rent or who has damaged your property.

Think again. The Fair Housing Act and the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) limit your ability to evict such wrongdoers.

According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), “Landlords can often decide when it’s legitimate to try to evict someone. There are some situations, however, in which landlords do not have a legally acceptable reason to evict someone.”

Legal Reasons to Evict a Tenant

Before you know what you can’t do, it is helpful to know what you can do. Although landlord-tenant laws vary by state, there is generally some uniformity in certain areas.

As a landlord, you have the right to remove a tenant from the property for any of the following reasons:

• The tenant does not vacate the property once the lease expires.
• Your renters have caused damage to your property.
• The tenants stopped paying their rent or have otherwise violated the terms of their lease.
• You are selling the property.
• You are going to do extensive renovations to the property.
• You are denied access to the property.
• The tenant is subletting the unit when the lease or rental agreement forbids it.
• Criminal activity in the home or on the property.
• Breaking a rule in the lease.

“Just Cause” and “No Fault” Eviction

Retaliatory actions by landlords are illegal throughout the United States. This means landlords cannot increase rent, decrease services or attempt eviction in response to tenants exercising their legal rights, such as reporting housing code violations or participating in tenant organizations. 

As an example, California law restricts a landlord’s ability to terminate a residential lease, evict the tenant and retake possession of the property. When a tenant has lawfully occupied the residential property for 12 months or more, the landlord is prohibited from ending the tenancy without “just cause.”

In most California cases, “the landlord must first give the tenant written notice of the alleged violation. Then the landlord must allow the tenant three full days to correct the deficiency before terminating the lease. The landlord can proceed with repossession only if the tenant fails to correct it within the 3-day time limit.”

“Just cause” refers to situations where the tenant has failed or refused to comply with the lease or other tenant responsibilities imposed by law. For instance, HUD points out that evicting someone for failing to pay pet fees for their assistance animals is not a good cause for eviction under the Fair Housing Act.

“No fault” eviction is where the tenant has no control of the termination. No fault just cause includes the following circumstances:

• The owner is reclaiming the property as their personal residence.
• The owner is removing the property from the rental market.
• An order to vacate by a governmental authority having jurisdiction over the property.
• The owner intends to demolish or substantially renovate the premises within a short time.

In these no-fault situations, the tenant cannot stop the lease termination. However, the landlord is required to provide the tenant with relocation assistance. They must either pay the tenant a sum equal to one month of the rental price or waive the rent payment due in the final month of occupancy.

The Colorado House of Representatives recently passed HB24-1098, which would bar landlords in the state from evicting residential tenants or denying lease renewals without providing a cause. If a landlord carries out a no-cause eviction, this is considered the unlawful removal of a tenant and renters can use the landlord’s violation as a defense in eviction proceedings in court. HB24-1098 will move next to the Colorado Senate. 

Evictions That Are Never Allowed

According to HUD, landlords may not evict or threaten to evict someone based on the following grounds. Note that It does not matter that a landlord might have the right to evict a tenant for other reasons. If the eviction decision was based in part on one of these reasons, the landlord has violated the Fair Housing Act.

Landlords must comply with the Federal Fair Housing Act and additional state laws prohibiting discrimination against tenants based on the reasons listed below. It is illegal to evict or threaten to evict anyone for exercising their rights under the Fair Housing Act.

• Race
• Color
  • A landlord violates the law if they evict a Black tenant for unpaid rent, but not a White tenant who also has not paid their rent.
• Religion
• Sex (including sexual orientation or gender identity
• National origin (country of origin or ancestry)
  • Threatening to evict a tenant for not speaking English or for having an accent is typically national origin discrimination
• Disability
  • A physical or mental impairment that substantially limits an individual’s major life activity or bodily function, being regarded as having such an impairment, or having a record of such an impairment)
• Familial status
  • A landlord may not evict a family because a child joins the family through birth, adoption, a change in custody, because the tenant is pregnant or otherwise has plans to add a child to their household.
  • Landlords may not impose overly restrictive rules about what minors may or may not do in their housing and then try to evict the family for breaking those rules.

Even if someone is behind on their rent and subject to eviction, a landlord may not pick and choose which tenants to evict based on any protected characteristic. For instance, HUD points out that “if a landlord refuses to add a tenant’s domestic partner to the lease because the partner is in a protected class, this refusal and any related threat to evict is illegal.”

It doesn’t matter whether:

• The lease gives the landlord the right to determine who is in the household.
• The lease gives the landlord the right to evict for unauthorized occupants.
• There is some other reason for the refusal to add the partner allowed by the lease.

If the landlord acts for a discriminatory reason, it is not allowed. It may not be obvious that a landlord is acting because of a person’s protected characteristic, but there can be clues:

• Evicting someone because a building manager believes the tenant is LGBTQI+ is discrimination because of sex.
• Evicting a tenant because other tenants or community members have discriminatory preferences or have made discriminatory statements is illegal discrimination.

Retaliating against a tenant for refusing their landlord’s sexual advances is also a violation of the Fair Housing Act. The landlord may not use eviction as a threat to get sexual favors or sexually explicit photographs from the tenant. Such actions could expose a landlord to civil penalties as well as to criminal charges because it is illegal to evict or threaten to evict anyone who is exerting their rights under the Fair Housing Act.

HUD also reports that “Under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), a landlord may not evict or otherwise penalize any tenant for seeking out law enforcement or emergency assistance on their own behalf or on behalf of another person in need of assistance. These calls for help can be for any emergency, such as needing medical assistance and do not have to involve a domestic violence or sexual assault incident.”

Illegal Ways for Landlords to Avoid Eviction

In order to avoid the aggravation and expense of going through the eviction process, some owners will use self-help eviction methods by attempting to retake possession of their rental property through other means.

The following are examples of illegal self-help evictions that could lead to your tenant rightfully suing you and damaging your business:

• Changing the locks while the tenant still lives in the property.
• Removing the tenant’s property.
• Failing to pay included utilities, such as water, and cutting them off.
• Threats of any kind.
• Direct orders to leave.

In addition to self-help evictions being illegal, landlords can be ordered to pay the tenant actual damages, court costs and attorney’s fees. In addition, statutes in many states, such as Virginia, also allow for the tenant to remain in the home.

Eviction Laws for Mobile Homes

Eviction laws do not only cover traditional multifamily and single-family rental homes, they also apply to manufactured and mobile home parks. If someone rents both the space and the mobile home, they are treated as if they were an apartment tenant.

However, the apartment tenant can be evicted without good cause. If the person is a mobile homeowner renting a space in a mobile home park, the landlord can evict them from the park only for good cause. This is true whether the rental agreement is month-to-month or a fixed term. The landlord also may not shut off the utilities to force the tenant to move. Only a sheriff with a court order can physically evict a tenant.

A landlord would have good cause to evict a tenant from their mobile home park for the following reasons:

1. A landlord can start an eviction case by giving a 30-day written notice if the rent payment was late three times or more during the past 12 months. 
2. The landlord can terminate the lease if the tenant fails to pay a late fee for past due rental payments. The landlord may only charge a late fee if it is agreed upon in the lease. 
3. A landlord can start an eviction case if the tenant has not lived up to a condition of their rental agreement, such as not maintaining their space. They can also be evicted for breaking any other law or ordinance of the mobile home park.
4. A landlord can start an eviction case if a tenant was convicted of being a predatory sex offender.
5. The landlord can start an eviction case if they believe someone in the tenant’s household, including a pet, has seriously injured someone, threatened someone with serious harm, done substantial damage to someone else’s belongings or committed an “extremely outrageous act” in or near the mobile home park. 
6. A manufactured dwelling cannot be forced out of a facility just because of its age, style or size, but a tenant whose home is deteriorated or in disrepair can be given a notice of termination that gives the tenant at least 60 days to repair the home to meet reasonable park standards. 

Conclusion

While it’s not always obvious that a tenant is going to cause their landlord trouble, it is possible to minimize the risk by carefully screening an applicant before you rent to them. An AAOA tenant background check and tenant screening will alert you to any suspicious or irresponsible activity on the part of the prospective tenant over the last seven years. You can clearly see if they have any criminal judgments against them and how responsibly they have been paying their bills or if they have declared bankruptcy during that time.

As laws become more tenant-friendly nationwide, be very careful when handing over the keys for your investment property to a new renter. And remember, AAOA is ready 24/7 to help you.