What Do You Think About "Good Cause" Evictions?

[Nathan Gesner]

More markets are creating "Good Cause Eviction" laws designed to protect tenants from unfair evictions. Essentially, the landlord can only evict if the tenant violates specific requirements.

What do you think? Are they fair to landlords and renters? One-sided? Unnecessary?

[Greg M.]

The term "unfair eviction" is designed to trigger people. It's just not accurate. It's a non-renewal. While the word "eviction" means to remove a tenant, it is mainly associated with going to court. When the lease is over and the landlord wants you gone, that's a non-renewal. When I fail to pay rent, that's an eviction. When the landlord lies and says I have 12 dogs and it's a lease violation, that's an unfair eviction. 

Personally, I'd like to see the numbers of these so-called "unfair evictions" where the landlord doesn't renew the lease. I suspect that it is a VERY small percentage of leases. They're trying to fix a problem that doesn't really exist.

Just like practically all laws promoted as protecting the tenants, they end up hurting them. The only thing it provides tenants is a little stability and if they are forced out, most places require the landlord to compensate them. Now the downside...

In my area they recently started mandatory lease renewals. Given that I now have added risk of having the tenant forever, my screening requirements got tighter (less people will qualify) and my rent at every unit goes up to compensate for the added risk. Some mom and pop landlords will not want to deal with this and they'll sell the unit and there are less rentals available. You'll also have some builders that this may be the tipping point for them to not build new units in the area and go somewhere else. Less supply + higher rent is what tenants really get with these new laws. 

Ultimately, a few tenants will benefit and the vast majority of them will be hurt. But it sounds good to uneducated people.