A new study published in Socius, “Every Month Like Clockwork? Patterns and Prevalence of Serial Eviction Filing among Landlords,” finds that landlords with larger portfolios are more likely than those with smaller portfolios to engage in serial eviction filing and to do so over longer periods of time. The study also finds that serial filings pursued by larger landlords or over longer periods of time are less likely to result in court-ordered removals of households. The findings suggest that many larger landlords use serial eviction filing more as a means to collect rent than to remove renters.
Using eviction filing data and property records from Washington, D.C. for the years 2014-2019, the authors analyzed the relationship between landlord size and the occurrence of repeat eviction filings against the same household. The authors found that 64% of all eviction filings were part of a series of at least two filings against the same household within a six-month period. These filings accounted for 34% of all eviction filings for landlords with 1,000 or more units and 33% for landlords with 101-1,000 units, compared to just 16% for landlords with five or fewer units.
The authors also considered the relationship between landlord size and the duration of serial eviction filings. Larger landlords were more likely to file for eviction repeatedly over longer periods of time. The largest landlords, for example, were more likely to engage in a long sequence of filings against the same household (seven to 16 filings over a one-to-two-year period) or a very long sequence (17 or more filings over multiple years) compared to the smallest landlords.
Finally, the authors examined the relationship between serial eviction filings and the court-ordered removal of households, finding that, while few serial filings ended in the formal removal of the household, longer durations of repeat filings were less likely to end in formal removal than shorter durations of repeat filings. Serial filings from larger landlords were also less likely to result in court-ordered removals. While a series of eviction filings from the smallest landlords ended in the court-ordered removal of a household 15% of the time, a series of filings from the largest landlords resulted in removal just 8% of the time.
The authors conclude that their findings support the theory that landlords, particularly larger landlords, use serial eviction filing as a rent collection strategy. However, serial eviction filing can hurt renters’ credit and housing histories. The authors call for policies that support rent collection in ways that do not further harm renters’ credit and housing histories, such as eviction diversion programs that can provide more informal resolutions for rent disputes. They also recommend higher eviction filing fees to discourage serial filing and highlight the need for policy solutions that specifically target larger, corporate landlords that engage in serial filings.
Read the article at: https://bit.ly/3tl1o7G