WARNING: This is a long blog post, but the subject matter of Eviction Records Retention, as well as Evictions in general, deserves nothing less than a comprehensive review.  We owe this to ourselves, as rental property owners and managers, and we owe this to our Residents...our Customers.

In discussing the Courts final ruling, it is important to put some context in the reasoning behind the position that the AANW, the FVAA and others who are part of our coalition of rental property housing providers, took on this issue.

The Context:

• More than 95% of our resident customers pay their rent on time, are good neighbors, maintain the property as expected, and do not violate the terms of their lease.  Therefore, they are not involved in eviction actions in the first place.
• Less than 5% of our residents, for a variety of reasons, most of which are outlined above, will find themselves in an eviction situation.  Often, the predominant reason is due to non-payment of rent.
• These two points above, is what some of us have come to call the “955 Trend”, for lack of any other way to articulate this.
• This is not to suggest at all that those who are involved in an eviction action do not need some form of assistance.  Indeed, they do, however, there are far better ways to get them this help, (including various eviction avoidance strategies and programs that need more development) that do not impact the majority of our residents (the 95%), than removing eviction records from the public’s view.
• As we have shown in our monthly meetings, removing these eviction records would negatively impact the 95% group as screening standards would increase, along with security deposits and rents, to offset additional business risk, making it harder to be accepted as an applicant.  Additionally, this same 95% group would now be competing for housing, “with” those who have evictions in their past rental history (the 5%) because no one can see them, as they would have been removed from public view.
• Additionally, as some owners/managers already have, and likely more would follow, to mitigate this increased risk in their businesses, they will migrate to a different niche in the rental housing market, where the lack of visibility of eviction records might present less risk to their business.
• Still others would just exit the rental housing market in its entirety, selling to new owners that would undoubtedly take on a higher cost of debt service, putting even more upward pressure on Rents.  
• Not an outcome any of us would like to see, but upward pressure on Rents and a reduction of Affordable Housing Stock would have indeed been an outcome of all of this.
• In a rental housing market that is already strained with demand exceeding supply, this is not at all fair to those residents who always pay their rent on time, are good neighbors, maintain the property as expected, and do not violate the terms of their lease.  In effect, the 95% become collateral damage and would suffer from the unintended consequences of, a well-intentioned proposal from Legal Action, but nevertheless flawed in its understanding of the impact to all the various stakeholders of this request.
• In 2018 the Wis Legislative branch put forth Wis Stat §758.20, that outlines among other things, how long eviction records should be retained out in the public domain.
• The Court already has a mechanism in place to review records access in CCAP through a steering committee that reviews these matters and considers the broader ramifications of changes in records retention to all the various stakeholders involved in proposed changes.
• Legal Action of Wisconsin’s (LAW) petition to the Court with 22-03, attempted to circumvent both the Legislative branches intent with this matter through the enactment of Wis Stat §758.20 in 2018, and the Court’s own committee established to review CCAP records retention.

Now to the Final Ruling of the Court:

• This has always been about how long eviction records would remain available in the public domain via the CCAP online access to court records.
• The Bottomline here is that the Court rejected the petition of Legal Action of Wisconsin (LAW) that suggested a one-year retention period and accepted the proposal of the AANW/FVAA, and our housing coalition partners we work with, first made in 2022, again in 2023, and finally once more in 2024.  2-Year Retention Period if no money judgement has been docketed, and a 10-Year Retention Period if a Writ of Restitution has been granted by the Court.
• During the Courts second open administrative conference, held on April 16, 2024, the Court ultimately came around to agreeing that they did not want to go against the Legislative branch’s establishment of law on this matter, through Wis Stat §758.20.  If you listen to this event, out on WisEye.org you will learn that the clarifying position statement that was submitted on behalf of the AANW and FVAA, dated April 10^th, 2024, certainly played a role in this discussion on April 16^th, and their final decision. 
• The Courts decision to effectively “stay in their lane” as the Judicial Branch of government, is to be applauded and respected.  Note that LAW was urging the Court to override this Statute, and in effect create their own law/rule.  The Court ultimately refused to comply with this request, as it should have. 
•  What did come out of this over 2 years of discussion, is that based on the comments from those who spoke before the Court, the application of Wis Stat §758.20 was not always being applied consistently across the court system, and that is not right to those who find themselves in an eviction action, so they will be taking the time necessary to make some changes to software, process definition and procedures to help make the application of the law and its own rules, consistent.  This is a good thing for all stakeholders involved.
• Thus the "effective date" of this ruling is July 1, 2025, but recall that Wis Stat §758.20 already requires nothing less than a 2-year retention period where no money judgement has been docketed, and 10 years when a Writ of Restitution has been issued.  Again, this is effectively exactly what the Court has ordered. 
• Justice Hagedorn's dissent (joined by Chief Justice Annette Ziegler and Justice Rebecca Bradley) confirms what many of us suspected they were having trouble with all along…which was why the court became involved in this rules petition in the first place.  As stated earlier, the court has its own process for handling rules review through its CCAP oversight and steering committee, and LAW circumvented that by filing this petition with the Court, as well as then seemingly ignoring the role the Legislative branch should have/could have played in this as well.  Justice Hagedorn stopped short of suggesting that owners and managers would increase screening standards for their customers/residents and what that would do to our 95% base.  But he does find a way to suggest that better solutions to matters such as this can more thoroughly be developed within a process that engages all the various stakeholders upfront, where a collaborative solution can be created and bought into by all concerned parties.  We could not agree more, and in fact this is a point made several times to the Court, when we spoke before them, as well as the document submissions that we provided. 

In closing, many of you have heard on more than one occasion that at least a part of why we have seen failed housing policies and or poorly thought through legislative housing bill proposals, while all of these are we are sure well-intended, is because too many times we have attempted to fix the symptoms, and not the disease.  The AANW and the FVAA stand ready to engage in meaningful, collaborative, root cause analysis and discussion to tackle the multiple housing issues we are facing.  In fact, some housing related associations, municipalities and legislative officials have already reached out to us to do just that, and we welcome more to do the same.

Rick Van Der Leest

Apartment Association of Northeast Wisconsin | President

Fox Valley Apartment Association | Director of Government Affairs

Attention Members:

A special thank you to Matt Norem, former Board Member and valued Business Partner.

Matt brought to our attention that it was not always easy to know if the form from Wisconsin Legal Blank (WLB) that you had on hand, was the most recent/current form.

We reached out to Attorney Tristen Pettit, who authors all of these forms and Rick Russell, owner of WLB to see what could be done to help our members with this.

Rick Russell, stepped up to create what we will call a Master List of the forms and their effective date, on their website.  You will find it along the left side of their home page, called "Current Rental Forms List/Dates".

You can find it here by clicking on this link...

Current Rental Forms/List

Making sure we are all using the most current forms, benefits both our Residents and our Owners and Managers of rental properties.

Everyone should also take this opportunity to sign up to receive WLB's email updates, as that will also let you know of form changes, among other new products, etc.  Look for the "Join Our Mailing List" area and sign up!!

Thank you again Matt for bringing this to our attention, and thank you Rick for helping us provide our members with tools to help them stay current with their forms!! 

Also, members do not forget when ordering forms directly through Wisconsin Legal Blank, you can use the Discount Code that has previously been emailed out to you.  Yet another "Membership Benefit" and our way to say we are grateful and value your membership.

We appreciate all of you, and hope to see you at our next members meeting,

Rick Van Der Leest

Apartment Association of Northeast Wisconsin | President

Uncover the truth behind the rising wave of home foreclosures and commercial delinquencies in 2024. Click below to read this article revealing crucial insights and potential opportunities in the real estate market:

Foreclosures Are Rising Quickly, and CRE Delinquencies Are Exploding—What’s Going On?

Click on the link below to read the full HUD Press Release Regarding ...

Biden-Harris Administration Announces $173 Million to Make Homes More Energy Efficient and Climate Resilient for Low-Income Americans as Part of President Biden’s Investing in America Agenda

HUD Press Release

Good Evening --

During our February meeting, this topic was discussed extensively when presented by Genaro Hjortness, our guest speaker regarding Taxes and tax law changes to be aware of.

Here are two articles that are a quick read to keep apprised of the latest status of this topic...

Plaintiffs: FinCEN Should Pause All CTA Enforcement

Federal Court Holds Corporate Transparency Act Unconstitutional

We were not real crazy about what appeared to be a "back door" way of creating "Lists"... be it of Rental Property Owners or Property Managers as well as many other businesses owners and their stakeholders.

It would appear the Supreme Court will remain in the Spotlight for the foreseeable future.

HUD Proposed Rule - 30-Day Notification Requirement Prior to Termination of Lease for Nonpayment of Rent HUD Proposed Rule regarding a 30-day...

This proposal came out on December 1st by HUD.  While the attachment has a lot of verbiage in it, focus your attention to the far right of page 1, under the Heading "DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT".

All should read from that point forward.  Yes there is a lot to read, but remember this is "your business", which is coming under attack from all levels of government.  This one just happens to be at the Federal level.

Those of you who attended the Landlord Bootcamp Training Event earlier this month, will recall the the CARES Act is already causing a great deal of confusion over what is considered "proper notice" and the definition of what is a "covered property" seems to be ever evolving.

While the status of just how long the CARES Act and it's related requirements for those who accepted housing assistance is getting more traction and dialog, there are similar proposals like the one you will read about here from HUD that have been brought forth by the State through the Tenant Protection Package Bills that came out on October 18th, and continue to roll out as we speak.

Grass Roots Advocacy, combined with a State level legislative team effort has to be one of your "Priority 1's" in laying out your 2024 Business Plan.  We have been talking about this now in our monthly member meetings for the past few months, and we will continue to have this discussion for the months to come.

No one will fight for the freedom and rights you have as a Business Owner better than "you".  We can layout a roadmap and a plan moving forward, but in the end we all need to have some level of involvement and engagement in this work.

Click on this link to read the article coming at us from the Federal level:

HUD Proposed Rule - 30-Day Notification Requirement Prior to Termination of Lease for Nonpayment of Rent

Rick Van Der Leest

Some of you who were involved in our discussions in front of the Green Bay Common Council may recall that one of several points made was the fact that we "all" need to work at the front end of the Housing Issues and Challenges, rather than work in isolation in coming up with proposed solutions where various Stakeholders are left out of the discussions. 

This was one of the many points made to the Wis Supreme Court over the issue of Eviction Records Visibility in CCAP.

Below is yet another example of why working in isolation ends up generating poor solutions and also sets the tone for various parties getting frustrated and uncooperative when they are then confronted with a proposed solution they were not a part of.

Now in this particular case, there was an intent originally to work "across the isle" so to speak, but that appears to have backfired, which is why everyone separated and went back to their corners of the "ring" to come out swinging again...on their own.

Sadly, while we all fall victim to this inefficient and ineffective method of problem solving, the true "Victims" are our customers, who are our tenants, and those who are finding it difficult to find housing in the marketplace for a variety of reasons.

Please read the intro below and click on the link to read the full article...

As an alternative to the madness of housing court, a landlord group pitched a mediation program on Monday and called for tenant advocates to support it, rather than consult with them in advance.

That was no accident.

The Community Housing Improvement Program felt burned the last time it shared an idea with the Legal Aid Society of New York City and Housing Justice For All.

“We had conversations that we thought were going well,” CHIP’s Jay Martin said. But when state legislators introduced the resulting bill, which aimed to increase rents of dilapidated vacant apartments enough to fund repairs, tenant groups falsely claimed it would remove 500,000 units from rent regulation and put New Yorkers on the street.

Link to the full article:

Landlord group pitched a mediation program on Monday and called for tenant advocates to support it...

Rick Van Der Leest

Attention All Rental Property Owners, Property Managers and Real Estate Investors:

On Wednesday, Oct 18th, 2023, a series of proposed legislative bills were announced in Madison.  These bills are being positioned as a "Tenant Protection Package".  

While it certainly appears that these legislators are not necessarily fans of rental property owners, property managers and real estate investors alike, I would point out that the people they are representing are our Tenants.

Those of us who are involved in rental property ownership and management would, I hope, recognize that the only way Landlords can achieve long-term, sustainable success is if their Tenants are also successful.  After all, our Tenants are our customers/clients, and we need to understand that while we can have differences of opinion, the framework of discussions moving forward needs to center around why pieces of legislation such as these being proposed below, will be detrimental to the very group of people that the legislators hope they will help.  All of this will make it harder for Tenants to find quality, safe, sustainable housing. 

While I have no doubt that those involved in creating these pieces of proposed legislation genuinely have good intentions, the end result, if these come to fruition is that if we think we have an affordable housing crisis at the moment, it will come in spades if legislation such as this moves forward.

We have recently seen a movement to reduce the retention of Eviction Records, which brought me before the Wis Supreme Court twice now.  I can tell you from first-hand experience that we all need to do a better job of explaining why some of these well intentioned housing solutions will have severe unintended consequences and collateral damage to our Tenants, not to mention the harm it will cause to the rental property industry overall.

We all need to get ENGAGED NOW and reach out to our local and state representatives to explain why these are bad policies. Not simply because Landlords and the industry will suffer from this, but equally important... what this will do to the very Tenants they hoped this would help.  Again, I encourage you to contact both your local and state representatives about what is being proposed below.  Please do it today, tomorrow, or at the very least this week.

Grass Roots Advocacy by its very definition starts at the local level, and establishes the foundation that is necessary to make our State and Federal level legislative/lobbying efforts more efficient and effective.  In the coming months, we will be discussing more about what is meant by this as we lay out a vision for how we can take the body of work that has been done in the past, and make it even more sustainable, efficient, and effective.

Finally, I hope this sort of activity encourages you to become a member (if you are not already) of the Apartment Association of Northeast Wisconsin, as well as attend our upcoming Landlord Boot Camp Event on November 11th.  Signing up to become a member, as well as attending the boot camp is very easy on our new website:

Click on this link to sign up to become a member:

Join AANW Here

Click on this link to sign up for the Upcoming Landlord Bootcamp Nov 11th

Sign Up for the Landlord Boot Camp

Please see below these proposed legislative bills that are seeking co-sponsors and overall support from the very legislative representatives we can and should all be reaching out to.  Clicking on each Bold Text area will take you to the Bill details.

Rick Van Der Leest

AANW Vice President & Treasurer

LRB-3892 Memo CCAP Information (Clancy, Ryan) Information contained in the Consolidated Court Automation Programs Internet site related to dismissed eviction actions. Deadline: Wednesday, November 1, 5 pm

LRB-3893 Memo Rent Abatement (Madison, Darrin) Rent abatement and retaliatory conduct and granting rule-making authority. Deadline: Wednesday, November 1, 5 pm

LRB-4677 Memo Rental Inspections (Madison, Darrin) Local inspections of rental properties. Deadline: Wednesday, November 1, 5 pm

LRB-4544 Memo Eviction Moratoriums (Madison, Darrin) Repealing the prohibition against local governments enacting or enforcing an eviction moratorium on a landlord. Deadline: Wednesday, November 1, 5 pm

LRB-2077 Memo Tenant Right to Counsel (Clancy, Ryan) A residential tenant's right to counsel in an eviction action and making an appropriation. Deadline: Wednesday, November 1, 5 pm

LRB-3918 Memo Housing Discrimination (Ratcliff, Melissa) Discrimination in housing based on prior eviction and providing a penalty. Deadline: Wednesday, November 1, 5 pm

LRB-0431 Memo Legal Services Grants (Anderson, Jimmy) Grants to provide legal services to tenants in eviction actions, granting rule-making authority, and making an appropriation. Deadline: Wednesday, November 1, Noon

LRB-2760 Memo Tenant Organizing Rights (Anderson, Jimmy) Rights of tenants to organize and engage in certain activities and providing a penalty. Deadline: Wednesday, November 1, Noon

LRB-0427 Memo Housing Discrimination (Anderson, Jimmy) Discrimination in housing based on citizenship or immigration status. Deadline: Wednesday, November 1, 5 pm

LRB-0430 Memo Rent Abatement (Anderson, Jimmy) Rent abatement for tenants and granting rule-making authority. Deadline: Wednesday, November 1, 5 pm

LRB-3894 Memo Tenant Property Disposition (Clancy, Ryan) Disposition of property left behind by a tenant and granting rule-making authority. Deadline: Wednesday, November 1, 5 pm

LRB-3895 Memo Tenant Evictions (Clancy, Ryan) Evicting tenants for failure to pay rent. Deadline: Wednesday, November 1, 5 pm

LRB-3896 Memo Evictions (Clancy, Ryan) Actions for relief from extrajudicial eviction in small claims court. Deadline: Wednesday, November 1, 5 pm

LRB-3899 Memo Evictions (Clancy, Ryan) The defense of waiver in eviction actions. Deadline: Wednesday, November 1, 5 pm

LRB-3898 Memo Evictions (Clancy, Ryan) Procedures in eviction actions for noncompliance with stipulated judgments of dismissal. Deadline: Wednesday, November 1, 5 pm

LRB-3901 Memo Eviction Stay (Clancy, Ryan) The mandatory stay of eviction proceedings against a tenant who has applied for emergency assistance. Deadline: Wednesday, November 1, 5 pm

LRB-3902 Memo Eviction Notices (Jacobson, Jenna) Eviction notices. Deadline: Wednesday, November 1, 5 pm

LRB-4143 Memo Rental Assistance (Hong, Francesca) Requiring landlords or tenants to apply for emergency rental assistance and participate in mediation prior to eviction and prohibiting certain rent increases. Deadline: Wednesday, November 1, 5 pm

LRB-3889 Memo Residential Leases (Palmeri, Lori) Certain requirements for residential leases. Deadline: Wednesday, November 1, 5 pm

 

ATTENTION MEMBERS:

We received the notification below regarding a free Fair Housing Training Seminar:

The Fair Housing Center of Northeast Wisconsin is offering a FREE in-person fair housing training seminar for owners and managers of rental property in Green Bay:

Thursday, October 26, 2023 – 10 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Brown County Central Library – 515 Pine St, Combined Meeting Rooms 1 & 2, Green Bay

To register for this free online seminar, visit https://tinyurl.com/FHGreenBay or call 414-278-1240.

The seminar will include information about the protected classes and prohibited practices delineated by local, state and federal fair housing laws, as well as reasonable accommodations and modifications for tenants with disabilities.

If you need materials in alternate formats or other accommodations to access our services, please call 414-278-1240.

This material presented during this seminar is intended for general information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Recording of the seminars is not permitted.