CDC Emergency Powers overreach – Landlords ‘screwed.’
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By WSJ Editorial Board, Sept. 3, 2020 – Excerpts:
The CDC decides it can abrogate rental contracts nationwide.
Governments during the pandemic have arrogated to themselves vast emergency powers, but the rule of law still matters. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s sweeping ban on evictions this week tests the legal limits of emergency powers and sets a bad precedent.
The CDC order that takes effect Friday bans landlords from evicting tenants who claim they can’t afford to pay rent due to the pandemic. Congress in March banned evictions in federally subsidized housing through the end of July. But the CDC order encompasses all housing and extends through the end of this year.
Tenants who expect to earn less than $99,000 ($198,000 for couples) this year must merely sign an attestation that they lost income, have sought all available federal rental assistance, and would be homeless or forced to move in with someone if evicted. Landlords who want to remove nonpaying tenants would have to prove tenants are lying. Good luck.
The order covers millions who aren’t destitute but don’t want to find less expensive housing. Most Americans are honest and won’t exploit the moratorium to live rent-free, not least because the order would require them to make up payments (assuming government doesn’t absolve them). But some will take advantage of the forbearance.
Thousands of landlords around the country have accommodated struggling tenants by reducing or deferring payments….
About half of the 48 million rental units in the U.S. are owned by small businesses, many of which could be foreclosed on if they don’t pay their mortgages. Some might have to raise rents on other tenants to cover costs. There’s no free rent.
The legality of the CDC order is also dubious. It relies on Section 361 of the Public Health Service Act, which allows the agency to take measures to prevent the spread of communicable diseases between states. The agency’s rationale is that people who get evicted will move in with family or friends and spread the disease.
This is by far the biggest emergency-power overreach… It abrogates private contracts and expropriates private property, which warrants a legal challenge by landlords under the Constitution’s takings clause….
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