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Legally Speaking
What will 2021 bring? With 2020 in the rearview mirror, will there be headwinds or tailwinds for the apartment industry?
2021
By Mark Zinman, Esq.
It’s that time of year, where I sit down and write a projection of what property managers can expect in the coming year from a legal perspective. If I had to summarize my thoughts, it would be as follows: “We will likely continue the changes that we have seen since March, 2020 and expect more pro-tenant advocacy.” In other words, buckle up managers and owners and get ready for more change. Last year, in the November-December issue of Apartment News, I wrote the following about 2020:
CHANGE
“Recently, there has been an influx of stories regarding landlord-tenant matters and the negative perception being created about landlords. A day doesn’t go by without a story being published online or written in the newspaper about a landlord increasing rents or evicting a tenant. These stories ultimately create the political climate around which legislators pass laws and judges review landlord-tenant disputes. It is expected that more anti-landlord legislation will be proposed and judges will look more critically upon evictions.” There was absolutely no way to know that COVID-19 would cause a
It’s not as if grocery stores were forced to hand out free food to
global pandemic or the impact it would have on our industry. However,
anyone who wanted it, yet that is effectively what happened with
the anti-property owner sentiment that I mentioned in 2019 permeated
property owners – they were forced to provide services to people
every news story and piece of legislation that we saw in 2020.
who were not required to timely pay for it. This was viewed as acceptable by voters because of the narrative that has been created
While COVID-19 hit everyone in the country, your elected officials
about property owners.
decided for property owners to bear the financial burden for non-paying residents. This unprecedented and unconstitutional decision did not happen in a bubble – it happened because of the negative perception being created about property owners.
Apartment News | November/December 2020
–Continued on next page
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