Current law forbids property owners from evicting tenants after their leases ends.
Under the current law:
The two parties agree to a one year lease.
Larry Landlord is not happy about Timmy Tenant throwing loud parties with hard drugs and disruptive friends every week.
The other tenants and neighbors have complained and don’t want to live near Timmy Tenant.
Larry was kind enough to not evict Timmy in the middle of his lease, but he has resolved to not renew the contract with the unpleasant tenant. After all, Larry owns the property and can do whatever he wants with it.
But according to current state law, Larry is forced to let Timmy stay on his property indefinitely.
The current Marxist law may be the only one that compels renewal of a contract.
Current law effectively allows people to ‘squat’, a term used to describe those who simply enter a property and refuse to leave.
Politicians in many states have granted squatters strong rights and made it very difficult to kick them off your property.
Former NH Supreme Court Justice and current State Representative and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Lynn proposed HB1115 to fix this issue. House Bill 1115 would allow property owners to decide who can be on their property.
This bill will have a public hearing in the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, 2/14 at 09:45 am in the Legislative Office Building 206-208.
Numerous other bills currently being considered by the legislature further erode private property rights by empowering tenants to use the force of law to diminish the property owner’s control over their rental units.
Proposed by seven Democrats, HB283 would essentially make it a crime for any landlord to charge an application fee for prospective tenants. It passed the House on a voice vote in January.
One Democrat proposed HB1368, which was carried over from last session. This socialist bill would prohibit landlords from evicting tenants for failing to pay the rent if the landlords utilized “vertical price fixing”, which the bill defines as “any agreement between the lessor and other lessors in the same supply chain, for the purpose of raising rent prices, or otherwise tampering with rent prices or competitive terms; or the exchange of rent prices or competitive terms among landlords with the intent to fix prices or competitive terms; or that adversely impacts prices or competitive terms.” This bill will have a public hearing in the House Judiciary Committee on 2/14/24.
Eleven Democrats proposed SB519, which would make it substantially more difficult for property owners to ask tenants to leave their property so that they can renovate it. If an owner wants to renovate their property, he must:
Provide the tenant with no less than 60 days notice to vacate the premise; and
Describe with specificity the work that the owner intends to have done on the dwelling unit, and the approximate time frame during which the work will be performed.
Offer the tenant a dwelling unit with the same number of bedrooms as are in the unit from which he or she is being evicted, at a rent that does not exceed the tenant’s current rent.
Nine Democrats proposed HB261, which would make it a crime for a landlord to evict a person if the reason is that the tenant or a person in their household obtained a restraining order of any type (which are nearly always approved in New Hampshire). The bill would also allow any person who obtained any restraining order for any reason against any person to escape their lease without repercussions.
This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Liberty Block or any of its members. We welcome all forms of serious feedback and debate.
