Evictions keep piling up

From the Star Ledger:

NJ continues to see backlog in eviction cases, but there are improvements

If a landlord filed to evict a tenant in Essex County this year, there’s a good chance the court hasn’t yet turned to the case.

Essex consistently records the most eviction filings in the state, the bulk coming from landlords in Newark. And after the Garden State paused most landlord-tenant proceedings for nearly two years during an eviction moratorium to keep people safely housed during the COVID-19 pandemic, and with a shortage of judges statewide, Essex now leads the state with the largest backlog of cases to sift through, at more than 15,500. 

That’s over a third of the 42,500 cases languishing statewide for more than two months, according to court data through the end of November. Hudson, Passaic and Camden counties are also slogging through a combined pileup of 14,000 cases. 

In some filings from 2020, “you need an accounting degree to figure out the amount really due and owing,” said Jose Ortiz, deputy director of Essex Newark Legal Services. Other cases involve landlords who received rental assistance, or tenants who had already moved out, and have yet to be dismissed, said Allison Nolan, senior staff attorney for Volunteer Lawyers for Justice.

And as judges trudge through the years-long backlog, the eviction filings are picking up, though not quite at pre-pandemic levels. The monthly average of 8,200 cases this year is not as high as the 12,600 that courts saw each month in 2019, but higher than 2021’s 4,000 monthly cases. Filings refer to the number of cases that landlords take to court, not the number of people removed from their homes or the number of families who move outside of the official legal process.

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31 Responses to Evictions keep piling up

  1. grim says:

    If the court filing data from this article is correct, this is up from 31,000 in August (which reflected a dismissal of 10k cases in July).

    https://www.wnyc.org/story/nj-eviction-filings-are-rising-courts-grapple-backlog-reforms/

    The courts, meanwhile, are slogging through a backlog of more than 31,000 cases, management reports show. Tenancy cases are considered backlogged if they take more than two months to process.

  2. Hold my beer says:

    Grim

    Is the eviction process for commercial properties as long as residential properties?

  3. Chicago says:

    At least ARKK isn’t at a 52 week low.

  4. Ex says:

    I can safely say that even looking at a reloc back East
    Is off the table. Yeeeesh

  5. BRT says:

    At least ARKK isn’t at a 52 week low.

    And she’s knife catching Tesla all throughout this downward move

  6. Phoenix says:

    Religion strikes again:

    Israel’s largest medical centre and healthcare workers from hospitals around the country have spoken out against remarks by allies of Benjamin Netanyahu calling for a law to allow discrimination against LGBTQ people in hospitals and businesses.

    It was part of a broader blowback against remarks made this week by Religious Zionism politicians calling for legal discrimination against LGBTQ people.

    Netanyahu’s new government – the most religious and hard-line in Israel’s history – is made up of ultra-Orthodox parties, an ultranationalist religious faction, and his Likud party. It is to be sworn in on Thursday.

  7. Phoenix says:

    We are short staffed where I work. If they are skilled can someone call Benji and send them over here? We will gladly take them. The employees, that is.
    We already have way more than enough patients.

    “calling for a law to allow discrimination against LGBTQ people in hospitals and businesses.”

  8. Phoenix says:

    Karens for hire. Haha. Pay 65 dollars, have them nag the corporations to get what you want. Tie up their phones. America the S *** Show.

    Karens for Hire, which includes two other part-time advocates and a lawyer on retainer, has received more than 2,300 requests for help since it launched last spring. The table is littered with scrawled notes and numbers, the detritus of hundreds of transactions gone bad, conflicts large and small, corporate and local, petty and profound.

    The ranks of the angry thwarted is growing as some companies decide it is cheaper to bring in new customers than keep old ones.

  9. Phoenix says:

    Had a customer the other day, runs a shipping company. Says at any given time there are roughly 200 or more trafficked women in shipping containers on the east coast.

    Be really careful getting into a taxi in Eastern Europe.

    Just something merry to think about when you see these brightly colored boxes as you are driving.

  10. Phoenix says:

    America doesn’t seem to have a shortage of bombs and missiles, money to send to Ukraine, or the ability to make even more bombs and missiles.

    However, it doesn’t seem to have the skill or capacity to make Tylenol or Penicillin. Just forget about making an Iphone if you can’t make the penicillin you made in 1950.

    “Now Target will limit purchases of children’s fever medication like Tylenol to two bottles each – after CVS and Walgreens set restrictions amid ‘tripledemic’ striking US children”

  11. Boomer Remover says:

    I had to a cancel a flight to London when Covid broke out. I was issued a travel credit in the amount of $759 good for a twelve months, and then called back to have it extended for another year. Well, we forgot all about aaaaaand….it’s gone.

    I searched online and the internet is littered with stories of folks losing thousands in use it or lose it American Airlines flight voucher/credit.

  12. Walking says:

    Tylenol and penicillin all closed shop in Virginia and was relocated to Puerto Rico. Good luck with that. I don’t have that territory, but construction is difficult there. Ireland definitely has more skilled workforce which helps. The Irish also put on a much better presentation vs PR when it comes to outsourcing this stuff.

  13. Libturd says:

    Boomer R. –

    We smartly booked ours (certs with United) just before they all expired. We used them for our Costa Rica trip.

  14. Libturd says:

    TNX 3.85

  15. crushednjmillenial says:

    The eviction backlog . . .

    Simply put, the bluest urban counties are slow-walking the work to sort out the backlog. In Hudson, for example, as of the last time I checked, they had two judges doing evictions one day per week. So, that would be the equivalent of staffing one judge for two days of eviction court per week.

    At the least, it would seem sensible to staff one judge to preside over eviction court for 4 or 5 days per week. Indeed, given that there is an admitted “backlog”, maybe more staffing than that would be appropriate.

    There are only two sensible reasons to do this:

    (1) there is still federal money that the state government and non-profits can filter into the hands of non-paying low-income NJ tenants who, ehem, suffered from covid-related economic hardship or whatever handwaving Uncle Sam wants us to pretend is true right now;
    (2) it’s just a D thing where the ivory tower judges see a judgment-proof tenant finally getting locked out owing $25k (while having spent more than $25k on frivolous, albeit enjoyable, things rather than paying rent for the last x number of months) as a win for the little guy. Nevermind that the landlord suffering that loss might own one rental premises (say, a 2-family in Newark).

    My final note – I am still surprised that a large landlord or trade group didn’t sue the State government and now the Courts over all this nonsense. Frankly, the eviction moratorium became a taking in the eyes of a sensible society on or about June 1, 2020. The Courts are impugning their credibility by this ongoing malfeasance. No one is watching the watchmen.

  16. Very Stable Genius says:

    “ WASHINGTON — House Republican leaders were silent on Tuesday after Representative-elect George Santos admitted to a laundry list of falsehoods about his background but still vowed to be seated in Congress.

    Mr. Santos acknowledged in a series of interviews on Monday that he lied about graduating from college and made misleading claims that he worked for Citigroup or Goldman Sachs. He also acknowledged owing thousands of dollars in unpaid rent and denied committing a crime anywhere in the world, despite a New York Times report to the contrary.

    The muted response from party leaders suggested that so far they were prepared to mete out little, if any, punishment to an incoming lawmaker who, while deceiving voters, flipped an open seat formerly held by a Democrat and helped Republicans secure their razor-thin House majority.”

  17. leftwing says:

    “The muted response from party leaders suggested that so far they were prepared to mete out little, if any, punishment to an incoming lawmaker who, while deceiving voters, flipped an open seat formerly held by a Democrat and helped Republicans secure their razor-thin House majority.”

    As my children would say, when they were about five and I stated the painfully obvious…”no duh”

  18. No One says:

    Happy Hollidays! Has someone already posted this from a couple weeks back?
    Pumpkin style investing is over.
    https://www.oaktreecapital.com/insights/memo/sea-change

  19. Libturd says:

    Crushed.

    You nailed why I sold. The risk in investing in rental real estate in a blue state is now too high. This, combined with the clear market top flashed a clear market signal for me to sell. Throw in my expected crash of the longest bull market in the history of the USA with the FED finally returning the equities market from a speculative online casino to a place where fundamentals matter and an 8% return is acceptable, truly made selling my investment property an absolute no-brainer.

    How about that Tesla?

  20. leftwing says:

    TSLA…don’t know….ask CW, lol.

    https://imgur.com/a/km0YQSZ

    Her dumpster fire main fund broke $30 today….

  21. The Great Pumpkin says:

    I can’t sell, there is nothing that will produce the passive income that my property does. If I sell, i will have to pay capital gains and not come close to having the equivalent passive income on said risk. That’s the difference between your rental and mine; mine is a true rental income producing property. The value is in the income and not the asset itself even though I have made 100s of thousands on appreciation alone. Stock market could never tough these returns on a risk to cost basis.

    Libturd says:
    December 27, 2022 at 4:22 pm
    Crushed.

    You nailed why I sold. The risk in investing in rental real estate in a blue state is now too high. This, combined with the clear market top flashed a clear market signal for me to sell. Throw in my expected crash of the longest bull market in the history of the USA with the FED finally returning the equities market from a speculative online casino to a place where fundamentals matter and an 8% return is acceptable, truly made selling my investment property an absolute no-brainer.

    How about that Tesla?

  22. The Great Pumpkin says:

    I also get to use my property as an ATM if needed if a dumpster fire investment opportunity comes along… will just take an equity out for some easy leverage if said opportunity comes along.

  23. The Great Pumpkin says:

    When I first bought my rental property, things were tight. 22 years later and it prints money thanks to inflation. Wonder when i will get to the point where it is producing more rental income in a year than the price i paid for it.

  24. The Great Pumpkin says:

    That’s where the risk is when buying a rental. The early years where you can’t run into bad luck….because the capital available for mistakes is slim to none. If you survive that period, you are golden. Just remember, this period is equivalent to baby sea turtles marching to sea…a lot of people get slaughtered during this period.

  25. BRT says:

    TSLA, 2 weeks straight, no bids.

  26. BRT says:

    btw, Cathie’s avg. cost on TSLA is $108, it’s in the 107s aftermarket. It’s now an ETF of 100% losing positions

  27. The Great Pumpkin says:

    I personally am looking to eventually buy a whole bitcoin and some tesla when it bottoms. Esp meta. Just hope this bottom doesn’t take years to come. Will see. At least will have years to build cheap position if the bear case takes years to work itself out.

  28. Grim says:

    I’d rather buy a half kilo bar of platinum than a single bitcoin.

  29. Libturd says:

    Its really funny. If you asked me the three most overvalued POS investments available 9 months ago, I would have told you META, TSLA and any Crypto.

  30. Chicago says:

    I wish Klecko clocked the bastard

    So happy NY brought @nicolette_dellanno and her beautiful family into our lives,” Lisa wrote over a group photo that showed her, Wilson, Nicolette and more people at Pazzo Italian restaurant in Red Bank, New Jersey. Lisa also tagged Nicolette’s mother, Kathy Dellano, who was pictured in the photo.
    https://nypost.com/2022/12/27/zach-wilsons-mom-lisa-gushes-over-his-girlfriend-amid-jets-drama/

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