Saturday, December 13, 2008

Here's a clip from a recent newspaper article about evictions in a local Atlanta county:



Fulton suspends evictions for holiday season
Homeless advocates praise measure, landlords call it unfair
By D.L. BENNETT
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thursday, December 11, 2008


Nothing says Happy Holidays during hard times like the marshals knocking on your door to serve an eviction. With record numbers of tenants falling behind and homes being lost to foreclosure, it’s become an increasingly common scene.

One metro county, Fulton, has decided to do something about that, giving some residents a Christmas gift by an at-least three-week ban on evictions. Fulton County Marshal Antonio Johnson said he won’t evict anybody from Dec. 19 through Jan. 5. Commissioners meet on Wednesday and will consider whether they want to extend the ban.

The current economic crisis seems to be creating political sympathy for tenants, but where's the sympathy for the landlords? If the tenant doesn't pay their rent, how is the landlord supposed to pay the mortgage? (And the property taxes, and the upkeep, and the other bills associated with the rental property?)

This strikes me, and many others, as grossly unfair to the landlord.

The moral of the story may be, DON'T WAIT! When the tenant stops paying move immediately to begin the process because you don't know how long it might take to get them out.

Here's a link to the Atlanta Journal Consititution story.

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2008/12/11/fulton_evictions_suspended.html