On March 27, 2020, President Trump and most Republicans joined Democrats in enacting the “CARES Act”. (“Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security Act). Part of that law imposed a “moratorium” to prevent all evictions of all residential tenants in the country until August 23, 2020. When that moratorium expired, the Center for Disease Control issued its own national “moratorium” until December 31, 2020. Then it extended it until January 31, then to March 31, and then to June 30, 2021. Here in New Jersey, Governor Murphy and the Democratic majority legislature issued an even stricter “moratorium”. That “moratorium” will not expire until March of next year. However, those expiration dates never mattered. They were always extended.
These “moratoriums” are a direct and unconstitutional attack on the foundation of the American Dream. Click here for related post Eviction “Moratorium” Killing American Dream. Ruining “Millionaire Next Door”. – Liberty and Prosperity.
These “moratoriums” deny owners of rental properties their “unalienable” rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” recognized by our Declaration of Independence. Those “natural rights” were described by England’s John Locke in 1689 as including the the fundamental right to own and enjoy property and make contracts.
That was also recognized by New Jersey’s state constitution since 1844. Article I, Section 1 of our NJ State Constitution states:
“All persons are by nature free and independent, and have certain natural and unalienable rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and of pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness”.
The Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution states that “private property” cannot “be taken for public use, without just compensation”.
Article I, Section 20 of New Jersey’s State Constitution states that ““Private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation. . . “
Article I, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution states: “No State shall pass any. . . ex post factor law or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts.”
William A. “Bill” Thompson, III is an Atlantic City attorney who has specialized in real estate and landlord-tenant law for roughly fifty years. Last June, he published a letter in PressofAtlanticCity.com entitled “End eviction moratorium in August as planned”. Click here for the link to his complete letter. Voice of the People, June 19, 2021 | Letters | pressofatlanticcity.com
In that letter, Bill Thompson explained in detail how the endless “moratorium” on evictions is causing unconstitutional, unjustified, and unnecessary hardship caused to far more people than landlords. Here is some of what he wrote:
- Many people of modest means of people who worked, saved, invested their savings in real estate, and complied with the law in making lease agreements to rent out their property. Their tenants agreed to pay rent each month to live there. The federal and state “eviction moratoriums” enabled and encouraged tenants to break their agreements and stop paying rent. Now these property owners are on the verge of losing what they worked and saved all their lives for — financial independence and security. When tenants occupy their property, but fail to pay rent for nearly two years, owners can’t pay their real estate taxes, mortgage loans, utilities, or insurance. They have no money for repairs.
- The endless moratoriums do not allow property owners to remove tenants who attack, bully, disturb, or steal from their neighbors.
- Property owners cannot remove tenants who damage and destroy their property
- People who buy new homes can’t move in if tenant’s from the previous owner don’t move out.
- Many tenants who could pay chose not to pay. Many were working. Others were collecting more from enhanced unemployment than they earned from their jobs. Many qualified for “homeless prevention” benefits from government agencies and charities like Catholic Charities. Some actually sublet rooms in their apartments and collected more than their landlords!are not paying rent, are subletting their apartments and collecting rent. They don’t worry about “eviction moratoriums” because they use violence to punish tenants who don’t pay.
- There was never any scientific or medical evidence that evicting tenants who failed to pay rent, disturbed their neighbors, destroyed property, or broke their lease would spread the coronavirus to others–especially when vaccines were available to anyone who wanted them.
If this endless “moratoriums” continue, they will end the American Dream of “millionaire next door”. They will shut the door on the easiest and most popular way for ordinary, working Americans to achieve wealth and financial independence. Only government agencies and big corporations with political connections will be left to buy, sell, build and improve houses and apartments. Without rental real estate, Wall Street stocks and banks controlled and manipulated by government insiders will be the only investment opportunities left for small investors.
We understand why Democrats, like all socialists and Communists despise self-made, middle class landlords. We understand why they try to punish and destroy then when they take control of the government. We don’t understand why conservatives and Republicans are not standing up to stop them. Click here for related post Eviction “Moratorium” Killing American Dream. Ruining “Millionaire Next Door”. – Liberty and Prosperity.
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