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<p>The government should not favor one group or another. It should
supply a secure physical environment and a consistent and unbiased
set of rules. Property owners are not asking for more government,
or for government funds, they just want government to stop making
the problem worse. As you suggest in your last paragraph,
reasonable owners and responsible tenants can work out issues
between them; without government money or mandates.</p>
<p>KGL<br>
</p>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 12/17/2020 02:35 PM, Eric Nelsen
wrote:<br>
</div>
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<p class="MsoNormal">We are all generalizing, whether arguing in
favor of tenants or landlords. Policy decisions are generally
made by generalizations, after all. The devil is always in the
details.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Little of the current situation is a policy
outcome I want or agree with; the moratorium was imposed
hastily in an emergency that has now consumed our country for
almost a year, with every tool of governance forced to run
with one foot in a bucket because of gross incompetence and
malicious indifference at the federal level coupled with
insufficient local resources. It never should have taken this
long, too many people have died, too many are going to die
still, and governmental capacity to act is still badly
crippled. Governor Inslee was given a surgical problem, then
blindfolded and handed a sledgehammer and told to take care of
it. So we got a sledgehammer solution for a surgical problem.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I do agree that there should be a
policy-level allocation of relief to mom-and-pop landlords to
help ease the economic burden they have taken on. Personally,
I would advocate for limiting relief to landlords who are
individuals and closely-held corporate entities (say, max 4
owners of the entity, with additional rules to prevent gaming
this limit by having interlocking ownership or control), who
own no more than six rental units total, and whose rental
revenue amounts to 50% or more of their total personal income.
That helps individual small-time landlords that have been
front and center of the argument for landlord relief, and
avoids benefitting the corporations who typically hoover up
the vast majority of “small business” relief. I would also
condition relief on release of tenant debt in some fashion.
(Obviously those limitations are off the top of my head and
could be tweaked.) The idea is, if you’re a bigger landlord
than the described threshold, then you’re really an investor
and you don’t get a bailout.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The “moral hazard” argument applies both
ways. Personally I worry about the constant coddling of
property by our legal system, to the point where investors of
all kinds, real estate, stock, and whatever, have had
literally
<i>decades</i> to develop a false sense of security by being
constantly bailed out by the government from the natural
consequences of investor-class and banker-class recklessness.
And just now, there are critical policy reasons to prioritize
human life and shelter (that is, life and liberty interests)
over profits (property). So that false sense of security is
getting zinged and property owners are outraged, forgetting
that for themselves, their life and liberty interests are
basically already well-provided for. No one owning a rental
property is going without a roof over their own head.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Also, a money/contract relationship is not
the same as a social human relationship. There is no
<i>moral</i> obligation to pay money, because morality arises
from social relationships, and money is not that—or at least
that’s how we’ve set it up over the centuries. If a landlord’s
sole “relationship” to a tenant is based on the rent derived
from providing them shelter, then the relationship is about
money. Don’t expect a tenant to make an allocation of their
resources that benefits the landlord more than they absolutely
must. That is, after all, the basis of all “laissez faire” and
“invisible hand” preaching: everybody is a self-interested
money-calculator and morality based on non-monetary factors is
irrelevant. I personally think laissez-faire and the invisible
hand is garbage, but if property-owners want to talk in those
terms, then they shouldn’t squawk when someone else behaves
the same way.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I have pushed back before about the
righteous tone on the listserv, about tenants spending their
money on goodies and giving the landlord the finger. But if I
have $1000 to spend and the choice is between taking care of
myself or paying money to a landlord when the law isn’t going
to force me to, and my relationship to the landlord is based
purely on money, then hell yes, I’m going to spend it on
myself. And please note, that is the
<i>proper</i> response under invisible hand theories: do the
self-interested thing and it will all balance out: the
landlord is hurt but Netflix benefits.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But if the landlord is my friend, or has
some other <i>social</i> claim to my loyalty, I’m far more
likely to pay some rent because I will feel a moral
obligation. Contrariwise, if the landlord is my friend, the
landlord is far more likely to understand and sympathize if I
am genuinely struggling financially, and we have a social
connection that opens the possibility of discussing what each
of us needs to survive and finding a cooperative solution that
gets us through the crisis
<i>together</i>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">Sincerely,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Eric<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Eric C. Nelsen<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Sayre Law Offices, PLLC<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1417 31st Ave South<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Seattle WA 98144-3909<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">206-625-0092<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="mailto:eric@sayrelawoffices.com"
moz-do-not-send="true"><span style="color:#0563C1">eric@sayrelawoffices.com</span></a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span
style="background:aqua;mso-highlight:aqua">Covid-19
Update -
</span></b>All attorneys are working remotely during
regular business hours and are available via email and by
phone. Videoconferencing also is available. Signing of
estate planning documents can be completed and will be
handled on a case-by-case basis. Please direct mail and
deliveries to the Seattle office.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
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<br>
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