A Case for Expungement Reform
As an intern at HOME Line, an organization that provides free legal help for renters, part of my job is calling tenants that have called the hotline, in order to learn more about their experiences with evictions and how these affect their ability to find a home in the future. Over time, I have heard from several people about how they and their families are currently homeless because an eviction from years ago is still on their record. I have also heard bizarre facts regarding those evictions, including:
- landlords who filed for an eviction and then never showed up to court on the day of the hearing (and the eviction case was dismissed);
- landlords who were clearly found to be in the wrong, and whose eviction filings were promptly dismissed in court;
- landlords who reached a settlement with the tenants before the day of the hearing, so neither party showed up to court that day.
In all of these cases, the eviction filings still showed up in the tenant’s rental record after the cases were closed, and they affected the ability of those tenants to find housing in the future. For some, it meant an apartment in much worse condition. For others it meant much more expensive rent than they would have paid otherwise.
For a few, it meant homelessness.
The common thread among all of these experiences is an unfair system of evictions, and a skewed balance of power that consistently favors landlords and hurt tenants.
According to the Governor’s 2018 Task Force on Housing, 42% of adults experiencing homelessness report a red flag from a background/screening check preventing them from getting housing (MN Housing Task Force). This is a more significant obstacle for people experiencing homelessness in Minnesota than financial barriers (40%) and lack of affordable housing (21%). Often, someone is homeless not because they can’t afford housing, but because a past eviction means they are simply not allowed to rent.
In some situations, a tenant can get an expungement of a past eviction. This means:
Expungement: Sealing a court record from public view. If your eviction record is expunged, then someone (usually the landlord) searching court files will not find a record of your case. (MN Judicial Branch).
However, getting an expungement in the state of Minnesota is incredibly difficult, so an eviction can stay on someone’s record for at least seven years.
Why is securing an expungement so difficult? Minnesota law states that expungements are allowed when:
- The landlord’s case was “sufficiently without basis in fact or law,” including when you are not properly given (“served”) court papers, and
- 2. It is “clearly in the interests of justice”, and
- 3. There is little reason for the public or other landlords to know about the case.” (MN Courts- Education for Justice).
This puts the burden on the tenant and makes it almost impossible for them to show that an expungement is necessary. It’s challenging to show that the case was “sufficiently without basis in fact or law.” Even if the tenant reaches a settlement or the case is dismissed, technicalities or details of the case can make it impossible to file for an expungement. The eviction filing then stays on the tenant’s record for years.
Even if a tenant is technically eligible for an expungement, they would have to go through the long, complicated, and expensive process of obtaining one. They would have to know the right form to fill out, take a day off to go to District Court, file the motion, and pay a $375 expungement fee (Law Help MN). This process is prohibitive for many, both because of the time and the cost, and in the end the chances of the tenant getting an expungement are small. This system makes sure that an already unbalanced relationship of power between a landlord and a tenant is even more unfair for the tenant.
At this point, it is necessary to take a hard look at the intention behind having evictions in someone’s record in the first place. When an eviction is filed, it goes on the tenant’s public court record. (This means that a landlord will be able to see the eviction in the “Public Records” section, when they pull your credit report). When the eviction filing is deleted from the public record, usually after seven years, it will no longer show up in the credit report that landlords have access to (My Rental History Report).
The purpose of the law is to protect landlords from so-called “bad tenants,” meaning tenants that have a previous history of not paying rent or breaking certain parts of a lease. Basically, having evictions on one’s record serves to show landlords that those tenants are riskier, in a way, because they might be more likely to break their lease or not pay rent. That is the reasoning behind the current law. Under this reasoning, however, an eviction should be on someone’s record only if it is a “reasonable predictor of future tenant behavior” (HOME Line Legislative Agenda). Many times, a tenant will not pay rent for a month because they were fired, and hired a month later; or because they had to pay an extraordinary medical bill that month. In many cases, these tenants will be evicted, even if they are just one-time things. They do not accurately reflect the long-term behavior of the tenant. The law should reflect its intent, and currently it does not.
That is why the legislation that HOME Line is proposing, and that is currently being heard and discussed in the State Legislature, is essential. This legislation proposes that a mandatory expungement be enacted every time in an eviction filing that the defendant prevails, the case is dismissed, or there is a settlement. This means that an eviction would be expunged automatically if the landlord does not prove that the defendant did something wrong. This is common sense. Additionally, the court would have the discretion to order an expungement if, as mentioned above, the “eviction case is not a reasonable predictor of future tenant behavior” (HOME Line Legislative Agenda). Finally, an eviction would only stay on someone’s record for three years. All of this would greatly mitigate the number of eviction filings across the state, while making sure that landlords still have access to fair rental records.
The bills that HOME Line is sponsoring are SF 1571 in the State Senate, and HF 1511 in the State House of Representatives.
Your representatives work for you. You can find out who represents you on this website. You just have to put in your address or zip code. By taking two minutes of your time and calling your representatives, you can let them know that you care about this issue and pressure them to support it. In the Senate, it is unclear if the bill will be up for a vote anytime soon, but the House of Representatives bill has cleared committees and will be voted on the House floor at some point in the next few weeks, so your voice matters. This issue is not very well known, but it impacts thousands of people in Minnesota. It is time to fix it.
