Senator Cabrera, Representative Wood, Senator Anwar, Representative Barry, and esteemed members of the Insurance and Real Estate Committee:

As the supervising attorney with the Civil Legal Unit of the Connecticut Veterans Legal Center (CVLC), I appreciate the opportunity to submit testimony opposing Section 1 of H.B. 7078: An Act Concerning the Removal of Unauthorized Persons from Real Property.

CVLC’s mission is to help Veterans who have experienced homelessness and mental illnesses overcome legal barriers to housing, healthcare, and income. As the first VA medical-legal partnership in the country, we co-locate with VA medical centers to provide vital legal services to our clients. We work to ensure that our clients, among the most vulnerable populations in Connecticut, have access to the resources necessary to thrive in this state. We believe that the proposed bill will place our clients at risk of being improperly removed from their homes and depriving them of the due process to which they are entitled.

The existing summary process statutes are designed to address all possible scenarios: cases in which a landlord and tenant have a written current lease; cases in which a landlord and tenant have an oral current lease; cases in which said written or oral lease has expired (“lapse of time”); cases in which an occupant previously had the right or privilege to occupy the premises but that right has terminated (as in the case where a homeowner had invited a partner to reside with her but no longer wishes to co-habitat); and cases in which an occupant never had the right or privilege to occupy the premises.

Because existing summary process statutes can be and are employed to address situations in which landowners wish to remove unauthorized occupants from their property, there is no need for H.B. 7078. The bill purports to address a problem for which there already is a solution. Moreover, and importantly, this bill creates the specter of authorized occupants being removed from their homes without the due process protections to which they are entitled. If a property owner informs the police that a particular individual does not and has never had the right to occupy the premises, there is no process by which that individual can contest this allegation.

Summary process, by its very name, recognizes the interest a property owner has in the expedient, or summary, removal of an occupant whom it no longer wishes to have on its property. But it also recognizes that the very high stakes here for the occupant entitle that individual to procedural protections to ensure his/her removal is justified under the law. This bill takes those procedural protections away.

This bill is most likely to impact low-income, under-educated, and disabled individuals who are already at a disadvantage when it comes to negotiating with landlords or knowing their rights under the law. The threat of non-judicial involvement is likely to lead these individuals, some of whom may in fact be authorized occupants, to abdicate their rights and abandon their homes, merely because they are afraid.

The entry and detainer statute, Connecticut General Statutes § 47a–43, was made to protect occupants from disturbance “by any but lawful and orderly means.” Berlingo v. Sterling Ocean House, Inc., 203 Conn. 103, 108, 523 A.2d 888 (Conn. 1987). In explaining the underlying thinking behind this statute, the Connecticut Supreme Court has noted that it violates public policy for one party in an action to serve as judge (and enforcer of his judgment in that action) and that such behavior invites “a breach of the public peace.” Fleming v. Bridgeport, 284 Conn. 502, 513, 935 A.2d 126 (Conn. 2007). In other words, this legislature has previously found that it is contrary to public policy for a property owner to simply eject an occupant, whether personally or through use of an agent, such as the police. The property owner must use the civil procedures that have been specifically designed for this purpose and that were written to include adequate protections for both parties. H.B. 7078 flies in the face of this thinking.

The Courts are clear that deprivation of a property right must follow processes that satisfy due process. This bill is just creating a faster form of summary process that removes the court and most of the process. Instead of a judge reviewing and overseeing the process, it is now a state marshal. Under current law, some of the statements in the proposed affidavit, Section 1(c), could be true for an occupant who has the right to be on the property. The recourse for a harmed occupant is to bring a new cause of action that now places the burden on a now-homeless occupant.

While we are sympathetic to landlords who confront unknown occupants on their property, there is already a clear and expedited process to ensure the removal of these individuals. We believe that Section 1 of H.B. 7078 undermines this process and places at-risk populations at additional risk of inappropriate ejection from their homes. We ask you to oppose it. Thank you.