Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid Continues to Advocate for Hybrid Eviction Hearings

Minnesota Lawyer’s recent article Hennepin court’s return to in-person eviction hearings draws criticism, takes on the issue of how the need to physically appear in court can make a significant impact on the outcome of a case. Because of the backlog of pandemic-related eviction cases and the end of the moratorium, Hennepin County District Court has returned to in-person hearings for many cases. After a significant period of remote hearings, the return to court appearances is causing disruption and even harm.

Mary Kaczorek, managing attorney at Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid (MMLA) told Minnesota Lawyer, “If you miss court or come too late, the judge issues a default judgment, the landlord gets the writ of recovery, and the sheriff comes out and puts a 24-hour notice on your door. This all happens in a matter of days.”

As things return to normal, including at court, many advocates, including Kaczorek, feel that the access to justice gained by remote hearings will be lost. In communities with lower incomes, where issues like a lack of reliable child-care and transportation can make getting to court harder, in-person hearings could seriously affect housing stability.

For a number of reasons, Hennepin County District Court’s significant backlog of cases is able to be handled more quickly in-person than remotely.

“The referees and clerks at housing court do great work, but they have been given too many cases to handle at one time,” Kaczorek said. “The policy choice to return to in-person eviction court prioritizes timeliness over fairness.”

MMLA and other housing advocates continue to support a hybrid option, with remote hearings as the default mode. If a person has limited access to technology or chooses to be in person because of a disability, that option should be available as well. Read more in Hennepin court’s return to in-person eviction hearings draws criticism.

Contracts for Deed Pose Serious Risks to Minnesota Families

In a recent ProPublica article (produced in collaboration with Sahan Journal), the often-predatory practice of selling contracts for deed to Minnesota Somali families is investigated. Contracts for deed (also known as seller financing) offer a path to home ownership that eschews the traditional mortgage lending approach. For those facing obstacles to home ownership, such as low income and little credit, it can be an attractive alternative. Basically, a contract for deed is a financial agreement in which the buyer pays the seller directly in installments. There is no mortgage or bank involvement, but there are serious risks to a buyer’s financial stability.

In Minnesota, many prospective Somali home buyers looking for increased space, better schools and neighborhoods, and a way avoid paying or profiting from interest (a principle important to members of the East African Muslim community), have taken the non-conventional, contract for deed route. But the potential pitfalls are not always clear, and buyers are often mistaken about the lack of protections and unforeseen consequences they might face. Those consequences include the loss of thousands of dollars if they default, and loss of the property itself.

Isuroon, a nonprofit advocacy agency for Somali women and girls in Minneapolis, estimates that at least 100 Somali families purchased homes with contracts for deed last year, but there could be many more.

“Most of those contracts for deed were designed to fail,” said Luke Grundman, litigation director at Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid. “They may have sunk tens of thousands of dollars into the down payment and monthly payments. And then it’s not just the actual money but the false hope of homeownership.”

Minnesota passed a law in 2013 requiring established contract for deed sellers to provide a buyer’s notice disclosing the transaction’s disadvantages. But with no state agency to enforce disputes, the notice amounts to a list of warnings and recommendations. There is also no requirement for sellers to verify buyers’ ability to repay the debt.

Some states have laws giving buyers more protections, for example, that canceled contracts are handled through the foreclosure process. This kind of requirement gives the buyer more time to pay the overdue balance or at least some options to recoup their money.

“We need to think very hard about following some of these other states’ leads and providing more protections and more balance in the statute to make it so that if the deal fails, it’s not a total washout,” said Ron Elwood, supervising attorney with the Legal Services Advocacy Project (LSAP).

Read the full article “How Contracts for Deed Put Families at Financial Risk.”

CMLS and Hennepin County Library Assist Renters in Need

According to the US Census Bureau’s experimental Household Pulse Survey, an estimated 8 million tenant households were behind on their rent in the U.S. as of October 2021. The effects of eviction are well-known to legal aid lawyers — problems borrowing money, applying for credit, and finding housing, to name a few.

As eviction moratoriums expire and are phased out, some libraries have stepped up to help patrons by partnering with legal aid organizations to mitigate the aftereffects of eviction. In Minnesota, one such partnership is that between Central Minnesota Legal Services (CMLS) and the Hennepin County Library (HCL).

The Brooklyn Park Library (part of the HCL network) works with CMLS to inform the community about how legal aid can help with evictions and related legal problems. Sarah Pherson Meyer, CMLS lead attorney for the partnership, and other attorney staff present workshops that cover renters’ rights and eviction expungement, as well as sessions on criminal expungement and credit repair. Monthly virtual sessions have been held since fall 2020 and are attended by 20 - 25 people per session.

“The HCL program is another great avenue to reach clients facing eviction or other barriers to housing. These may be clients who our traditional outreach may not reach or have other access barriers. Since the program is currently virtual, individuals who may normally be unavailable due to work or other obligations may now be able to access this resource,” Pherson Meyer said.

Read more in Relief for Renters in the March/April edition of American Libraries magazine.

Home Ownership Pro Bono Project: Helping Seniors Keep Their Homes

Attorney at Law Magazine recently featured a story about a unique and impactful partnership — the Home Ownership Pro Bono Project, a collaboration between Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid (MMLA), Fredrikson & Byron, P.A., and the Minnesota State Bar Association’s Real Property Section. The partnership focuses on assisting senior homeowners with low incomes who are at risk of losing their homes. The volunteer attorneys involved in the project work with MMLA’s pro bono coordinator to identify cases where having an attorney could prevent foreclosure and possibly homelessness. They are often able to resolve cases through negotiation and before a trial is necessary.

Starting this year, the Minnesota Supreme Court requires all licensed attorneys to report their pro bono hours to the Lawyer Registration Office of the Supreme Court. Colleen Daly, MMLA’s pro bono coordinator, encourages attorneys to volunteer through a project like the Home Ownership Pro Bono Project, or with their firm or law school.

“We can likely find pro bono cases in any area where an attorney has expertise, but we welcome paralegals, law students, and attorneys to work outside of their practice area,” Daly says. “We have several projects where we will train and support you even if you are brand new to that area of law.”

Read about how the project made a difference for an 80-year-old Vietnam veteran facing foreclosure in “Home Ownership Pro Bono Project Saves a Senior’s Home.”

MMLA Lawyers Recognized as 2021 Attorneys of the Year

On February 17, 2022, outstanding individuals and teams were honored for their exemplary legal work by Minnesota Lawyer. The 2021 Attorney of the Year Awards were presented at an in-person celebration held at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Minneapolis and also live-streamed.

Among the legal teams recognized as Attorneys of the Year were Rebecca Stillman, Anne Robertson, and Justin Perl of Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid (MMLA). The team began their work in 2019 to permanently stop a dangerous landlord under the Fair Housing Act. In Brown, Lee, and Young v. Reese Pfeiffer, the team settled its lawsuit against the defendant for severe and repeated sexual harassment of three African American female tenants.

“These women were all vulnerable, and he had the power to control whether or not they would have a place to live,” said Stillman. “They had no safe place to escape.”

The following year, the Department of Justice (DOJ) brought its own lawsuit showing a pattern of housing discrimination by Pfeiffer. Together, the collaborative lawsuits found 23 victims of Pfeiffer’s sexual harassment and upon settlement in 2021, he was ordered to pay $736,000 to the 23 victims and a $14,000 civil penalty to the United States. In addition to being permanently barred from managing properties, Pfeiffer, and his co-defendants, agreed to pay $140,000 in attorney fees to MMLA. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ann Bildtsen and Bahram Samie were also honored with the award. Read the article in Minnesota Lawyer.