Jason Delgado
Two South Florida landlords are pleading with Gov. Ron DeSantis to consider the plight of landlords before extending the state’s eviction moratorium for a sixth consecutive time.
Florida tenants since April have been protected from eviction under a series of executive orders designed to minimize the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. They’ve also been shielded by a CDC halt on evictions.
While the orders are intended to prevent widespread eviction, landlord Shahar Tamsis said he’s gone seven months without payment.
“This is my income,” he told Florida Politics. “My family’s income. I still pay all the property tax, insurance, and pay the mortgage on our personal house. They’re going to put a lien against the house.”
Tamsis immigrated from Israel to America alongside his wife 28 years ago. He said he worked hard and played by the rules to own property. He described it as the American dream.
Now, however, he feels like the government has seized his property.
He intends to sell and leave the country.
“I worked hard in my life to own it free and clear,” Tamsis said. “I don’t know how this constitution can let the government take my property and force me to do government housing without pay.”
Tamsis has reached out to the Governor’s office multiple times via email and phone without luck. With revenue in the red, he wants to know what, if any, protections will be extended to him.
“My first call in the morning is to the Governor’s office,” he said. “I have the number in my phone.”
Meanwhile, he has even offered to help some tenants locate a cheaper place and pay their moving costs.
But they’ve repeatedly declined his offer, he said, forcing him to turn away tenants who are willing and able to pay rent.
Tamsis is just one of the thousand landlords who have been forbidden from executing evictions.
This month, the National Civil Liberties Alliance filed a complaint and requested a temporary restraining order in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.
The lawsuit challenges the CDC’s authority to impose the “Temporary Halt in Residential Evictions to Prevent Further Spread of COVID-19” order, which claims blocking residential evictions will help stop the spread of COVID-19.
The federal order blocks landlords from retaking possession of their property.
Meanwhile, the lawsuit argues the CDC – instead of Congress – does not have the authority to issue an eviction-moratorium order because these agencies have no right to make law.
David Cohen is also a South Florida landlord who has not received payment from two of his three properties.
Cohen said he attempted to evict a tenant from one property seven months ago, but the eviction has been stuck in the courts.
He described the court system as having its “hands tied.”
“It’s such a stress when you do all the right steps: you go to the court, you spend your time, you spend your money, you show the evidence, you do the right thing and the court basically, they got their hands tied.”
Cohen added that the stress has impacted him and his family.
“It’s stressing me out (so much) that I started smoking,” he said. “I’ve never smoked before in my life. “I’m losing my hair, losing my mind.”
The Governor’s stay-on evictions is set to expire at the end of September. If it expires, tenants will be covered by the CDC order which supersedes the state order.
