The end of the eviction moratorium last month resulted in a huge crush of eviction filings that’s created a major backlog in eviction court. New Orleans Clerk of First City Court Austin Badon told WWL 430 eviction filings have been made since September 25th as landlords have grown increasingly confident that the moratorium will not be making a comeback.
UPDATE 10/21/21 12:43 PM:
Badon told WWL Thursday that 80 eviction cases are scheduled for this week. 70 have been heard so far and of the 70, 20 have resulted in eviction judgments against the tenant. 18 of those 20 judgments were accompanied by a 24 hour vacate notice ordered by a judge, leaving tenants with under a day to remove their belongings from the property.
Badon said because of this unprecedented surge in eviction filings the eviction court system is having trouble processing all of the requests. He said eight landlords showed up at his office Wednesday and he had to tell them it would be a while before their eviction cases could be heard.
“I can’t give them a court date until mid-January of 2022, and what that does is it allows those tenants to stay, basically free of charge, in those units for almost another three months,” said Badon.
Before the pandemic, the office would process only about 100 eviction requests a month, and landlords could secure a court date for eviction proceedings within a few weeks of seeking one.
Badon said while new filings will have to wait, those landlords who got a jump on the process have been successful in removing some tenants from their units. The eviction courts are currently crowded according to Badon, and judges are hearing about 30 cases each day in court.
“It’s just a painful situation because I could see children coming home from school and all of their belongings are out on the curb,” said Badon.
Badon said the most common complaint he’s heard from landlords during this process is about tenants who haven’t paid their rent for months, sometimes for over a year.
“The majority of the cases that we are getting, that are being set for eviction, are for non-payment of rent,” said Badon. “They are not for other nefarious activities.”
