Projo 7 to 7 News Blog

The Rhode Island Association of Realtors voiced its opposition today to nearly a dozen bills submitted to the General Assembly designed to lessen the damage inflicted by home foreclosures and increase protection for tenants.

"The consensus is that everybody feels sympathy for the tenants who are victims of foreclose,'' Monica Staaf, the association's legal counsel, said after members met to discuss the bills."But the Association feels that these bills are not the right way to address the problem. In plain English, we oppose them."

Among the objections voiced by the Realtors, Staaf said, was that several of the bills would allow tenants to remain in houses and pay rent after they were foreclosed.

"They would require the lender to become a landlord,'' Staaf said, "but a landlord having no knowledge of who lives in the property, no control of over who lives in the property...We think that will discourage lenders from lending in a state like Rhode Island.''

If lenders have to abide by the state's landlord-tenant law, Saaf said, real-estate agents worry they would have a harder time evicting problem tenants.

"I think really one of keys to successful legislation is giving tenants more protection than they have,'' she said, "but making sure landlords themselves aren't subject to he landlord tenant act- not forcing them to become landlords."

 Tags  Rhode Island

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