It’s Always a Good Time to Get Educated

In 2022, Nashville’s Metro Council approved a Right to Counsel program for our local Legal Aid Society and Conexion Americas. This program allocated $2.6 million, funded through the American Rescue Plan, to legal representation for tenants facing eviction. That program took the last half of 2022 to get organized, but in 2023 we’re seeing the effects of this funding increase.

The Legal Aid Society has added attorneys and support staff who are more available than ever to assist tenants who are facing eviction. In the past, Legal Aid Society has had two dedicated housing attorneys. That number has now increased to five and continues to grow. Those attorneys and their staff are in the hallways of the courthouse almost every day ready to provide free legal advice to tenants who show up to court.

This access to legal advice and representation is not a bad thing. When we have filed a detainer warrant demanding that someone vacate our property, we do it because we have a valid, legal reason to pursue that eviction and we’re prepared to pursue that right to possession. However, there are means by which a resident can strategically impede or defeat the eviction process, which is what their counsel is well-equipped to do.

What does this all mean for a landlord pursuing eviction in court? It means that there has never been a better time to remain educated on the eviction process, on your legal obligations as a landlord, and on the status of your ongoing eviction cases. In the past, these rules and regulations almost all came out of the same section of Tennessee statute. However, as our local and federal governments continue to insert themselves into the landlord/tenant relationship, these regulations with which we must be familiar continue to pop up in new areas of the law. This is not an appropriate place to recite these voluminous and evergrowing duties and requirements, but it is a place to remind our membership of the importance of remaining up to date on those changes and why political advocacy is so important.

Coming up at the end of this month is NAA’s annual Advocate Conference in Washington, D.C. Members from across the country travel to the Capitol to meet face-to-face with their members of Congress to share their stories and encourage legislation to further our industry’s ongoing goals. We have several industry leaders from across the state attending the conference to represent Tennessee. The Tennessee Apartment Association and GNAA each have similar ongoing advocacy efforts at the state and local levels. Anyone who is interested in becoming more involved in those efforts, or learning more about these legislative processes, is welcome to attend meetings of the TNAA Government Affairs Committee or the GNAA Legislative Committee.

Later in the year, GNAA’s annual Legal Conference is scheduled for August 10. It’s a full day of seminars, panels, and discussion meant to educate our membership on changes in the law, experiences in and out of the courtroom that we can all learn from, and a reminder of our legal remedies and obligations as landlords. There’s plenty of time for questions and answers at the sessions too, and we encourage attendees to send those questions in to the GNAA staff in advance. It’s never too early to send in your questions!

It’s always a good time to get (and stay) educated. All these events and meetings can be easily found on GNAA’s website – we hope to see you out there!