Serial Eviction Filing: Civil Courts, Property Management, and the Threat of Displacement

Abstract

Drawing on over 8 million eviction court records from twenty-eight states, this study shows the role that eviction filings play in extracting monetary sanctions from tenants. In so doing, it documents an unanticipated feature of housing insecurity: serial eviction filings. Serial eviction filings occur when a property manager files to evict the same household repeatedly from the same address. Almost half of all eviction filings in our sample are associated with serial filings. Combining multivariate analysis with in-depth interviews conducted with thirty-three property managers and ten attorneys and court officials, we document the dynamics and consequences of serial eviction filings. When legal environments expedite the eviction process, property managers use the housing court to collect rent and late fees, passing costs on to tenants. Serial eviction filings exacerbate tenants’ housing cost burden and compromise their ability to find future housing. Using tract-level rent and filing fees, we estimate that each eviction filing translates into approximately $180 in fines and fees for the typical renter household, raising their monthly housing cost by 20%. The study challenges existing views of eviction as a discrete event concentrated among poor renters. Rather, it may be better conceived of as a routinized, drawn-out process affecting a broader segment of the rental market and entailing consequences beyond displacement.

U.S. Eviction Filing Patterns in 2020

“…Halting the earliest stages of the eviction process is particularly important in minimizing displacement because many tenants never make it to court, electing to move when they are filed against (Desmond 2016;Hartman and Robinson 2003). Halting filings also helps tenants avoid the durable negative consequences that court records have on credit reports and the ability to find future housing (Garboden and Rosen 2019;Kimble 2020;Leung, Hepburn, and Desmond 2020;Swenson 2021) When state and local moratoria were in place, eviction filings were well below historical average. In Figure 2, we compare eviction filings during the effective dates of moratoria in a subset of cities covered by the ETS with eviction filings for the same dates and locations in previous years.…”

Eviction, Health Inequity, and the Spread of COVID-19: Housing Policy as a Primary Pandemic Mitigation Strategy

“…Based on eviction tracking data, the Eviction Lab identified three drivers of the COVID-19 eviction crisis. First, a significant number of property owners use the eviction process as a rent collection tool, rather than a means of removing tenants for other reasons [102]. Second, many tenants are, and have historically been, evicted for small amounts of money-during the pandemic, typically less than the local median amount for 1 month's rent and as little as $120-showing that property owners seem to have a low threshold for profit loss before they consider displacing their tenants [103].…”

Spatial Concentration and Spillover: Eviction Dynamics in Neighborhoods of Los Angeles, California, 2005–2015

“…On a micro-level, landlords in certain housing markets may concentrate specific classes of tenants in specific neighborhoods and types of housing through a process called reverse selection-where landlords have the market power to select tenants, rather than the tenants selecting landlords and neighborhoods (Rosen, 2014(Rosen, , 2020. Reverse selection may contribute to eviction's spatial dynamics in racially segregated neighborhoods, where multiple forms of disadvantage are also spatially concentrated (Desmond, 2016), Furthermore, when landlords can count on courts as reliable and affordable debt collectors, they may be more likely to engage in serial eviction practices (when a landlord frequently initiates eviction proceedings) than are landlords in other housing markets (Garboden & Rosen, 2019;Leung, Hepburn, & Desmond, 2020). Eviction filing dynamics, therefore, may be shaped by the legal-procedural contexts in which eviction is enacted.…”