NEW ORLEANS — Clerk of First City Court Austin Badon, who received more than 500 eviction requests before President Biden extended the COVID eviction moratorium, urged tenants and landlords to communicate quickly and clearly before the hold on evictions expires on Monday, Sept. 27.
Governor John Bel Edwards held all evictions until that date due to the emergency created in Louisiana by Hurricane Ida.
Clerk Badon said, “Tenants need to communicate to their landlords that they have not abandoned the unit while evacuated. Landlords should not enter any rented unit, cannot remove items from a unit or change the locks because a tenant is evacuated without having gone through the legal steps of pursuing eviction.”
Clerk Badon further cautioned, “Landlords need to proceed with extreme caution and not assume that an evacuated unit is abandoned. There is case law prohibiting landlords from entering, emptying or changing the status of any evacuated unit.
“If a landlord looks through the window and the tenant’s belongings are still there and the tenant has not left the keys or turned them in, the landlord should not assume that the displaced tenant has abandoned the unit. The landlord should allow a judge to make the decision as to whether the tenant is still there or left the unit.”
For further information, contact Clerk Badon at (504) 577-5329; to schedule an interview you can also contact H. Harper (504) 289-0499.
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