Court extends protection of law against stupid evictions to tenants getting evicted before law was passed

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that a 2010 law aimed at protecting tenants of foreclosed apartments against evictions "without just cause" also applies to tenants who were in the process of being evicted before the law went into effect, but who never left their units.

Fannie Mae took possession of a Springfield apartment complex in 2009; in January, 2010, it ordered all of the tenants out. At least one tenant, however, fought them and didn't move. In September, that tenant, Jose Nunez, filed suit to block the eviction under the state's new tenant foreclosure law, which went into effect the month before and which required owners to provide "just cause" for the eviction. As the state's highest court noted:

The notice did not state any cause for termination of the tenancy, and Fannie Mae has conceded that it did not have just cause for the eviction.

Fannie Mae argued the new law couldn't be applied retroactively and that the way it was worded meant it could never evict Nunez even if it had an actual valid reason, because the law required notification within 30 days of the foreclosure, which happened before the law was enacted.

The court, however, said the state legislature was not that illogical, that it could still attempt to evict him with just cause.

The court added that because Fannie Mae continued to try to evict Nunez after the law went into effect, its efforts to evict him were now covered by the law.

Somewhat trickier was Fannie Mae's argument that the law abrogated property rights it had before the law went into effect, in this case to throw somebody into the street just because it felt like it.

Here, the court made a distinction between somebody who buys a house and tries to evict a tenant so that the purchaser can live there and a giant lender who buys the property simply as an investment:

We conclude that a modest reduction in the value of a real estate asset arising from the limitation on Fannie Mae's ability to evict tenants is not the sort of burden that is so unfair as to render [the new law] retroactive in effect. Rather, like a new property tax, zoning regulation, or other "uncontroversially prospective statutes," [the law], at worst, simply "may upset the reasonable expectations that prompted those affected to acquire property."

• Complete ruling, Federal National Mortgage Association vs. Jose Nunez