St. Johnsbury landlord urges faster evictions, warns current nonpayment process deters small landlords

Steve Dolgin, a landlord from St. Johnsbury with roughly 40 apartments across 11 buildings, told the House Committee on General & Housing on Feb. 12 that Vermont's nonpayment eviction process takes too long and deters private investment in housing.

"We must drastically shorten the time it takes to evict the nonpaying tenants from our apartments," Dolgin said, describing a sequence of notice and court steps that, in his experience, can stretch to seven months or more from the initial notice to physical eviction. He described the typical progression: a notice to quit (minimum 14 days under state law, 30 days in some federally covered buildings under the CARES Act), filing in court, a first hearing often focused on a motion to pay rent into court, a subsequent merits hearing, then a writ of possession and scheduling with the sheriff for a physical eviction. He estimated the…