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Judiciary draft of H.772 narrows expedited ejectment, restores court discretion and removes sealing proposal
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Summary
At the General & Housing committee hearing, judiciary members and legislative counsel described draft 7.1 to H.772: it replaces a show-cause expulsion path with an expedited unlawful-occupant track, sets a default 90-day hearing window (with expedited motions heard within 21 days for ongoing threats), restores civil-rule answer timing (21 days), preserves a tenant's path to request partial-payment escrow relief, and removes a proposed confidentiality (sealing) regime for now.
Legislative counsel and judiciary representatives walked the General & Housing committee through a judiciary-drafted amendment (draft 7.1) to H.772 on March 20, describing a set of procedural changes intended to make expedited ejectment cases workable for Vermont courts while preserving judicial discretion.
Cameron Wood of the Office of Legislative Counsel said the amendment removes a broad alternate-service-of-process provision that would have applied across civil cases and instead requires the court to rule 'promptly' on service motions. The amendment also restores the civil-rule timing for filing an answer (21 days), preserves a tenant's ability to move to reduce an escrowed 'full payment' order (allowing a party to seek partial payment into escrow upon showing cause), and eliminates a proposed real-time confidentiality mechanism that judicial testimony said would be logistically burdensome.
A judiciary committee speaker described a key substantive change: replacing an earlier 'show cause' expedited eviction route with an expedited process modeled on the existing unlawful-occupant statute. Under draft 7.1, a landlord may request an expedited hearing only when a defendant's continued occupancy poses an ongoing threat to the health or safety of others. The expedited hearing, when available, must be scheduled quickly (the judiciary walkthrough noted a 21-day target for that hearing). For other cases under the new subchapter the default hearing deadline is set as not later than 90 days after filing, with courts able to extend for good cause (for example, delayed service).
Cameron Wood highlighted additional technical edits in draft 7.1: the amendment removes an earlier provision that would have made an alternate method of service persist for the whole proceeding, strikes a prior expansion of a chapter amendment that became unnecessary, and clarifies when writs of possession and judgments are entered. The judiciary representative said the sealing/confidentiality concept requires more work and has been removed from the current amendment, with a commitment to readdress sealing procedures in a future drafting cycle.
Committee members asked technical questions about tack orders (alternate-service follow-through), the conditions that trigger an expedited hearing, and how the 90-day timeline is measured (the amendment measures from filing rather than service in some places). The committee paused to take a short break and said it would return to take a sense on the amendment.
No formal vote or floor action was recorded in this excerpt; the committee discussion focused on whether the amendment balances expedited relief for genuinely dangerous situations with protecting court process and preserving discretion for judges.
Proposed or explicit statutory references mentioned in the walkthrough included the new ejectment subchapter, chapter 169 cross-references, and a termination basis under 9 V.S.A. §4467(a)–(b) as part of the discussion of termination grounds.
