Some courts throughout the U.S. are moving to forestall chaos by offering homeowners and renters some protection as the threat of evictions loom larger across the country.
In New Mexico, the court system is setting rules to ease the potential crush of bill collectors and mortgage companies that may arise in the near future with the potential expiration of the federal eviction ban.
The state’s Administrative Office of the Courts earlier this month “announced staggered deadlines for a return to debt collection orders that can be used to garnish wages or seize property to pay off commercial debts,” the Albuquerque Journal reports.
Under the order, “money from standard and supplemental unemployment benefit payments will remain exempt from commercial debt collections,” although “it’s up to unemployment recipients to identify those funds as exempt.”
In Philadelphia, meanwhile, the city’s municipal court system has issued “an order banning lockouts of tenants who have completed an application for rent assistance.”
The Pennsylvania State Supreme Court, meanwhile, ordered that “mortgage lenders won’t be allowed to foreclose on properties without first providing homeowners with information about various ways to avoid foreclosure.”