REINCheck

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You're listening to REINCheck with Andrea Rice, Contracts and Industry Specialists, at REIN where you get the latest member news and information delivered straight from the source, REIN MLS.

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Andrea Rice
Hello and welcome to REINCheck. I am your host, Andrea Rice, and today we are checking in with Property Managers Advisory Committee member Nick Chanley and PMAC legal counsel Amy Harmon to discuss changes coming to the Virginia code to eliminate the 35 mile radius conflict with the SCRA. Amy, Nathan, thank you so much for joining me today.

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Nick Chandley
Thanks. Glad to be here.

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Andrea Rice
Amy, why don't we start with you? So there has been a long time conflict between the SCRA and the Virginia Code regarding the right to terminate. Can you speak to that.

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Amy Harmon
A long time. We'll say about 20 years. It wasn't always that way. But so, you know, obviously being in Hampton Roads and Virginia, broader, we're a military community. We're a military oriented state. And so obviously making sure our service members had their rights has been something important to both federal legislators as well as the state and laws go back to 1918 and then in 1940, the Soldiers and Sailors Civil Relief Act had a right to terminate.

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Amy Harmon
If you join the military after you signed your lease. And as we were all talking off line, you know, as Nick pointed out, that was World War Two. We were preparing for our men and women to go overseas and be able you know, they were joining and being leaving their families for the first time. But also they had just signed leases or started new jobs and now they were being deployed.

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Amy Harmon
And that's the right that if they had joined the military after they've signed their lease, they could get out of it. In the 1970s, Virginia started really enacting some laws that were giving our military more rights and to terminate the lease. First, it was if your orders were 50 miles and then 35 miles. It was changed in the eighties.

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Amy Harmon
But in 2003, the Soldiers and Sailors Civil Relief Act changed to the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, and the federal laws began to unify of laws across the country to say any change of orders for more than 90 days or stop movement orders, they could terminate their lease. These there was no mile thing. And so it was a uniform enactment so that all the state laws were consistent.

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Amy Harmon
But since 2003, Virginia's provisions that had that 35 mile radius were still in there, they didn't change. And that's become an issue over the last few years. Well, actually, for quite a while. But really at the legal forefront and our concern for property managers and landlords because what did you follow? Virginia law, or the federal law, or what if my lease said this, they signed it. So, that the conflict has existed and we've now had to address it, to say the least.

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Andrea Rice
Yes. And thank you for that background. I think that's a really interesting to know and see how that this all transpired over several decades, you know. And speaking of it becoming an issue, I know that it was brought to REIN’s attention, you know, maybe a year ago, somewhere along those lines that the Department of Justice was looking into an issue where the 35 mile radius was enforced and they were saying that it was in conflict with the SCRA, and I know it was at that time that that came on our radar that PMAC took a look at our lease and took out that reference, even though there was no update to the

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Andrea Rice
Virginia Code at that time. Nick, do you want to talk about that a little bit?

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Nick Chandley
Sure. Yeah. The 35 mile thing, most folks just kind of started ignoring that a while back because we realized if you interact with your attorneys frequently, who do your litigation work with the landlord tenant cases, you know, they would tell you, look, we're looking the SCRA on this stuff. It has no mileage limitation. And so the mileage thing was just kind of hanging out there in the state law and we all just sort of ignored it.

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Nick Chandley
The problem was it was still in the law. So you could point to that and say, hey, I'm conforming to state law and so I'm going to enforce this provision. And it happened that I guess somebody did and then, you know, came under scrutiny for that, you know, PMAC’s job, basically, and our focus is to look at risk reduction and guidance for best practices for our members and ensuring the forms that we provide for use by our members comply with current law.

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Nick Chandley
So we altered the lease and did the things we needed to do to knock out that 35 mile thing so that nobody would inadvertently sign off on something that wasn't, you know, wasn't correct or conform to the current law. And the 35 mile thing was way overdue for elimination, as we've said. And the DOJ action basically just emphasized the need for a change.

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Nick Chandley
And thankfully that came pretty quickly after that issue.

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Andrea Rice
Yeah, and that the REIN lease was updated in September of 2023 to eliminate the reference to the 35 mile radius. And you know, Amy, I think you touched on this a little bit, and so did Nick, but not just in this instance, but in any instance where there's a conflict between state and federal law, federal will always control.

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Andrea Rice
Is that correct?

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Amy Harmon
If there is a conflict between the laws the federal law will control. Now, is in past pre 2003, where Virginia was giving our military more rights. They were consistent. Federal law here says here's the baseline. And Virginia said, yeah, we're going to give our service members who are here or headed here to have some more rights. But when the law changed and Virginia was no longer consistent, they were restricting the rights.

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Amy Harmon
They Virginia became the problem. And as Nick said, luckily, the General Assembly did quickly start taking some action. They in this session with House Bill 352 and Senate Bill 213, quickly worked to amend that statute, take a take out that 35 mile radius. The legislation still does have some additional rights. For instance, if the young men or women service members are serving and they are ordered to remain on base and lose their housing allowances, etc., we won't go into reasons why that could occur, but they can terminate their lease under that, which is something, you know, that Virginia law gives in addition to the federal law.

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Amy Harmon
But yes, back to your question. If there's a conflict, federal law will trump state law, and that was what necessary, you know, required Virginia to amend it with those two bills. House Bill 352 was the first one to get through both chambers and to the governor. They were identical bills and the governor passed the House Bill 352 signed it on March eight.

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Amy Harmon
And it is it was acted as an emergency legislation. So it is in effect now.

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Andrea Rice
Oh, okay. Great.

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Nick Chandley
I think the current revision also addressed stop movement orders. And my understanding of that is that if a service member, for example, were moving here from California and had signed a lease with you and all that, and then for whatever reason was frozen in place, they had a stop movement order. Hey, you're not leaving California after all. You're going to be here for a while.

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Nick Chandley
They could also terminate a lease.

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Amy Harmon
You're correct, Nick.

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Andrea Rice
Hey, good to know. Thank you both. That's good information. And for firms that may not be using the REIN lease, what, do you have anything that you would advise for them,

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Andrea Rice
Amy?

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Amy Harmon
I would tell you to do two, a couple of things. The first, and do this in a two part concurrent series. One, pull your form and check to see what your military provision states. I know the military advisors always tell our service members to check for a military provision in their lease, but that's where we had the problem we had once you had the federal law reference and then others who were using the Virginia 35 mile radius

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Amy Harmon
one.

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Amy Harmon
If you still have that in your lease, we need to correct it. You need to stop using that lease form. Concurrently, go look at your current leases and make sure that you don't have a 35 mile radius in there. If you do internally and externally with your vendors who may work with collections and enforcement, remind them and educate them that they are not to be enforcing that 35 mile radius.

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Amy Harmon
And also related to that, no termination fees. And you can't hold the spouse or other dependents for the lease as they start to. If you have been using a lease form that has that 35 mile radius, again, don't enforce it. But as you renew, start amending it. I know a lot of the vendor or a lot of the property managers will use an amendment to say here the lease term is now, you know, 2024 to 2025.

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Amy Harmon
Here's the new rent. Take that opportunity, say section and I'm making up a number here. Section 13 is hereby deleted and replaced with the true military provision in there. But yes, two things. One, immediately start checking your forms and then two, if you have been using that 35 mile radius, educate your employees and your vendors that it's no longer enforceable or it's never been enforceable, but it cannot be enforced and then start working to update your lease form and sign leases and amendments that properly address the law.

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Andrea Rice
Great. Thank you. And so before we sign off, Nick or Amy, do you have anything else that you would like to add?

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Nick Chandley
I would say that, you know, it's really important to stay current with rental law. I mean, you just can't overstate that. You've got to stay on top of this stuff. I think we all saw during the pandemic, it seemed like our late notices, the requirements for those were changing, you know, every 30 or 60 days and there's always some movement.

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Nick Chandley
You know, every July 1st, new things go into effect. Even if they're minor tweaks, you need to make sure that what you're doing is in compliance. Otherwise you run the risk of having a loser if you end up in court with somebody and you've got outdated paperwork. Using the standard forms provided by REIN which have been developed by top property managers that are mark and reviewed by attorneys like Amy, is a sound business practice.

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Nick Chandley
Additionally, members providing property management services should take advantage of all PM specific education opportunities as an important risk reduction measure. I mean, at the end of the day, if there's any kind of a conflict, you know, you're supposed to be the smartest person in the room about doing rental business. So, you know, you've just got to stay on top of this and be educated.

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Nick Chandley
PMAC always welcome suggestion from the membership regarding revisions or addition to the forms that we develop and provide. And we're also currently seeking experienced property managers to join PMAC. So if you'd like to share your expertise and be considered for one of our open positions, please email us at PMAC@reininc.com.

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Andrea Rice
All right. Thank you, Nick. And Amy, did you have anything else?

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Amy Harmon
I just to reiterate Nick's point that we as the committee are always looking to make sure the forms are up to date and staying on top of current law changes. There will be a couple other laws that go into effect on July 1st that will impact the Virginia Residential Landlord Tenant Act. And we've already started those discussions on how to update the forms and educate members.

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Amy Harmon
So please follow the committee, check your forms, but also, you know, get to those classes that Nick identified to, so that you understand that there will be some law changes, including changes regarding the right to terminate in regards to family abuse or sexual abuse.

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Andrea Rice
Right. Thank you, Amy. And thank you, Nick. And thank all of you for listening. As always, I really appreciate you taking the time to tune in. And if you've missed any of the previous episodes of REINCheck, I do invite you to go to REINMLS.com to take a listen and make sure you subscribe so that you can get future episodes delivered directly to you when they are released.

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Andrea Rice
Thank you and have a great rest of your day.

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VO
You've been listening to REINCheck with Andrea Rice. Stay in the know from those who know. Delivered straight from the source, REIN MLS.