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> Evictions are quick, easy, and decisive.

Speaking for the Bay Area, this is totally, completely, and insanely wrong. I ended up letting a tenant who had not paid rent for two months stay for an additional three months for free and keep his entire security deposit because if my lawyer didn't come to an agreement with him before they got in front of the judge (this happened at the courthouse after repeated failed negotiations beforehand), he was going to request a trial by jury, which would have delayed anything happening for at least a couple of months. This was not someone who had a lawyer or financial resources, but it was pretty apparent he had done this before (and would do it again, since our agreement meant he did not end up with an eviction on his record).

> all they have to do is decide not to renew your lease

Again, just wrong. Rent control means you don't just get to not renew a lease.

I think you just got unlucky. Most tenants don’t know their rights in the Bay Area and there’s a lot of smarmy landlords here. I have had to deal with them almost regularly. I hate condos but they were the best to rent. All SFH landlords want to increase rent every year so they can go galavanting about the world. I hope rent control is here to stay, it’s the only way I can hope to save some money while inflation is so crippling.

Evictions are quick, easy, and decisive

While it varies from place to place, this is false.

There is no lawyer who will defend tenants against landlords

There are many such lawyers.

all they have to do is decide not to renew your lease

That's true generally. If the lease says "1 year" it does not imply "n years". You seem to think that is a problem--that a contract says what it means. In some very lefty places, to be sure, tenants will stop paying and squat, and landlords have a years-long nightmare.

...

As for the article, your typical good-credit, good-income tenants who have options might actually be able to use the service to save trouble. Your typical deadbeats have to take what they can get, bad reviews or otherwise. Another potential user would be professional scammers, who might be able to discern which of the "bad" landlords are just hard-asses who expect to be paid, and so could use the service to avoid them.

There's a missing middle problem. The actual, real BAD deadbeat tenants know the law and every corner of it (you can find horror stories if you dig in landlord areas; the final usual sure emergency release is the landlord selling the property outright, but that can be hard if the property has been trashed). The actual, real BAD deadbeat landlords know the law and every corner of it, too.

And rich, really good tenants don't know the law and never need to; they pay enough that problems never occur, or if they do they throw money at it or just move away.

It's the missing middle where you have working-class to upper middle-class tenants who don't know the law and how to enforce it, and the same on the side of the landlords.

Interesting in your option is it just a lack of information?

It is frightening, how little tenants are protected from being kicked out by the landlord in the US. Are there major differences between the states?

In contrast to that, I believe tenants are too well protected in Europe, or at least Germany, from sitting out in the cold. For example, if a tenant has not paid rent in months (and is not planning on doing so) it still is legally difficult to put them on the street. I think the term for that is squatter?! Friend of mine had damage on his property exceeding €10k until he could regain control over his apartment/flat.

I can’t speak for other states but there are a number of protections in New Jersey where you cannot easily be kicked out as a tenant with out going to court including things like non payment. This was before Covid added further protections which some have been rolled back.

> I think the term for that is squatter?!

Squatting falls under the principle that when a building is unused (a broad term) for a long period of time (e.g. a year), it may be squatted because there is a housing shortage and the country is owned by the civilians. And eviction is generally not straightforward because having a roof above your head is a basic right. I would say its the USA which is backwards here. I mean, WTF. If you decide your tennant has to go, they just have to deal with your decision, make their next weeks of their life revolve around your decision, no matter what? What if they are ill? Need help from others? Cannot relocate easily? Need to find a different job as a result? A one month notice is very, very short.

Btw, squatting isn't even legal anymore in The Netherlands.

In Europe its with the idea that even if a tenant is put on the street it will cost money. Plus it will usually create bigger problems than what ever months of rent are missed.

It’s similar to the fact that giving homeless people a place to live for free is cheaper than continually kicking them on the streets

The tenant is absolutely powerless and defenseless in any dispute.

This is meaningless hyperbole. There always at least some opportunity for legal defense, in all but banana-republic jurisdictions.

Evictions are quick, easy, and decisive.

This statement is definitely at odds with reality in every major city in the U.S. In certain cities the process is in fact famously difficult, and (in the very best cases for the landlord) can take several months at least.

There is no lawyer who will defend tenants against landlords because there's no money in that.

As is this statement. Seriously, what kind of nonsense are you trying to push here?

Every major city has some form of a tenant legal aid society. They may not be able to take on every case, but they do exist.

> There is no lawyer who will defend tenants against landlords because there's no money in that.

> nonsense ... Every major city has some form of a tenant legal aid society.

As far as legal representation goes, it is dominated by landlords in NYC.

While you _can_ get a lawyer as a tenant, the housing court is set up to favor tenants not having counsel in the name of access and fairness, and they try to run things in a way that makes this tenable by quickly ruling to e.g. have the tenant pay back rent over time, or order the landlord to fix whatever etc.

If as a tenant, you do get counsel, everything changes and then the landlord holds all the cards through usual legal shenanigans like not showing up, dragging things out, having huge firms on retainer. Plus the judges decide you're not worth helping anymore since "you can afford a lawyer".

This also makes it that the vast majority of lawyers are on the landlord side as their really is "no money in it" to defend tenants and there's also no public-defender system. A legal-aid society is a band-aid at best. Even if you do pay you're getting the bottom of the barrel of lawyers who can't get any other work are the ones who represent tenants.

The barrel of lawyers who can't get any other work are the ones who represent tenants.

That's what the landlord-dominated system would have you believe.

Those who work on the tenant side (that I've known) are some of the most capable and principled professionals you'll ever meet. It's the ones who work the eviction machine who are the bottom feeders - and are viewed as such by other lawyers, accordingly.

I'm actually speaking from experience. I'm certainly glad to hear there are capable lawyers for tenants, but when I needed one, nobody would take my case until I found my own "bottom feeder".

Eventually I did retain a better lawyer (who usually represents landlords) and I can certainly agree that the firm representing the large landlord were hacks. However they had endless time to delay, not show up etc. For certain ends, "incompetent" lawyering works well as it racks up legal fees for the more competent party and can wear you down to a minimal settlement.

Where did you leave these reviews