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Under a state law in Arkansas, renters can be imprisoned for failing to pay their rent. According to a report by Human Rights Watch, titled “Pay the Rent or Face Arrest: Abusive Impacts of Arkansas’s Criminal Evictions Law,” hundreds of tenants each year are taken to court, fined and jailed under the state’s “failure to vacate” law.
Now that's really gonna make them pay! Throw them in jail make them miss work! Idiocy of the state at it again.
The article is misleading. If the renter fails to pay, they are first given notice to pay or vacate. They have 10 days to do one or the other. If they do not pay the rent they owe, and they do not vacate, then the landlord can obtain a summons to appear in court. If they appear in court and plead "not guilty" to the order to pay their rent in full or vacate, AND if they are found guilty by the court of doing neither, THEN they are facing fines and/or up to 90 days in prison.
They do not just toss you into prison for not paying your rent. There is due process involved.
Uh; it sounds to me that those tenants who leave in 10 days WON'T go to jail.
True, if they comply with the notice and either pay their rent in full or vacate within 10 days, they will not go to prison, or be fined any further. Those who do not pay or vacate get a court summons. If they plead "guilty" to failing to vacate, they may be fined, but they will not be sent to prison. It is only those who plead "not guilty" and are found to be guilty that are sent to prison.
seems fair to me - squatters' rights is where it's at!
try squating on gov land and you can have a nice trial in DC .Been ther done that. landlords need the same protection but that is the difference between the gov and the goverend.
Ever think maybe they lost their job or jobs in this wonderful economy the idiot in chief has presided over? Of course you haven't!
So? As long as they move out when unable to pay the rent, they do not violate a failure to vacate law.
Staying and not paying is simply being treated as the crime it truly is.
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