BOISE, Idaho — Two clients at rental assistance nonprofit Jesse Tree received emails from their property manager about an upcoming eviction hearing date in response to the tenants falling behind on bills.
Perry Commercial manages The Springs of Roal Oaks on Cole Road in Boise. Erica Hamrick and her husband, Daniel, live at the complex and have tallied up more than $3,500 in fees; these are additional charges on top of their rent, according to Hamrick. The couple did not pay the fees because the property managers would not explain to them what the charges were for, according to Hamrick.
"The eviction hearing is scheduled for Friday, and I do still have time to cancel it," an October 31 email from Perry to Hamrick said. "Can you be out by [the end of day] Thursday?"
The eviction hearing - assumed to be set for November 3rd - was fake.
"There is no eviction court in Ada County on Fridays. And so, I looked it up in the court system and found that they didn't have a court date," Jesse Tree case manager Cory Johnson said. "It's unheard of. There's not a precedent for this."
Johnson has another client that received a similar message from Perry on that same day. The fake eviction hearing date is a tool to create urgency and make tenants voluntarily leave their unit, according to Hamrick.
"So, they don't have to go through court and all of that stuff," Hamrick said. "It just shows their character. They're dishonest."
Jesse Tree filed a complaint with Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador, according to Johnson. Perry's actions through this email, in Johnson's estimation, fall under what Jesse Tree calls 'illegal evictions.'
"We meet folks where the property management has said, 'You're behind on rent, you need to leave.' Or [the tenant is] complaining about certain repair conditions or how they're being treated in the property," Johnson said. "And the property management says, 'Okay, then you need to get out.' And but that's not going through the certain legal streams that happen within the actual court system."
The Hamrick's were officially evicted - legally - in a hearing Tuesday night. They must leave their unit by January 1st.
"We just wanted them to tell us what this money was for and what these charges are. Why have you put these [charges] on there?" Hamrick said.
The couple offered to pay back $3,500 in fees - slightly below what the property management officially billed the tenants - by the summer of 2024. The property managers declined the offer, according to Hamrick.
"I'm not sure about their motivations," Johnson said. "That's a really important aspect of what we do here - to just educate tenants on what their rights are under the law and under the contract."
Eviction hearings in Ada County reached 1,305 cases in 2023, according to the latest numbers from Jesse Tree. That's an increase from 805 in 2022 and 568 in 2021.
Perry Commercial and the specific manager who sent these email notifications did not respond to KTVB for comment at the time of publication.
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