2023 law intended to make it easier for people to find housing

By Ben Botkin, Oregon Capital Chronicle

The Oregon state courts system has sealed about 47,000 evictions from Oregonians’ records, the Oregon Judicial Department said. 

The department sealed the residential evictions from people’s records by mid-December to comply with House Bill 2001, a 2023 law the Legislature passed. The law was passed to address housing evictions that show up on people’s records and affect their ability to rent and access housing. 

With the law, those 47,000 evictions do not show up in background checks and essentially disappear. In the past, those cases could have led to the denial of rental applications. 

“This work will implement current protections under Oregon law,” said Sybil Hebb, director of legislative advocacy for the Oregon Law Center, which provides free legal aid to Oregonians for a variety of issues, including housing.  “It will help a lot of people by removing barriers to housing stability, which is especially critical during this housing crisis.”

The law applies to cases where the court entered a judgment after Jan. 1, 2014. Evictions also have to meet other requirements and timelines. For example, if the court ordered the eviction but the tenant did not owe money, five years need to have passed. 

For cases with monetary awards, the judgement needs to be paid off, expired or discharged in bankruptcy court. 

The law requires courts to start removing records that meet the criteria by the end of 2024. 

As a result, judicial department staff manually reviewed about 160,000 evictions to determine eligibility.

The state still has a backlog of about 50,000 cases to review, with the goal of sealing eligible cases by the end of 2025. 

New cases will be reviewed every year. 

People can learn whether their past eviction was set aside and request a copy of their set-aside order on the judicial department’s eviction set-asides webpage. Tenants can glean more information about the eviction process and their rights at Oregon Law Help, a free legal information website from the Oregon State Bar.

Ben Botkin covers justice, health and social services issues for the Oregon Capital Chronicle.