The government changed the terms of fully executed private contracts. But as risk increases, so follows insurance. So if the government wants to abuse contract law, watch the rent, penalties and security deposits climb to compensate for any future "moratoriums".
The government enacted emergency powers and public health laws they already possessed when those contracts were signed. Where is the abuse?
I'd be personally ok with the government bailing out smaller landlords (just because), but the largest percentage of these defaults are going to affect private equity firms who have bought an outrageous amount of the housing stock. We need to stop socializing risk and privatizing profits, and this would be a good place to start.
The abuse was largely in the duration and indiscriminate scope, regardless of ability to pay or not.
Student loans are cheaper precisely because they cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. Rent is cheaper because of eviction. Now that we've seen the government unilaterally discharge rent through moratorium, you can expect to see that risk profile baked into an increased monthly payment.
It sounds like they stretched their own finances to the limit. The government was trying to solve a much larger problem that required indifference to the risks they took, but sometimes that’s what the government has to do. It’s the investors job to cover risk.
“It sounds like they stretched their own finances to the limit. The government was trying to solve a much larger problem that required indifference to the risks they took”
Your second point sort of invalidates the first. You argue that the government isn’t the source of the harm, then justify the government action as a prudent balancing of harms.
I think the point most are making is that they were trying to solve a much larger problem, but didn’t think the problem through particularly well.
> Your second point sort of invalidates the first. You argue that the government isn’t the source of the harm, then justify the government action as a prudent balancing of harms.
No it doesn't. The pandemic caused the harm, the government acted to mitigate the worst effects of it. You seem to be of the opinion that the "worst effects" are the landlords losing out on rent, but the worst effects are millions of people ending up homeless during a pandemic, which is what the government prevented. Even if it was clumsy, I tend to think landlords would have been worse off anyways if there had been mass homelessness and higher body counts. You can't collect rent if your renters are dead or your own head is in a basket.