Iowa residential landlords can no longer expect to evict a tenant by a FED action in which notice to the tenant is only provided by certified mail.
If a landlord wants to evict a tenant in Iowa, it can initiate a forcible entry and detainer action under chapter 648. Consistent with most actions, section 648.5 requires personal service on the defendant.
Yet Iowa’s version of the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Law, chapter 562A, allows service of an FED action on a defendant, at least three days prior to the hearing, “by sending notice by certified or restricted certified mail … whether or not the tenant signs a receipt for the notice,” notwithstanding section 648.5. See Iowa Code § 562A.29A(2).
The Iowa Supreme Court ruled today that section 562A.29A(2) violates, on its face, the due process clause of the Iowa Constitution. That is because “section 562A.29A(2) does not require service which is reasonably calculated to reach the intended recipient at a meaningful time” (i.e., at a time sufficient to allow the defendant to contest the action).
In the case at issue, War Eagle Village Apartments v. Plummer, No. 07-1217 (Iowa Nov. 20, 2009), the defendant did not receive the notice until after the FED hearing had taken place. Importantly, however, the Court held that section 562A.29(2) was not just unconstitutional as applied, but on its face, given the “the statutory requirement that a hearing be held no later than seven days from the order scheduling the hearing.”
Given that the Court held that subsection 2 is unconstitutional on its face, it does not appear that there are any steps that a landlord could take to “cure” the service under subsection 2. For instance, it does not appear that adding USPS services such as signature confirmation and return receipt to the certified mail service would bring the procedure into compliance with due process requirements. That is because, in light of the short turnaround between entrance of the order setting the FED hearing and the hearing date, it is the mailing of notice itself that is offensive.
The only other service option under section 562A.29A is “personal service.”
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