Sen. Julia Kirt, D-Oklahoma City, will try again to extend Oklahoma’s eviction timeline after Gov. Kevin Stitt vetoed a similar measure last legislative session.
Kirt hopes to lessen the burden on courts and renters by removing weekends and holidays from the period tenants have to appear in court after getting an eviction summons with Senate Bill 1209, a new measure she filed in advance of the 2026 legislative session.
“When the banks are closed, when nonprofits that might be able to help tenants are closed, that wouldn’t be part of the eviction timeline,” Kirt said. “I do feel like it’s kind of the bare minimum.”
Oklahoma has one of the quickest eviction processes in the country, churning out more than 237,000 eviction filings since March 2020, according to data collected by the nonprofit Legal Services Corporation. Hearings have to be set within 10 days of an eviction being filed, a window that includes weekends and holidays, according to the nonprofit Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma, which provides help in eviction court for people with limited income. Tenants are only required to receive three days’ notice of their hearing. This means someone could learn on a Thursday they have to be in court the following Monday, leaving little time to find a way to pay past-due rent or to arrange child care and time off to appear in court.
County courts are especially busy around the end of the month, said Greg Beben, a Legal Aid attorney. And by including weekends and holidays in the eviction timeline, courts are forced to squeeze more cases into a smaller period of time. The week of Christmas alone, Oklahoma County District Court had nearly 450 cases on its dockets for two days.
Renters who appear for a hearing could have just minutes to make their case.
Beben said he and his colleagues expected to turn potential clients away during the Dec. 22 and 23 eviction dockets because of high case loads and a limited number of Legal Aid attorneys. Legal Aid has fewer attorneys to help tenants due to declining funding, Beben said.
“We simply do not have enough attorneys to represent as many tenants as we expect to apply with us at dockets that have over 220 cases,” Beben said. “Smaller dockets would change that.”
Oklahoma has one of the quickest eviction processes in the country, churning out more than 237,000 eviction filings since March 2020, according to data collected by the nonprofit Legal Services Corporation. Hearings have to be set within 10 days of an eviction being filed, a window that includes weekends and holidays, according to the nonprofit Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma, which provides help in eviction court for people with limited income. Tenants are only required to receive three days’ notice of their hearing. This means someone could learn on a Thursday they have to be in court the following Monday, leaving little time to find a way to pay past-due rent or to arrange child care and time off to appear in court.
County courts are especially busy around the end of the month, said Greg Beben, a Legal Aid attorney. And by including weekends and holidays in the eviction timeline, courts are forced to squeeze more cases into a smaller period of time. The week of Christmas alone, Oklahoma County District Court had nearly 450 cases on its dockets for two days.
Renters who appear for a hearing could have just minutes to make their case.
Beben said he and his colleagues expected to turn potential clients away during the Dec. 22 and 23 eviction dockets because of high case loads and a limited number of Legal Aid attorneys. Legal Aid has fewer attorneys to help tenants due to declining funding, Beben said.
“We simply do not have enough attorneys to represent as many tenants as we expect to apply with us at dockets that have over 220 cases,” Beben said. “Smaller dockets would change that.”
It can take as little as two weeks for someone to be locked out of their home after an eviction action is filed against them. Extending the timeline, even a little, would help when an emergency comes up, like the temporary loss of federal food benefits in November, Kirt said.
“With such a tight timeline — so few days — it really means if someone’s even a few days behind in terms of getting their paycheck, or if there’s a small glitch, like a car breakdown or a doctor’s visit, that can be enough for someone to be evicted,” Kirt said.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” she said.
