After a tough legislative session for tenants rights, in which the New Hampshire House killed numerous bills that would have added protections, renters in the state saw support from state senators after they killed a bill Thursday that would have made evictions easier.

House Bill 117, which was in front of the Senate on Thursday after crossover day, would have allowed landlords to terminate a lease at the end of its contract if the tenant had rented for more than six months. The landlord would have to give 30 days notice that they were not renewing the lease.

As the law stands now, there are only a handful of reasons a landlord can terminate a lease at the end of the contract – refusal to pay rent, the need to renovate the unit, if the tenant is a threat or disturbance to others or if the landlord wants a family member to move in.

But there’s no clause that says a landlord can just part ways with a tenant just because the lease is up.

This is what Representative Bob Lynn, a Windham Republican and former chief justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court, sought to add with the bill.

The provision would have overturned a 2005 state Supreme Court ruling, AIMCO Properties v. Dziewisz, which excluded the end of a lease as adequate reason to evict a tenant.

“The term of the lease contract is one year for the tenant but it is forever for the landlord,” said Lynn at a hearing for the bill. “Stop and think about that for a moment. A single contract has one meaning for one party in the contract but an entirely different meaning for the other party in the contract. This completely unprecedented violation of basic contract rights.”

Lynn was one of a dozen people who testified in an hour-long hearing in the Senate Commerce Committee last month, where attorneys, housing activists and services provides asserted that the bill would leave Granite State residents more vulnerable to homelessness, especially in a tight housing market where rentals are hard to come by.

“What HB 117 does is it effectively repeals our good cause eviction statute which has been in effect for 38 years,” said Elliott Berry, a retired attorney who argued in the AIMCO case in front of the Supreme Court. “The question is should a tenant have to face a loss of a home and everything that comes with that without good cause? I think the answer is fairly clear that market forces shouldn’t trump a family of security.”

Barry pointed to the recent rise in evictions across the state, even with the good cause clause in place. If trends continue, the state could see a high of 6,000 evictions this year, he said.

But Lynn argued the current law has an adverse affect on tenants if a landlord suspects that there may be unappealing qualities about a tenant, whether that’s a poor credit score or they suspect they won’t get along with other residents. The landlord will be less likely to rent to that person, knowing that it could be an indefinite contract.

With this added clause, allowing the end of a lease contract to serve as a reason to terminate their lease after 6 months, landlords could be more inclined to take a chance on tenants and offer them housing, said Lynn.

Housing advocates disagreed.

“Passing this legislation will allow landlords to send their tenants out into this impossible housing market for arbitrary reasons or as noted before, even hidden discriminatory reasons,” said Ellen Groh, the former executive director of the Concord Coalition to End Homelessness, who testified at the bill hearing. “For tenants who are living on the edge financially this could easily push them over the edge into homelessness.”

The Senate Commerce Committee voted unanimously that the bill was inexpedient to legislate.

In asking other senators to reaffirm this decision, Sen. Donna Soucy, the Senate Democrat leader who is from Manchester, pointed to the current housing crisis in the state and feasibility of whether or not tenants would be able to find a new place on 30 days notice.

“Those particularly at risk of being evicted include veterans, the elderly, people with disabilities and those living paycheck to paycheck,” she said. “Given our low housing inventory and rental vacancies it could be almost impossible for evicted tenants to find suitable housing within the 30 day notice.”

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