New research shows Missouri has among the lowest court fees for landlords to file for eviction in the nation — and that raising filing fees would reduce eviction rates.

In Missouri, the average cost for a landlord to file for eviction is $56, and is as low as $33 in some counties.

The fees vary widely across the country, and are set in often “arbitrary” ways, the researchers found, but with significant effects. Nationally, fees range from $15 to $350, and the average is $132.

“By raising filing fees at the local level, we could go a long way toward reducing eviction filings,” Henry Gomory, lead researcher on the Eviction Lab study, said at a presentation last week.

The researchers collected filing fee data from nearly every county across the country in 2018 and published their findings in the journal Housing Policy Debate last month.

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