In 2017, the Oregon Legislature enacted the new Oregon Receivership Code (“Code”), which took effect on January 1, 2018. Previously, Oregon’s Receivership State defined types of receiverships which allowed very little flexibility. The Code provides an efficient, defined mechanism for the appointment and use of a receiver to manage or dispose of assets during the pendency of a lawsuit and is fashioned after the Uniform Commercial Real Estate Receivership Act and Washington’s receivership statutes. Instead of defining types of receiverships, it lists rights and duties from which the court and parties can chose, in order to ensure that the receivership is workable for the specific facts and circumstance in the case before the court. Chapter 37 grants the court the ability to impose limited, expanded or modified duties on a receiver at any time.
The Code has been used successfully in Oregon since going into effect. There may be, however, some continued modifications to ensure that the Code is workable. As one example, the Code includes automatic stay provisions similar to provisions in the Bankruptcy Code. In the Code, the automatic stay goes into upon entry of an order appointing a receiver and applies to the “owner.” The term as used in the Code might be overly broad. ORS 37.220 applies to the “Owner” while the parallel provision in the Uniform Commercial Real Estate Receivership Act applies to “receivership property.” “Receivership Property” means “the property of an owner which is described in the order appointing the receiver or a subsequent order” and includes “any proceeds, products, offspring, rents, or profits of or from the property.” There is no legislative history explaining why the drafters changed in term from “receivership property” to “Owner.” This could be a problem down the road if a receivership does not include all of the owner’s property. The result of the section is that the stay enjoins all action against all property of the “owner” regardless of whether the property is in the receivership stay.