My luck has run out over the weekend. Since Covid hit, all my tenants had been paying good. I had to work with a few, but they set up an acceptable payment plan and they stuck to it. As this drug on, I had a few more find themselves without jobs or furloughed. They still paid and/or set up payment plans.

This weekend, I received a letter from a tenant that lost his job about a month ago. The letter was worded very professionally, but the jist of it was that he was no longer able to afford the rent and would not be paying anymore starting Oct 1. Additionally, he did not expect to earn more than $99k this year (2020) as well as eviction bans by the CDC and our governor did not allow me to evict him. So, he was going to assume this was all ok since there was nothing I could do.

Of course, I did contact my attorney to see what (if anything) could be done. We currently have an eviction ban until Jan 26th, 2021. My saving grace may be that this tenant is on a month to month lease currently. My attorney advised I can get people out for lease violations (other than non-payment) or a 30 day notice to not renew. I may go this route, I haven't decided yet. I'm thinking I may offer a payment plan like I did everyone else. If he still refuses, I may not renew the lease. I'm also thinking any lease I sign in the future (at least for a little while) will be month to month. (I know some on this board are a huge fan of that anyway.)

This whole Covid thing is nuts! My attorney also had a few choice words for it as well. The thing I'm not able to wrap my head around was back in '08 when the mortgage mess hit and a lot of people were laid off, there was not an eviction ban. The economy as a whole is even better now than it was then. Why are we doing this to ourselves? Making $99k in my neck of the woods is a very good salary. The rent on this place is $1100/month to give perspective. This looks to be more of a case of not saving for a rainy day than it is trying to scrape by. Just frustrating all the way around.

Anyway, I will survive. Setback, but not a game ender. I do save for a rainy day. I will be ok. This is only 1 house (so far, knock on wood). Hope you all are doing ok as well! I've seen some similar stories as this from a few of you. I hope this will end soon. Nov 3 is my prediction for the end date, but we'll see how it actually goes. It's just sad really....

I was sorry to hear about your tenant being so nonchalant about not having to pay you the rent due to the pandemic. Yes there are some ways to deal with those who "elect" not to pay their rent as opposed to those who "can't" pay the entire rent until they start working again. Each State has it's unique set of rules to follow.

I think you may be misunderstanding the "he did not expect to earn more than $99k this year" part. He wasn't telling you that he makes $99,000. He was simply doing what is required by the CDC. It requires that the tenant send a letter to the landlord that states some very specific things -- and one of those is a statement that they make less than $$99,000 per year if filing single.

So, again, I don't think this person is telling you that they make $99,000. They are just doing the standard required letter which includes a statement that they make less than that. My guess is that they will make a LOT less than $99,000 this year.

- John...

And, personally, I've seen it suggested a few times, but I'm waiting to see things actually go to court before I believe that you can just terminate month-to-month people without cause when they stop paying rent because of Covid.

I mean, I get the concept and what your lawyer is saying, but that clearly was not the intent of the CDC's moratorium on evictions. I think that is going to depend a LOT of local judges -- and I think a lot of them are not going to go "Ok, we'll consider this a simple end-of-lease thing and evict this person" after they realize that they stopped paying rent and claimed CDC Moratorium status.

Some judges might, sure. But I have my doubts that this will work for most of us.

- John...

At least it will slow the spread, right? ;-)

I would not communicate much more with this tenant at the moment. He has either found his get out of jail free card with the CDC nonsense or he has someone in his corner coaching him. How has he been before this? How was his screening?

I also think violating for lease conditions is going to be very judge and area specific.

As far as the judges knowing what to do or what not to do in this regard, I had to show a secretary who worked in my judges office that I did not have to serve a notice to quit in the state of Pennsylvania if I had a waiver of such in my lease. She worked in the office for 20 years.

Thanks all for the responses so far! It's always nice to sometimes see the "I hadn't thought of that..." things.

Robert J - That's interesting. I'm glad it worked for you, but I'm not sure that would work here. And you're in CA...

Robin - I was advised to. This is a very long term tenant. They're good, until they're not...

Still - That's why I haven't done anything yet. Waiting until I think this through. Have a letter going out today, but having someone else read over it first.

John - I know what you are saying. I agree that typically means they won't make $99k, but somewhere under. Problem is, I know what this tenant made before the layoff. He probably didn't make $99k since he was laid off in late Aug, but it was REAL close to it. As far as the non-renewal, I asked the attorney that specific question. Was told it was still good. We shall see I guess.

NE - good tenant before. Very long term. It's the attitude of this specific situation mainly that threw me off. Instead of "Can you work with me?" like the few others have done in this situation, it was more of "I can't pay and there's not anything you can do about it".

Nicole - The violating leases is working here. My attorney told me about 2 specific examples that have worked so far. Not switching utilities to tenant's name and pets on premises were the 2 mentioned. Doesn't mean all situations will work, and they cautioned if I go down this road, be VERY specific and make sure it's a true lease violation. Although not tested (yet), they also mentioned a tenant refusing access for routine maintenance would be another cause that would fly.

I have one that lost her job in July. She paid August and Sept but will be struggling for October. Her unemployment is only about $128 per week now that there are no more federal funds to help with it. She was out of work part of 2018 and 2019 due to a health concern, and had heart surgery.

I've already told her to start applying for all the assistance she can get, including SNAP, Heating Assistance, utility assistance, etc. She canceled her internet to get rid of that bill, and doesn't really have much else she can cut out. She can't get rid of her car since we are in a smaller town with no mass transit.

I'm going to work with her on getting her to pay something, and help her apply for every sort of assistance there is. She is actually supposed to be starting with "DoorDash" today, so there may be funds to pay her rent weekly, but no telling. I told her to get with her insurance before driving her car like that, to make sure she has the right coverage since all too often that part doesn't get updated.

We can agree to disagree. I think the CDC's moratorium on evictions was clearly to keep people in their units. Period.

So you're suggesting that the CDC wants people evicted, but just doesn't want it to be because of Covid? That seems to be the OPPOSITE of what most people are arguing the CDC wants to happen.

So, again, we can agree to disagree. The CDC's moratorium on evictions seems pretty obvious to me. I do not think that their plan was that people would just terminate MTM leases for people that couldn't pay.

- John...

Here's what the National Law Review says about it: "The fifth and final exclusion appears to effectively limit the moratorium protection to cover only evictions based on a failure to timely pay rent or other charges. On its face, this exclusion would seem to allow landlords to provide notices of non-renewals for month-to-month tenancies or other tenancies whose terms are set to expire before the end of the year. There is at least some concern that evicting a tenant based on failure to comply with a notice of termination by non-renewal could be prohibited if the tenant is already behind on rent (or perhaps if the Landlord seeks damages for past-due rent in the eviction action). It’s unclear whether a court would inquire into the unstated and subjective reasons of the landlord for not renewing a lease or terminating a month-to-month lease or it would review only the stated purpose of the notice of termination or notice not to renew. It’s imperative for landlords to tread cautiously in such a situation and seek qualified legal advice before taking action."

Basically, they seem to agree that there is "at least some concern" that given notice of non-renewal is a safe move. And then goes on to say that it is "unclear" how the court would react to that. So, "tread cautiously" and "get a lawyer."

What is basically exactly what I just said. :)

- John...

Finally, don't forget that the penalties are pretty severe for violating this:

"a fine of no more than $100,000 if the violation does not result in a death or one year in jail, or both, or a fine of no more than $250,000 if the violation results in a death or one year in jail, or both, or as otherwise provided by law."

So, sure, Paulio (or anyone else), feel free to be the guinea pig for us on this. :) We're not talking about a slap on the wrist for screwing this one up if your judge decides that you were violating the CDC's moratorium. It's a BIT too much "open to interpretation" for my liking.

When even the National Law Review is going "yeah, it's really not clear if that would float or not -- good luck!" -- then I get a bit concerned. When you add a $100,000 fine onto that, then I get more than a bit concerned...

- John...

You could remind the tenant that having an eviction and / or a judgement could effect their ability to get housing and credit for years to come. IF they can not pay they might want to move out to prevent this on their record. You might want to remind them they rent is not forgiven and they will still own the money.

This whole mess is nuts and has gone way too far.

I would imagine there will be a backlash from landlords in the future. I see it in the form of fraudulent expenses and claims on tax returns.

People assume landlords fudge their taxes all the time, I think that is not the case. I believe there are landlords who filed meticulously in the past, following the letter of the law, who now will change.

Very short sighted thinking to expect landlords to pay the bill for others.

I have several tenants who need a 30 day notice, but if they don't move I doubt if a holdover eviction would fly so I restrain myself.

I would look over the paperwork for this online. They have a form to sign with about 5 criteria they must attest to, and you can request proof/documents such as a charity notice denying help they applied for. There is a perjury penalty for tenant falsehoods as well.

But, you seem to have a judge who won't evict and it rarely pays to oppose your judge.

You can "Landlord" him. Inspect as frequently as needed, do repairs and charge him for them if he is responsible by Lease.

We actually won an eviction here in Indiana last week. We had filed for it about the time the moratorium went into effect in March. The tenant was already 2 months behind on Lot Rent (he owns the home that sits on the lot) in our Mobile Home Park. Had not made any effort in 6 months to pay so much as a dime.

He sent us the COVID letter, stating that he had "tried" (LOL). He tried it on the judge, (but he could not verify the places he had "tried), so she ordered him to move the home by October 10th.

There have been at least two lawsuits filed to try and overturn the federal eviction ban. Noted in the article is the fact that judges in 13 cases (state and federal) when asked to weigh in on the merits of the case have declined to stop the bans. Does anyone have any reference to a case that has been won to overturn an eviction ban? I know some have filed suit and gotten to restart evictions after a ban has expired but I can't find anything about a ban being overturned.

www.aljazeera.com/economy/2020/9/25/us-landlords-sue-over-covid-19-eviction-ban-as-tenants-struggle