Legislation would allow delinquent tenants to stave off eviction by paying rent due after the eviction process has begun. 

State law spells out the carefully choreographed steps of evicting a tenant for nonpayment of rent, which starts with a three-day deadline to pay or quit.

If the rent is late, housing providers or their agents serve a legal document demanding payment within three days (excluding weekends and judicial holidays). If a tenant fails to pay the full amount or vacate the premises within three days, the landlord has perfected their right to evict.

The law makes it abundantly clear that if the tenant does not pay rent within the three-day window, they are in breach of the rental agreement, PERIOD, and do not have the opportunity to fulfill their obligation later. Tenants do not have the luxury of paying whenever they like.

Although state law is sacrosanct, it does not stop politicians from trying to upend it. A case in point is San Francisco’s Ordinance 18-22. With certain exceptions like threats to public health and safety and rent accrued during the pandemic, the legislation required landlords to give the tenant a 10-day warning letter and opportunity to pay rent before serving a formal eviction notice. Housing providers and their advocates successfully challenged the law.

We were happy to report to our followers that the courts ruled in favor of landlords and agreed that this added requirement of a grace period to pay rent was invalid because it conflicted with state law.

 

But what the legislature giveth, it could taketh away.

Nothing is preventing Sacramento politicians from rewriting state law, and that’s exactly what Senator Dr. Aisha Wahab has attempted to do by introducing Senate Bill (SB) 436, dubbed the “Keeping California Housed Act.”

If passed, the law would shield renters from evictions for nonpayment of rent if they can pay up even after an eviction lawsuit has commenced.

Moreover, the tenancy can be preserved if the renter can produce documentation of approval for rental assistance covering the full amount of the arrears.

We tell CalMatters that if this measure comes to pass, there is no incentive to pay rent on time, and the law renders the lease meaningless.

 

“There has to be a line in the sand from a public policy standpoint, or there never is an end point when the debt has to be paid.”

~ Daniel's diatribes quoted here.

 

 

We think that sober minds will prevail with the help of our industry partners, and that this crackpot measure will be defeated. But is it a whispering possibility?

21 states have similar laws on the books that allow tenants to dismiss a nonpayment of eviction action if they pay any accrued rent up to the point of removal.

Imagine that a landlord spends tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees to evict a nonpaying tenant, but the day before law enforcement shows up, the tenant scrounges up the money and is insulated from eviction. This process can be rinsed and repeated by delinquent renters who wait until the 11th hour to pay rent.

We believe that this is a bad bill that will not pass, but it does illustrate some of the anti-landlord sentiment behind laws that are being incubated in the statehouse.

With rental housing providers in a suspended state of ambiguity on what the future holds, be tethered to a law firm that follows it all and can make sense of nonsense.