San Jose’s moratorium on evictions will now run through June 30 after the City Council this week approved the extension along with a longer rent repayment period.
Tenants in San Jose will now have 12 months after the expiration of the eviction moratorium to pay back past-due rent.
The new law—initiated by Mayor Sam Liccardo—also bars landlords from ousting tenants for nonpayment for six months after the moratorium ends, as long as they pay back half of what they owe. The remainder would have to be repaid within a year.
The ordinance, however, does not prevent landlords and tenants from entering into voluntary agreements of their own. “This measure mitigates the strain on our neighbors who are most vulnerable to the economic impact of COVID-19, giving folks a better chance to meet the challenging times in the months ahead,” Liccardo explained in a press release sent to reporters Thursday morning.
Along with the newly-enacted rent repayment period, the San Jose council on Tuesday also approved a number of other tenant protections.
Landlords are now prohibited from charging or collecting late fees, interest or penalties during the moratorium. The provision aligns with Santa Clara County’s eviction moratorium, which bars fees for the duration and in the 120 after its expiration.
Landlords are also not allowed to retaliate or harass tenants for nonpayment.
“The first line of defense is really our legal system," San Jose Deputy Housing Director Rachel VanderVeen explained. “So if someone is being harassed or retaliated against they can claim protection in court using this as their defense…I would say the second line to that is anyone who is experience these types of challenges can reach out to our offices.”
Councilwoman Maya Esparza, who has been a reliable voice for tenants rights on the council, asked city officials during the virtual meeting if they could consider endorsing Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-Minn.) legislation that would offer relief to both renters and homeowners by cancelling rent and mortgage payments.
“When we’ve heard from landlords, they’ve talked about the burden that they have to carry and I think there’s some truth to that,” she said. “We haven’t seen the kind of action we’ve seen on mortgage relief that we saw with [Troubled Asset Relief Program] funds for example during the Great Recession.”
As part of the city’s budget process, which is reaching its final stages before the end of the fiscal year in June, the council will also consider lowering fees for landlords.
So, where is the “equal protection under the law”?
The government arbitrarily grants a benefit to one party of a contract. Where is the authority for that?
A lot of renters are going to be on the hook for a lot of back rent. And a lot of them are never going to be able to pay.
So, it it was the city or county’s order that excused them from the rent, then it sounds like the city or the county are on the hook for the rents that are due.
Thoughtfully, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer PREVENTED Congress from passing legislation providing immunity from lawsuits due to COVID-19, so in an honest, rational, and fair legal world the city and county are sitting ducks for having the courts hold them to the financial obligations they assumed.
PAY UP, DEADBEATS!
Glad I’m not a landlord. Talk about the tenant getting a free ride. You just tell the landlord I can’t pay and wait and wait. After many months plus this new law you then just leave. What a joke. Screw the Landlord law is what it should be called. I wonder if any of these elected officials own property?? I bet NOPE..
Are people allowed not pay rent even if they didn’t lose their job? Are we providing people with free ride even if they don’t need one? I am confused.
They get a break even if they didn’t lose their job?
this is going to end badly…
if you think your landlord is going to forgive your rent, you’re going to burn
and you owe rent, those facts will not be in question
the only winner will be lawyers, especially eviction lawyers
People Die.
Get over it.
We should have never shut the country down in the first place.
I think we should apply this great idea to county and state property taxes as well.
How loud do you think the folks in Sacramento would scream about no tax revenue coming in ?
The minute government exalts one group over another, it has denied equal protection of the laws to the exalted group, as guaranteed by the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution. In this case, landlords have been denied that equal protection. In typical government fashion, the latest SJ eviction moratorium uses a chain saw instead of a scalpel. Every residential landlord has been deprived of rents by the government without just compensation, which is a violation of the Fifth Amendment. Neither of these amendments has exceptions based upon a pandemic or a state of emergency. Large corporate landlords are in a very different situation than mom and pop rental landlords. The large landlords are in a far better position to absorb the losses than a person or couple who own a small number of rental units. But both types of landlords have been denied equal protection by this action by the city. I am stunned that the Tri County Aapartment Association has not filed a lawsuit seeking an injunction against this confiscatory legislation.Full disclosure, I own my own home and do not own rental property of any kind, so I neither gain nor lose as a result of this unconstitutional edict from the City of San Jose.
I am SO sick of phrases from government officials like “the challenging times in months ahead”., They are challenging, but only because of the panic by government officials at all levels. I began calling the reaction to COVID the PANICdemic starting in mid-March, That’s when Fauci completely reversed his assessments of mid January and mid February, which stated that COVID was nothing to worry about because it was just a somewhat stronger flu. At that point government officials at all levels in the US totally panicked and started an avalanche of over reaction that shut down many sectors of the US economy, the so called non essential ones. Two months later there are 35 million officially unemployed out of a total work force of 150 million. Yet the lapdog mainstream news media still parrots the government figure of 14% unemployment. Do the math. They are wrong.
Speaking of wrong, every subsequent pronouncement by Fauci and every model about the spread of COVID throughout the population has been wrong. Cuomo is the worst. Two months ago he screamed that there would be 200,000 deaths in NY state alone in the immediate future. Two months later, the total is 23, 282 as of May 24.He demanded masks, additional health care workers, etc. He got the hospital ship Hope. NY has a surplus of masks, the Hope went virtually unused, and hospitals in NY and throughout the country are laying off workers. Yet Cuomo still has a 60%+ approval rating. WTF?
Panic stricken governors have shredded the Constitution and destroyed the economy, based in great part by being too stupid to stop believing Fauci, even though he has been wrong consistently, as have the models he used for his carnival fortune teller predictions.