Today, March 13, 2020, Mayor London Breed ordered a moratorium on evictions based on a tenant’s inability to pay rent, if the inability is because of a “COVID-19 related impact”. For the next 30 days (and renewed as necessary), the tenant may notify their landlord of an inability to pay rent. They then have one week to provide documentation or other supporting evidence of an inability to pay rent.
Tenants who cannot pay rent will then have six months following the end of the emergency declaration to repay the rent. (Under state law, a landlord can demand rent via eviction notice a year’s worth of past due rent. At the moment, it is unclear whether the grace period would extend this.)
The press release adds that “recommendations from the San Francisco Department of Public Health can be found at www.sfdph.org/dph/alerts/coronavirus.asp along with up-to-date on coronavirus news and information. You can also call 311 and sign up for the City’s alert service for official updates: text COVID19SF to 888-777.”
