Halt on tenant actions ending
Evictions a go in September
CARSON CITY — The moratorium on residential evictions and foreclosures Nevada enacted March 29 amid record job losses from Covid-19-related layoffs will be discontinued in phases over the summer, Gov. Steve Sisolak directed Thursday.
The moratorium had originally been set to expire on June 30.
The timing on new rules for commercial tenants and mortgages is less forgiving: Landlords and mortgage lenders can resume charging late fees, initiate lockouts or start eviction actions for nonpayment of rent or foreclosure proceedings beginning July 1.
The governor’s latest emergency directive allows residential evictions and foreclosures to resume in full on Sept. 1 for nonpayment of rents and no-cause evictions. Late fees or penalties for nonpayment of rent or mortgage payments may not be charged retroactively under the directive.
The governor, in a release announcing the changes, urged landlords and tenants to work together on repayment plans.
“It is just as imperative today as it was when I signed
the original directive to allow Nevadans to stay home and stay safe as much as possible, while also providing clarity and a timeline in which rental obligations must be met,” Sisolak said in a statement.
The governor’s order covers residential summary evictions and some types of eviction court proceedings for causes other than nonpayment of rent, such as tenants who do not vacate at the end of their lease or who violate lease conditions. A chart on the state’s COVID-19 response website lays out the staggered timetable for specific actions.
The new directive went through an extensive drafting process that involved the offices of the governor, attorney general and state treasurer and groups including the Nevada Realtor Association, the Nevada State Apartment Association, Legal Aid of Southern Nevada, Washoe Legal
Services, Culinary Local 226 and the Nevada Supreme Court.
The attorney general’s office has created a template lease addendum and promissory note to help landlords and tenants work out repayment plans to keep people in housing and avoid overwhelming the courts. The document is “intended to help landlords receive delinquent rental amounts while helping keep tenants in their homes or places of business under a payment plan for back due rents that they can afford,” according to Thursday’s statement.
The treasurer’s office is working on a statewide rental aid program to help residential and commercial tenants and hopes to have the residential program running by mid-july with the commercial program to follow. It will be funded with $50 million of federal coronavirus relief money, with $30 million set aside for residential rental aid and $20 million for commercial rental relief.
Nonpayment of rent is the most common reason for eviction in
Nevada.
On the first day of overdue rent, state law allows allows landlords to serve tenants notice instructing them to pay in the next seven business days or face eviction proceedings in court.
The tenant must answer in court before the initial notice expires, or the court can enter a default judgment granting the eviction. The entire process can land a tenant on the street in as little as 15 days. More than 36,000 eviction cases were filed in the courts serving the Las Vegas Valley last year.
Local justice courts throughout Nevada adopted administrative orders in mid-march temporarily halting eviction proceedings because of the coronavirus outbreak.
Contact Capital Bureau reporter Bill Dentzer at bdentzer@ reviewjournal.com. Follow @Dentzernews on Twitter. ReviewJournal reporter Michael Scott Davidson contributed to this story.