COVID-19 Information

The moratorium protects you if you live in a…

• Single-family home
• Apartment rental unit, including:
• Living with a Section 8 voucher
• A private MOHCD* or DHSH^† unit
• Garage
• Room rental
• Illegal unit

The moratorium does NOT protect you if you live in…

• A rented room in the same unit as your landlord, and you are the only tenant
• A hotel, motel, inn, tourist house, rooming or boarding house, unless you have lived there for at least 32 days in a row
• A hospital, convent, monastery, extended care facility, or asylum
• A residential care or adult day health care facility for the elderly
• A school or college dorm
• A unit in a non-profit cooperative

^* Mayor’s Office of Housing & Community Development

^† Department of Homelessness & Supportive Housing

Please contact Housing Rights Committee, San Francisco Tenants Union and/or Causa Justa::Just Cause

The moratorium on nonpayment evictions related to COVID financial impact currently runs through September 30, 2021.

For all other types of evictions except nuisance cases and Ellis Act evictions, there is a local moratorium through September 30, 2021.

Yes. The moratorium covers garages, room rentals, and illegal units.

Note: Landlords may still evict for other reasons, such as:

• Violence or threats of violence
• Health and safety concerns

The moratorium may not cover you. That is because you are technically a lodger, and not a renter.

Yes. The moratorium is not about your immigration status. It is about the type of unit you live in. If you live in a unit covered by the Rent Ordinance or regulated by the MOHCD, you are protected.

AB 3088, SB 91, and the San Francisco Tenant Protection Act protect all residential tenants, including undocumented renters.

Yes.   If you can’t pay your rent, notify the master tenant in the same way you would notify the landlord. See below section on “Special Rules for Renters Who Cannot Afford Their Rent Because of COVID-19”.

Yes. If you can’t pay your rent, notify your landlord as explained below.

Yes. If you can’t pay your rent because of COVID related financial hardship, notify your landlord as explained below.

No. The moratorium protects you. You do not have to move out yet.

Note: If you would like more information about your specific situation with a 60-day notice, contact the Eviction Defense Collaborative.

No, your landlord cannot evict you. But you must follow the rules for these time periods:

• March 1, 2020 – August 31, 2020
  If you couldn’t pay rent from March-August and you were served a 15-day Notice to Pay or Quit, you were also served a Declaration. To avoid getting evicted, fill out the Declaration and return it to your landlord within the 15-day period.
• September 1, 2020 – September 30, 2021
  Every time your landlord serves you a 15-day Notice to Pay or Quit, you must fill out the attached Declaration, and return it to your landlord.
  You also must pay 25% of your rent for every month that you cannot afford to pay the full rent. This payment can be made monthly or in a lump sum all at once before September 30, 2021. Include a statement that explains you are paying 25% of the rent, and which months your payment covers and keep a copy.
• October 1, 2021 onward
  You must resume paying 100% of the rent to avoid eviction. However, if you are unable to pay rent due to COVID financial hardship, rental assistance may be available.

(See answer above.)

(See answer above.)

You can:

• Deliver it in person if you have your landlord’s address. Your landlord must sign a receipt. (Keep the receipt.)
• Email it if you have your landlord’s email address. Make a folder on your computer to keep a record of this sent email.
• Mail it. Before you mail it, take a picture of the Declaration next to the envelope. Also ask the Post Office for proof of mailing.
• Send it the same way you pay your rent. Keep proof that you have done this.

Yes. The moratorium protects all residential tenants, no matter what kind of unit they live in or how long they have lived there.

Your landlord may not evict you for unpaid rent if you:

• Return a Declaration each time you are served a 15-day Notice to Pay or Quit, and
• Pay 25% of your September 2020-September 2021 rent.

Yes. You still owe unpaid rent. Although you cannot be evicted for not paying the rent, your landlord can sue you to collect this debt in Small Claims Court, no matter how much you owe. However, there are government funded rental assistance programs which may help pay this rent debt.

If your landlord wants to sue in Small Claims Court, he or she must wait until November 1, 2021 to start the case. But your landlord can start a case in regular civil court at any time.

Probably not. The new law (SB 91) says that any agreement that gives tenants less time to pay than they would have under the new law is not valid. Please get legal advice.

No longer. The CDC Order expired as of July 31, 2021.

Yes. Your landlord can evict you if:

• You are a health or safety risk to others, or
• Your landlord uses the Ellis Act (120 Notice) to go out of the business of renting.

No. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors extended the moratorium on no fault evictions until September 30, 2021. The only exception is for landlords who want to stop being landlords.

No. AB 832 says the landlord must have a “just cause” (valid, legal reason) for any eviction until September 2021.

Get legal help. Landlords that try to evict tenants who have given them their COVID Declarations can be charged and fined under state and federal law.

You cannot be evicted between now and September 30, 2021, if you submit a Declaration of COVID Financial Hardship and pay at least 25% of the rent. Starting October 1, 2021 if you don’t pay, your landlord can serve you a Notice to Pay or Quit and start an eviction case against you. You must pay your full October 2021 rent to keep this from happening.

No. Unless you are high-income, you do not need to attach proof of your financial problems. “High-income” means a household income of $100,000 or more.
If your landlord has proof that your household is high-income, the landlord can require you to attach proof of financial problems to your COVID Declaration.

You can show your landlord any of these:

• Tax returns or W-2s
• A written statement from your employer that states your income
• Pay stubs
• Unemployment Insurance records
• Documents showing regular distributions from a trust, annuity, 401K, or pension

No. AB 832 says that the landlord must keep this information private.

No. The moratorium prohibits a landlord from charging late fees.

Yes. Earlier in the COVID pandemic, the court delayed eviction cases. But now eviction cases are going forward.

Yes. The Court resumed processing eviction cases in June 2020.

Yes. The emergency rule preventing court filings has expired.

Yes. There was a rent freeze previously in place, which applied to any rent increases effective between April 7, 2020 and October 21, 2020. It expired on October 1, 2020 and has not been extended. However, there is an argument that during the state of emergency which has been declared, any rent increase in excess of 10% is illegal price gouging.

Yes. You should write to your landlord and say there is a temporary freeze on rent increases and that your landlord should refund you the amount you paid that reflected the increase.

To apply for State of California rental assistance for the period April 2020 – March 2021, go to https://housing.ca.gov/.  For local San Francisco rental relief, for assistance for the period April 2021 and after go to https://sfrenthelp.com/.