A recent artictle by Joe Ducey of ABC15 points out that if you’re a renter having financial trouble trying to stay in your home, it may have just gotten harder.
New state and federal orders and guidelines give more power to landlords to contest why tenants can’t pay rent, making it easier to start the eviction process.
Right now, tenants can stay in their homes until the end of the year without eviction if they fill out a Centers for Disease control form and give it to their landlord.
They must agree to five declarations including amount of income, attempts at getting rental assistance, and an inability to pay based on a substantial loss of income. Tenants must sign the form under penalty of perjury and that was usually enough, until now.
Which eviction rules have changed
A new Arizona Supreme Court order and new federal guidelines allow landlords to challenge the process, including the truthfulness of tenant declarations.
This creates a new burden of proof for tenants and possible new court hearings that they must attend. There are concerns that tenants won’t get notice of hearings and they won’t know how to prepare.
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