Eviction Moratoriums: History and Current Status

Eviction moratoriums are temporary legal prohibitions or suspensions on the initiation or execution of residential and commercial eviction proceedings, typically enacted by federal, state, or local government authority in response to declared emergencies. Their scope, duration, enforcement mechanisms, and jurisdictional reach vary significantly depending on the enacting authority. Understanding the structural landscape of eviction moratoriums is essential for landlords, tenants, housing attorneys, and property managers navigating the regulatory frameworks that govern the landlord-tenant relationship.

Definition and Scope

An eviction moratorium is a government-issued directive that restricts a landlord's legal ability to remove tenants from a rental unit for a defined period. The restriction may apply to the filing of eviction notices, the initiation of court proceedings, the issuance of writs of possession, or the physical execution of lockouts — or to all four phases simultaneously.

Moratoriums are classified by enacting authority into three primary tiers:

1. Federal moratoriums — Issued by executive order or congressional authority, binding nationally or on properties receiving federal funding. The most significant example is the CDC moratorium enacted under Section 361 of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. § 264), which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down in Alabama Association of Realtors v. Department of Health and Human Services, 594 U.S. ___ (2021).
2. State moratoriums — Enacted by governor's executive order or state legislature, applying within the state's territorial jurisdiction and preemptable by subsequent legislation.
3. Local moratoriums — Issued by county or municipal governments, often more restrictive than state-level protections and subject to state preemption law.

Scope distinctions also apply to the type of tenancy covered. Residential and commercial tenancies are typically governed by separate instruments; most federal and state COVID-era moratoriums explicitly limited coverage to residential units, excluding commercial leases from protection.

How It Works

A moratorium operates by temporarily suspending the legal remedies available to landlords under standard eviction statutes. The mechanism functions in discrete phases:

1. Declaration trigger — A governmental body declares a qualifying emergency (public health, natural disaster, economic crisis) that activates statutory or regulatory authority to issue a moratorium.
2. Notice and publication — The moratorium order is published through official channels, establishing effective dates, covered tenancy types, geographic scope, and any income or hardship thresholds for tenant eligibility.
3. Tenant declaration requirement — Under the federal CDC model, tenants were required to submit a signed hardship declaration to their landlord certifying eligibility criteria including income limitations (household income at or below $99,000 annually for single filers, as specified in the CDC Order published in the Federal Register Vol. 85, No. 173).
4. Court processing restrictions — Courts typically issue administrative orders pausing eviction case dockets, while some jurisdictions continue accepting filings but stay hearings.
5. Landlord compliance obligations — Landlords subject to the moratorium may not serve pay-or-quit notices, file unlawful detainer actions, or execute writs during the covered period. Violation may constitute contempt of court or generate civil liability under applicable state law.
6. Expiration or termination — Moratoriums expire at a stated end date, upon rescission by the enacting authority, or through judicial invalidation. Post-expiration, standard eviction procedures resume, though backlogged court dockets may extend practical timelines.

Rent obligations typically continue to accrue during a moratorium period. Moratoriums do not extinguish the debt owed by tenants for unpaid rent; they only suspend the enforcement mechanism. Emergency Rental Assistance programs — such as the $46.5 billion allocated under the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 (Pub. L. 116-260) and the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 — operated in parallel to address the underlying rent debt accumulation.

Common Scenarios

The service landscape for eviction moratoriums involves recurring factual patterns that define how courts, landlords, and tenants interact with the regulatory framework.

Nonpayment of rent during an active moratorium: The most common scenario involves a tenant who has ceased paying rent citing financial hardship. Under a qualifying moratorium, the landlord cannot proceed with eviction for nonpayment while the order is in effect, even if the tenant does not meet the stated eligibility criteria, unless the landlord successfully challenges the tenant's declaration in court.

Lease expiration during a moratorium: Some moratoriums extended protections beyond lease term expiration, effectively converting month-to-month holdover tenancies into protected occupancies for the moratorium duration. California's AB 3088 (Tenant, Homeowner, and Small Landlord Relief and Stabilization Act of 2020) included provisions addressing holdover tenancy protections of this type.

Owner move-in exemptions: Most state and local moratoriums included exemptions permitting eviction when a property owner or immediate family member intended to occupy the unit as a primary residence, though documentation and notice requirements varied by jurisdiction.

Federal property nexus: Properties with federally backed mortgages (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA, VA, or USDA loans) faced additional moratorium obligations tied to CARES Act Section 4024, which prohibited eviction filings for nonpayment on covered properties for 120 days following the Act's enactment in March 2020. This represents a separate legal layer from CDC-based moratoriums.

For comprehensive providers of housing professionals operating in specific jurisdictions, the landlord-tenant providers provider network provides a structured access point to practitioners with relevant regional knowledge.

Decision Boundaries

The operative question in any moratorium compliance analysis is whether a specific eviction action falls within or outside the moratorium's jurisdictional, temporal, and categorical scope. Four boundary conditions define this determination:

Boundary 1 — Jurisdictional nexus: The property must be located within the geographic territory covered by the moratorium. Federal moratoriums applied nationally to qualifying properties; state moratoriums applied only within the issuing state's borders; local moratoriums applied only within the municipality or county. Stacked protections from multiple levels simultaneously governed properties in jurisdictions where all three enacted independent orders.

Boundary 2 — Property and tenancy type: A moratorium applies only to the specified tenancy classifications. Residential-only orders do not reach commercial leases. Certain orders excluded single-family homes with mortgage financing, subsidized housing already covered by separate federal prohibitions, or short-term vacation rentals.

Boundary 3 — Cause of eviction: Moratoriums differ sharply on whether they cover only nonpayment evictions or extend to "for cause" evictions such as lease violations, nuisance, or criminal activity. The CDC federal moratorium and most state orders restricted only nonpayment evictions. California's Judicial Council emergency rules under Rule 1.401 (Emergency Rule 1) imposed a broader procedural pause covering all unlawful detainer proceedings.

Boundary 4 — Tenant eligibility compliance: Where moratoriums required tenant declarations or eligibility certifications, a landlord's legal exposure depended on whether the tenant submitted a qualifying declaration. Landlords retain the right to challenge declaration accuracy, though the burden of proof structure varied by jurisdiction and order terms.

The contrast between blanket stays (which applied automatically to all covered tenancies without tenant action) and declaration-based protections (which required tenant affirmative steps) represents the principal structural divide in moratorium design. Blanket stays, as used in the Judicial Council emergency rules, required no tenant action; declaration-based models, as used by the CDC, placed procedural responsibility on the tenant.

For context on how the landlord-tenant regulatory landscape is organized more broadly, the provider network purpose and scope reference outlines the jurisdictional and professional classifications relevant to housing law practitioners. Further navigational guidance on using this resource is available at how to use this landlord-tenant resource.