Nonpayment of rent is far and away the leading cause of eviction, in California and across the nation. Whether called a “housing crisis,” an “affordability crisis,” or something else, many tenants are “rent-burdened,” paying well more than the recommended 30% of their income to rent. In that scenario, a temporary set-back (lost hours at work, unavoidable auto or health-related expense, even funeral expenses for a loved one) can disrupt a family’s ability to make rent in any given month. Housing providers have a right to earn income from their units, but under current California law, eviction (a judgment for possession swiftly executed by the sheriff, with a questionably collectible money judgment also entered against the tenant) is an over-used, and questionably effective, remedy for landlords seeking to collect delinquent rent.

Twenty-one states — rural and urban, Democrat- and Republican-controlled, large and small — have codified an alternative: a statute that permits tenants facing eviction for nonpayment of rent to redeem their tenancies and remain in their homes if they are able to pay the rent owing, even well after an action for eviction has begun. California is not among these Redemption States.

Under current California law, tenants may avoid eviction for nonpayment of rent only if they are able to pay all of the rent demanded by the landlord within three business days of service of a notice to pay rent or quit. Once the sun has set on the third business day, the tenant’s right to cure – to rescue the tenancy and avoid eviction – is extinguished. To be sure, many landlords will agree to a rescue plan thereafter, but such agreements are elective, and are often bulked up beyond rescue with amounts not at issue in the case (e.g., utility payments, rent accrued more than a year before service of the notice, or other amounts not properly included in a nonpayment notice), or unreasonable attorney’s fees. Absent a right to redeem a tenancy deeper into the eviction process, tenants with fundamentally sustainable tenancies, whose eviction arises from a temporary set-back, are unnecessarily subjected to eviction. This is particularly unreasonable where third-party and other resources have been made available precisely for this situation, but cannot be leveraged on the 3-day timeline.

Third-party rental assistance – from government and private nonprofit agencies – has become an important part of the nonpayment landscape. Even before the federal government invested $46 billion into rental assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic, cities, counties, philanthropic organizations and neighborhood agencies provided funds to tenants in need of stop-gap help to prevent eviction. The patchwork of these agencies remains in place in California communities since the pandemic. In this resource environment, it is crucial that the timeline for evictions for nonpayment of rent is aligned with the timelines required to leverage these resources. California law falls short in this regard, leaving many tenants vulnerable to displacement, and landlords holding uncollectible money judgments. The current 3-day cure period is out of sync with any feasible rescue plan, frustrating the very purpose of these funds, and exposing a family whose tenancy might be redeemed to displacement and homelessness.

There is broad consensus in the legal aid community that California should become the 22nd Redemption State.¹ Indeed, a right to redeem is intuitive in cases of nonpayment of rent, and analogous to rights that delinquent mortgagees enjoy. It would preserve eviction as a remedy when the tenancy is truly financially unsustainable, and prevent the pretextual use of nonpayment of rent to evict tenants for other, potentially unlawful, reasons.

This report summarizes and analyzes the provisions of the 21 states that allow tenants to redeem their tenancies and proceeds in five sections.² Part I provides the social and legal context in which California’s evictions for nonpayment of rent proceed. Part II describes briefly the definitions and methodology used by the research team. Parts III and IV, in turn, provide analysis of the twenty-one Redemption States, and a deeper exploration of two of them, with case studies regarding Oregon and New York. A brief conclusion follows as Part V.³

The report concludes that California should recognize that without a redemption statute it is out of step with other Western states and with states that seek to reasonably equalize the power imbalance between landlords and tenants in light of summary process eviction. A longer period in which to redeem a tenancy stabilizes households and communities while protecting landlords’ interests in financial solvency and stability. Moreover, a redemption period leverages government and philanthropic efforts to address the affordability crisis with reasonable rental assistance.

Californians deserve the right to redeem a tenancy and California should become a Redemption State.

¹ Assembly Bill 265 in the 2011-2012 session would have provided tenants a right of redemption on a staged basis, with different sums required if the tenant sought to redeem before or after judgment, and with certain limitations on the attorney’s fees required to redeem. The bill passed out of committee on a 6-3 vote, but was not enacted, and was recorded “died” on February 1, 2012.

² Across the nation, eviction is a creature of state law, and one that involves the intersections of any given jurisdiction’s substantive landlord-tenant law, civil procedure code, and background property and contract law. Accordingly, comparative analyses are imprecise, and head-to-head comparisons inevitably involves judgment calls based on a research team’s best judgment. (See, Kyle Nelson, Philip Garboden, Brian J. McCabe & Eva Rosen (2021) Evictions: The Comparative Analysis Problem, Housing Policy Debate, 31:3-5, 696-716, DOI: 10.1080/10511482.2020.1867883, arguing that recent scholarly interest in eviction has “made manifest the vast heterogeneity in legal eviction processes. For decades, state and local courts lacked a set of best practices for handling eviction cases, leading them to shape processes and procedures in ways that aligned with their institutional needs and local political ideologies.”) The present research team begs the reader’s indulgence and hopes that this report, however flawed, is a valuable resource.

³ Appendix A is a longer explanation of the researchers’ methodology. Appendix B is a brief bibliography and list of external resources.