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Evictions, foreclosures on hold another month
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has extended the state moratorium on evictions and foreclosures until July 1.
DeSantis issued an executive order Monday night, just a few hours before the moratorium was set to expire.
The moratorium is designed to give relief to Floridians who lost their jobs or saw the income reduced as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The order initially was issued in early April and set to expire in mid-May, then extended until June 2. Under the most recent extension, it will expire at 12:01 a.m. July 1.
Several St. Petersburg elected officials had called for DeSantis to extend the order, including Rep. Charlie Crist, D-St. Petersburg, who said in a May 28 letter to the governor that hundreds of thousands of Floridians have lost their jobs and many were not able to receive unemployment benefits because of a faulty website. “Given the state’s failure to provide benefits in a timely fashion, the state bears the responsibility to continue protecting Floridians from eviction,” the letter said.
The governor’s director of communications, Helen Aguirre Ferré, called the move “the right thing to do.”
The right thing to do. @GovDeSantis extended an Executive Order that provides temporary relief from mortgage foreclosure and evictions for Florida home owners & tenants thru July 1, 2020 because he believes it’s the right thing to do given the harmful economic impact of COVID19.
— Helen Aguirre Ferré (@helenaguirrefer) June 2, 2020
Crist thanked DeSantis after the extension was announced Monday night.
Right call @GovRonDeSantis! Thank you for extending the eviction moratorium to July 1st – a necessary measure until all Floridians unemployed from #COVID19 are receiving the benefits guaranteed to them by CARES Act. https://t.co/74nT5Kshj8
— Rep. Charlie Crist (@RepCharlieCrist) June 2, 2020
Pinellas County Commissioner Ken Welch called the extension “progress.”
Welch led an effort at the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners meeting last week to send a letter to DeSantis, calling on him to extend the moratorium, although two commissioners, Dave Eggers and Pat Gerard, said they were concerned about the impact on landlords who depend on rental income.
Danny White
June 3, 2020at10:44 am
Landlords and mortgage holders must ensure they fully vet those claiming hardship due to income loss directly related to the impact of the COVID-19 disease. There may be people scamming the governor’s executive reprieve because they were already behind in payments prior to the declaration of the pandemic. The impacted persons should also be required to make an effort to seek financial relief from any and all available resources for which they are eligible… landlords and mortgage holders should proactively provide distressed individuals with information about charitable, local, state and federal resources. The temporary relief does not dismiss the individual’s financial liabilities, it merely helps them get themselves together before being compelled to either relinquish their residence or catch up overdue rent/mortgage payments. Tenets and mortgage holders should at the very minimum show a willingness to remain in their residence by making good faith payments even if it does not satisfy their full payment obligation. Sure, the extension adds to landlord/mortgage holder loss of revenue up front, yet, at the end of such extension, they still have the right to legal recourse. Nobody is going to be a real winner here until the event is ended by the full reopening of the economy. On a more positive note, the executive reprieve carries a humanitarian gesture as it prevents people from being homeless while the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic corona virus rages on.
Brian Schwartz
June 2, 2020at9:28 pm
he State or local government are simply going to have to compensate property owners for shifting the burden of providing housing to folks who are unable to pay rent. Landlords are not government agencies charged with providing low or no income housing to tenants regardless of the times we are in. I’m suggesting the state should be compensating landlords not simply shafting them by removing the only tool of recourse available to them.
Is this now Venezuela where the government have essentially appropriated properties through removal of legal last resort ..
Either they pay landlords or offer landlords legal recourse.
Carl Lavender
June 2, 2020at6:44 pm
Are you a landlord reading this post? I encourage you to inform your tenants to reach out to organizations that have cash assistance to pay rent and utilities. Organizations including The Urban League; Pinellas Opportunity Council; 2-1-1; and The United Way; Pinellas County Government. There’s relief if and when people go after these dollars.
Mike Manning
June 2, 2020at4:14 pm
I’m just wondering what happens when the moratorium ends. I don’t see most folks already squeezed able to pay for 3 months back rent along with July.
Brad Banks
June 2, 2020at4:38 pm
The government assumes all landlords are filthy rich so the tenants simply get to live for free for those months. Unfortunately those in government are almost always wealthy and a plurality of them are landlords them selves so they have no clue what it’s like for landlords who own one or two or three properties… This will break us and we will have to claim bankruptcy. Yet at the same time the governments not giving people free water or electricity or food for some reason it’s just rent.