Polis Signs Executive Order To Further Assistance For Tenants
(CBS4) - Gov. Jared Polis signed an executive order on Saturday night to help keep those who haven't been able to pay rent because of the pandemic from being evicted through mitigation.
"Through this Executive Order, I encourage landlords to take steps to limit evictions for tenants who have made a good faith effort to make rental payments or who have made a good faith effort to establish a repayment agreement, and I direct the Department of Local Affairs (DOLA) to work with COVID-impacted landlords and tenants to create reasonable payment plans that allow tenants to remain in their residences while we return Coloradans to work safely," Polis said in a statement.
Under the executive order:
- Landlords must provide tenants with thirty (30) days' notice of any default for non payment before initiating or filing action for forcible entry and detainer. Such 30-day notice may extend beyond the expiration of this Executive Order. During this thirty (30) day period, tenants shall have the opportunity to cure any default for nonpayment.
- I direct the Executive Director of DOLA to work with landlords to implement the model rent repayment agreements created by DOLA to assist individuals who are unable to pay rent because they have been impacted by financial hardship due to COVID-19.
- Landlords and lenders are prohibited from charging any late fees or penalties for any breach of the terms of a lease or rental agreement due to nonpayment that were incurred from May 1, 2020 until June 13, 2020.
- Nothing in this Executive Order shall be construed as relieving an individual from their obligation to make mortgage or rent payments.
Eviction court proceedings have been frozen since May after an outcry from housing advocates who say the coronavirus pandemic made monthly rent and mortgage payments impossible.
