In March 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Protection (“CDC”) under then-President Trump, enacted an “eviction freeze,” which prohibited landlords from evicting their tenants during the COVID-crisis. This freeze was extended by current President Biden and is expected to expire at the end of June 2021.
On May 5, 2021, a District Court struck the eviction moratorium down as an abuse of the CDC’s authority. The case was brought by the Alabama Association of Realtors and was premised on the argument that the moratorium had placed an undue financial burden on landlords, as they were the ones bearing the bulk of the costs associated with the freeze. Moreover, the argument went, the nationwide moratorium was an abuse of the CDC’s authority under the Public Health Service Act.
While many advocates for the underprivileged, and even the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) are crying foul, the District Court Judge framed the question as “Does the Public Health Service Act grant the CDC legal authority to impose a nationwide eviction moratorium,” and answered that the CDC had exceeded its legal authority in enacting the moratorium.
As a practical matter, the Georgia ruling will have zero impact here in California and is unlikely to have any impact in Georgia until all appeals (including a potential trip to the Supreme Court of the United States [“SCOTUS”]) are concluded. Many courts have reached conflicting conclusions, making the issue a strong candidate for Federal Appellate Courts, or SCOTUS.
At the Chernov Team we understand that knowledge is power, and knowledge of how laws impacting landlords are faring is powerful knowledge indeed. At the Chernov Team we know that whoever comes to the table most prepared leaves with the most, and the Chernov Team always leaves the table with the most.