Arizona Court of Appeals, Division Two holds that the federal CARES Act no longer requires Arizona landlords to provide tenants with 30-days’ notice to vacate.

Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 9001-9141, to mitigate financial hardship caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Although housing laws are generally a state matter, § 9058 sought to protect tenants in federally subsidized housing by creating a temporary moratorium on evictions. It also required landlords to provide tenants 30 days’ notice to vacate—a departure from Arizona law, which requires only five days’ notice.

In February 2025, a tenant at a CARES Act-covered property received a notice of nonpayment giving her five days to cure and 30 days to vacate. The landlord filed an eviction action 34 days later.

The tenant moved to dismiss in justice court, arguing the Act required the landlord to provide a 30-day period to cure nonpayment, not merely 30 days’ notice to vacate. The justice court denied the motion, and the superior court affirmed.

The Arizona Court of Appeals, Division Two accepted special-action jurisdiction because a superior court’s review of a justice court eviction ruling is not directly appealable and because the case presented an issue of first impression with statewide significance: whether the CARES Act’s 30-day notice requirement remains in effect after the Act’s temporary eviction moratorium ended.

The Court found the 30-day notice requirement ambiguous. A minority of states have held that the notice requirement was tied exclusively to the moratorium and terminated when it expired. The majority of states have held that the 30-day notice requirement survived the moratorium’s expiration, but courts remain divided over whether landlords must provide 30 days to cure or simply 30 days to vacate.

The Court agreed with the minority view, holding that the CARES Act’s 30-day notice requirement was tethered to its moratorium provision and that both have expired. Because the tenant’s nonpayment accrued after the moratorium ended, the 30-day notice requirement did not apply to her eviction.

The Court explained that the Act’s 30-day notice requirement and moratorium provisions were textually linked and cross-referential, such that the former could not stand alone or survive expiration of the latter. The two formed a single statutory sequence under the umbrella of the temporary moratorium. Allowing the notice requirement to survive indefinitely would contradict the Act’s text, defy the Act’s purpose of mitigating COVID-19 pandemic-related harm, and represent federal intrusion into an area of state law.

The Court also rejected the tenant’s argument that the notice provision entitled her to 30 days to cure nonpayment, not merely to vacate, because the Act is silent on curing. Extending a tenant’s right of possession, the Court found, is meaningful regardless of whether a right to cure exists. The tenant’s due process argument failed for the same reason: her notice adequately informed her that nonpayment breached her lease, that the landlord intended to pursue eviction, and that she had five days to cure.

Judge O’Neil authored the opinion, in which Judge Gard and Judge Eckerstrom concurred.

Posted by: Payslie M. Bowman