Background
Karolina Barrera leased a home at Sedona Pointe Apartments in Pima County, a property covered by the federal CARES Act, 15 U.S.C. § 9058. On February 1, 2025, Sedona Pointe served Barrera with a notice of lease breach for nonpayment of rent, demanding she cure within five days or vacate within thirty days. Sedona Pointe filed its eviction complaint thirty-four days after delivering the notice. Barrera moved to dismiss, arguing the notice was defective because it did not expressly inform her that the CARES Act entitled her to a full thirty-day window to cure her nonpayment of rent — not merely thirty days to vacate.
The Pima County Justice Court denied the motion after a bench trial, finding that Sedona Pointe had complied with the relevant procedure by waiting more than thirty days before filing. The superior court affirmed on appeal, holding that the only effect of § 9058(c) on Arizona’s five-day notice statute (A.R.S. § 33-1368(B)) was to prohibit a landlord from filing a special detainer complaint less than thirty days after issuing a nonpayment notice, and that no obligation existed to advise tenants of a right to reinstate the rental agreement before judgment.
Barrera then petitioned the Court of Appeals by special action. The court accepted jurisdiction because no direct appeal lies from a superior court’s review of a justice court eviction ruling, and because the case raised a matter of first impression — whether § 9058(c)(1)’s thirty-day notice requirement survives the expiration of the § 9058(b) eviction moratorium — that had produced inconsistent outcomes across Arizona counties.
The Court’s Holding
The court held that § 9058(c)(1)’s thirty-day notice requirement expired along with the § 9058(b) eviction moratorium and does not apply to evictions based on nonpayment of rent that arose after the moratorium period ended. Applying de novo review of statutory interpretation, the court reasoned that § 9058(c) is structurally tethered to § 9058(b): subsection (c)(2) expressly prohibits issuing a notice to vacate during the moratorium period, and subsection (c)(1) governs how that notice must be structured once issued. Reading (c)(1) as a freestanding, permanent obligation would render (c)(2) a dead letter and would extend a notice requirement to all evictions — including those not based on nonpayment — in a manner inconsistent with the moratorium’s limited scope. The court also noted that the statute’s title, “Temporary moratorium on eviction filings,” reinforces that the moratorium, not an open-ended notice mandate, is the provision’s central purpose.
The court further held that even if § 9058(c)(1) did remain in effect, Barrera would not prevail. Sedona Pointe’s notice gave her thirty days from the date of notice before she was required to vacate, and the eviction complaint was not filed until thirty-four days later — fully satisfying any thirty-day requirement. The court also rejected Barrera’s argument that § 9058(c)(1) creates a thirty-day cure right, finding that the statute’s plain language — prohibiting a landlord from requiring a tenant “to vacate” within thirty days — addresses possession, not cure. Arizona’s procedural scheme, unlike Washington’s, already provides meaningful effect to a thirty-day possession holdover independent of any cure right.
Finally, the court rejected Barrera’s due process claim, holding that the notice she received — identifying the breach, stating the landlord’s intent to file for eviction, and providing five days to cure under A.R.S. § 33-1368(B) — was reasonably calculated to apprise her of the action and afford her an opportunity to respond, satisfying due process under Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U.S. 306 (1950).
Key Takeaways
- The CARES Act’s thirty-day eviction notice requirement (§ 9058(c)(1)) has expired and does not apply to nonpayment of rent that arose after the pandemic moratorium period ended in 2020.
- Section 9058(c)(1) does not create a right to cure nonpayment of rent within the thirty-day period; it extends only a tenant’s right of possession, requiring that landlords not compel a tenant to vacate in fewer than thirty days after notice.
- An eviction notice satisfies due process if it identifies the lease breach, states the landlord’s intent to pursue eviction, and provides the statutory cure period — it need not separately advise tenants of any CARES Act rights.
- Arizona joins a minority of states — alongside Iowa and Utah — in holding that § 9058(c) has expired, while most other state courts have found the notice provision continues in effect.
Why It Matters
This is the first Arizona appellate decision to resolve the split over whether the CARES Act’s thirty-day notice provision survived the expiration of the pandemic eviction moratorium. The ruling provides statewide uniformity for landlords and tenants on CARES Act-covered properties, ending a patchwork of county-by-county interpretations that left both sides uncertain about eviction notice requirements years after the moratorium lapsed.
The decision also carries broader significance for statutory interpretation of pandemic-era emergency legislation. By anchoring § 9058(c)’s notice requirement to the temporary moratorium in § 9058(b) — and invoking federalism principles to avoid reading a permanent federal intrusion into state landlord-tenant law from an ambiguous clause in a temporary relief measure — the court signals that time-limited emergency provisions should not be read as creating open-ended obligations absent clear congressional language to that effect.