May 2011
Non Payment of Rent 72 Hour Notice
President’s Message
By Mark Passannante
RHAGP President, Broer & Passannante
Sharon Fleming Barrett Building Dedication
I am sure everyone is now aware that our building dedication to Sharon Fleming Barrett is quickly approaching. I wanted to add my invitation to all of our members to the dedication along with the invitations that have been sent out already. The dedication will be from 1:00pm to 3:00pm on May 21, 2011. There will be a short ceremony at 2:00pm hosted by yours truly. I look forward to seeing you there.
Non Payment of Rent & 72 Hour Form
I also wanted to use this forum to revisit some technical issues with your nonpayment of rent notice (either a 72-hour notice or 144-hour notice). Normally, rent paid to cure a 72-hour notice is timely if it is mailed within the cure period. However, ORS 90.394 provides that a tenant’s rent payment will only be timely if it is actually received by the landlord within the cure period.
There are three things to keep in mind in assessing the timeliness of a tenant’s rent payment. In order for the landlord’s receipt of the rent to be considered the operative factor in determining the timeliness of the tenant’s payment, the 72-hour notice must be served by personal delivery or by secure attachment to the main entrance of the portion of the premises in the exclusive possession of the tenant and first class mail to the tenant at the premises, both the rental agreement and the 72-hour notice must expressly state the location to make rent payments that is either at the premises or where the tenant has made all other previous rent payments in person, and the place of payment must be available at all times throughout the cure period of the notice.
If all of the above conditions are not met, a tenant’s rent payment that is mailed within the cure date is timely regardless of when the landlord actually receives the rent.
For your convenience, the RHAGP nonpayment of rent forms contain a line for you to specify a place of payment. There is no box to check specifying in the notice that the payment must either be received or mailed by the specified date in the nonpayment of rent notice because there is no requirement under ORS 90.394 for the notice to specify whether the landlord is demanding receipt of the rent by the cure date or not. By keeping that selection out of the notice, landlords avoid problems with their notices being invalid by merely making an improper demand. Please keep the above in mind when filling in a 72-hour notice. I generally recommend that landlords accept rent that is timely mailed under a 72-hour notice because a failure of any one of the above factors can result in a failed eviction if the tenant mails the rent timely, but the landlord refuses the payment because it was not received within the 72-hour notice period.
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