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An analysis shows that one in five U.S. households who rent their homes could face eviction by October as enhanced federal unemployment benefits and eviction moratoriums come to an end this summer, CBSNews.com reported. Already, thousands of eviction cases are pending in a number of states. Between 19 million and 23 million families that rent across the country are at risk of losing their homes by September 30, estimates the COVID-19 Eviction Defense Project, an advocacy group focused on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on housing. Roughly 20 percent of renters — about 13 million people — told a Census Bureau survey last month they had missed their May rent payment. Cities and states where eviction moratoriums have ended have seen a jump in legal proceedings to eject people from their homes. In Milwaukee, where Wisconsin's moratorium ended on May 26, cases rose 15 percent in the last month, according to the Eviction Lab. About 12,000 eviction cases are pending in Virginia courts, according to the Virginian-Pilot. In North Carolina, about 10,000 eviction cases are in the works, the News & Observer noted. Moratoriums in both those states ended last month. To be sure, landlords need to receive income from rent to cover their own expenses, such as the cost of mortgages, building maintenance and property taxes. That's why advocates are arguing for federal assistance to help renters afford their bills, such as continuing the $600 in weekly unemployment benefits that have been added on to varying state unemployment payouts.

As states lift stay-at-home orders and gradually let businesses reopen, companies are gingerly allowing white-collar workers to return to office buildings even while weighing how much they really need the space, according to a USA Today commentary. About half of U.S. employees worked from home during the COVID-19 shutdowns, according to the Brookings Institution. And many companies — including Facebook, Google, Twitter and Morgan Stanley — plan to continue allowing at least some staffers to telework at least some of the time even after a vaccine is available and the health crisis is over. That could mean a seismic downsizing of the $2.5-trillion office market and the vibrant urban centers that have flourished around them, battering the restaurants, bars and high-end retailers that rely on white-collar workers’ lunch and after-work spending. “The genie is out of the bottle,” with many companies now embracing remote work, says Victor Calanog, head commercial real estate economics at Moody’s Analytics. And if there’s a major shift to telecommuting, “Do we really need that much office space?” To be sure, analysts don’t predict an abandonment of American offices. In fact, more office space could well be needed in the short term to accommodate social distancing requirements until a coronavirus vaccine is widely distributed, presumably next year. That could spark more leasing and construction activity in less-expensive suburbs. And over the long term, most companies likely will still want most workers in the office at least some of the time to promote collaboration and morale, some analysts say. “I don’t see a situation where offices completely die,” says Paul Leonard, managing consultant at CoStar, a commercial real estate research firm. But even a noticeable pullback in the U.S. office footprint could have a tangible impact on local economies, reducing city tax revenues, dampening office construction, increasing defaults on commercial loans (and thus hurting banks) and threatening nearby restaurants and shops, say Calanog and Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics. Read more.

Occupancy issues are at the heart of many significant retail cases, as detailed in the ABI publication Retail and Office Bankruptcy: Landlord/Tenant Rights, available at the ABI Store. 

A judge ruled on Monday that a group of Westchester County, N.Y. landlords cannot sue in federal court to block Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s temporary moratorium on evictions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Law.com reported. U.S. District Chief Judge Colleen McMahon of the Southern District of New York said in a 37-page opinion that federal courts do not have jurisdiction to determine whether Cuomo violated New York state law by enacting his May 7 executive order pausing evictions through Aug. 19. In any event, she said, the order did not constitute a physical or regulatory taking by the government that would give rise to claims under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The lawsuit, filed in White Plains, sought to undo two provisions of the order, which temporarily blocked landlords from pursuing eviction proceedings and gave renters the option to put their security deposit toward their rent payment.

Data from Black Knight showed that the number of homeowners delaying payments increased by a steep 79,000 in the past week, reversing a three-week trend that saw forbearance requests decline, The Hill reported. "Overall, the number of active forbearance plans is up 79K from last week — erasing roughly half of the improvement seen since the peak of May 22 — with rises seen over each of the past five business days," the company said of the latest data. The CARES Act passed by Congress in March allowed homeowners experiencing financial difficulty due to the COVID-19 pandemic to request forbearance for government-backed mortgages for up to 180 days without being subject to penalties and late fees. But interest continues to accrue on the loans, and the full principal still has to be paid back. Black Knights said that the delayed payments amount to more than $1 trillion in unpaid principal and represent 8.8 percent of all mortgages. The total number of loans in forbearance neared 4.7 million.

Thousands of Virginia residents are now at risk of losing their homes during the pandemic under a new order issued by the state Supreme Court, DCist.com reported. The order, released on Monday by Virginia Chief Justice Donald Lemons, allows courts across the state to resume hearings for evictions on June 29, the day after a temporary stay expires. A second order lets courts immediately resume eviction hearings that aren’t related to nonpayment of rent, such as if a tenant breaches the terms of their lease. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) had requested a pause on evictions for most of June while the state prepared a new rent relief program to help tenants who have lost income during the pandemic. That program has not yet been implemented. It’s not clear whether Northam will request another pause on evictions while the relief program is underway. Advocates for low-income renters say that the order is both surprising and disappointing, after Virginia’s Supreme Court had approved multiple delays for eviction cases as the public health crisis continues. The advocates say that they’re rushing to find ways to delay evictions for Virginians at immediate risk of homelessness. Some are continuing to encourage local sheriffs to delay issuing writs of eviction in areas with high COVID-19 rates, as well as communicating with landlords’ attorneys to ask whether their clients plan to pursue eviction proceedings during the pandemic.