May 21, 2020
Gibson Dunn’s lawyers regularly counsel clients on issues raised by the COVID-19 pandemic, and we are working with many of our clients on their response to COVID-19. The following is a round-up of today’s client alerts on this topic prepared by the Gibson Dunn team. Our lawyers are available to assist with any questions you may have regarding developments related to the outbreak. As always, for additional information, please feel free to contact the Gibson Dunn lawyer with whom you usually work, or any member of the firm’s Coronavirus (COVID-19) Response Team.
Since California’s state and local governments began substantively responding to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in mid-March, a complex patchwork of overlapping and sometimes conflicting new regulations, executive orders, and judicial declarations has evolved. For example, on March 27, 2020 Governor Gavin Newsom issued Executive Order N-37-20, which offered several forms of eviction protection for certain residential tenants during the state of emergency, but left it within the discretion of local governments to decide whether to extend the same types of protections to commercial tenants. Some cities and counties, like San Francisco and Los Angeles, immediately enacted ordinances offering similar protections for commercial tenants in their jurisdictions, whereas others like Orange County have generally abstained from imposing new restrictions.
In response, several bills have been introduced before the state legislature that seek to homogenize the complicated legal landscape in California from the top down. These pending measures are summarized in the following update. Certain elements of these legislative proposals could have a significant and adverse impact on landlords’ revenue streams, particularly from multi-family investments, including the ability to fully recover delinquent rents. This update outlines the current state of these measures as they stand in the legislative process, but these bills are constantly changing and will likely continue to evolve in the days and weeks ahead.
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