California AB 3088: COVID-19 Tenant Relief Act

California Assembly Bill 3088, the Tenant, Homeowner, and Small Landlord Relief and Stabilization Act of 2020, was the statewide law that shielded renters from COVID-19-related evictions and gave small property owners a path to mortgage forbearance.¹ Signed on August 31, 2020, the eviction protections at the heart of the law have since expired, but the rental debt it covered, along with related credit reporting and tenant screening rules, still shapes what landlords and former tenants can do in 2026.

What AB 3088 Actually Did for Renters

The law protected residential tenants, including people renting mobilehome park spaces, who couldn’t pay rent because of a pandemic-related hardship.² Hardship was defined broadly: lost income, reduced hours, higher healthcare costs, new childcare duties, caring for a sick family member, or any other COVID-related circumstance that cut earnings or raised expenses.³ Commercial tenants were excluded.

Protection wasn’t automatic. After a landlord served a 15-day notice demanding COVID-era rent, the tenant had 15 days (not counting weekends and court holidays) to sign and return a standardized Declaration of COVID-19-Related Financial Distress.⁴ For most tenants, the signed form alone was enough. A tenant whose household earned more than $100,000 per year or more than 130 percent of county median income, whichever was higher, could be asked for documentation backing up the hardship if the landlord already had proof of the income bracket.⁵

Landlords had to use the new 15-day notice rather than a traditional three-day pay-or-quit. The notice had to list the exact amount owed, the date each amount came due, an explanation of the tenant’s rights, and a blank copy of the declaration. A notice missing any required element couldn’t support an unlawful detainer lawsuit.⁴

The Two Time Periods and the 25 Percent Rule

AB 3088 split pandemic rent into two windows with different consequences.

Rent owed during the protected time period, March 1, 2020 through August 31, 2020, was fully shielded for any tenant who returned the hardship declaration. No partial payment was required to keep the eviction protection.²

Rent owed during the transition time period, originally September 1, 2020 through January 31, 2021, worked differently. The declaration kept eviction off the table only if the tenant also paid at least 25 percent of the total transition-period rent by the end of that window. Hitting the 25 percent threshold converted the remaining 75 percent into civil debt that couldn’t support an eviction. Falling short left the tenant exposed to an unlawful detainer action.²

In both windows the money was still owed. The law stated plainly that it did not erase the underlying debt; it only kept that debt from being used as grounds to remove someone from their home.¹

Mortgage Forbearance for Homeowners and Small Landlords

Embedded within AB 3088 was the COVID-19 Small Landlord and Homeowner Relief Act of 2020, aimed at owners of residential properties with four or fewer units, including condominiums and cooperatives. To qualify, a borrower had to be current on mortgage payments as of February 1, 2020, and experiencing a hardship tied directly or indirectly to the pandemic.⁶

The statute did not guarantee that a servicer had to grant forbearance, but it imposed real procedure on denials during the effective window, which ran through April 1, 2021. A servicer that denied a request had to send a written notice stating the specific reasons. If the denial rested on a curable defect such as a missing document, the servicer had to identify the problem, give the borrower 21 days to correct it, and respond to the revised request within five business days.⁶

Real estate investment trusts, corporations, and LLCs with a corporate member were cut out of the borrower definition unless the property contained deed-restricted affordable housing or units subject to a government rent-limitation agreement.⁶

How Later Laws Extended the Framework

AB 3088’s eviction protections were set to run out on February 1, 2021. Two follow-up bills kept the framework alive and reshaped it.

Senate Bill 91, signed in early 2021, extended the covered period through June 30, 2021 and moved the transition period’s 25 percent payment deadline accordingly. It also created California’s state rental assistance program with $1.5 billion in federal funding, prioritizing households below 50 percent of area median income. Landlords could accept 80 percent of a tenant’s unpaid rent as payment in full for the covered period; tenants whose landlords refused could apply directly for 25 percent of arrears. SB 91 also attached civil penalties of $1,000 to $2,500 per violation when a landlord resorted to lockouts or utility shutoffs against a tenant who had filed a hardship declaration.⁷

Assembly Bill 832 pushed the covered period through September 30, 2021 and extended the overall operation of the COVID-19 Tenant Relief Act to October 1, 2025. It also required landlords suing to recover COVID-era rent to show they had made a good-faith effort to investigate and pursue governmental rental assistance on the tenant’s behalf, and allowed courts to reduce damages when a landlord had turned down available state assistance.⁸

Where Things Stand in 2026

The COVID-19 Tenant Relief Act’s operational deadline, as extended by AB 832, was October 1, 2025. Several related provisions, including the special unlawful detainer rules and the uncapped small claims jurisdiction for COVID rental debt, were set to expire around the same time.⁸ As of 2026, those eviction-era protections and the unlimited small claims route for COVID debt have lapsed.

The debt itself did not lapse. A former landlord can still pursue collection through ordinary civil court, subject to California’s standard statute of limitations for contract-based claims.

Collecting COVID-Era Rent in Small Claims Court

While the special rules were in effect, AB 832 gave landlords small claims jurisdiction over COVID-19 rental debt with no cap on the amount, overriding the ordinary $10,000 limit that applies to most small claims plaintiffs in California.⁹ The earliest filing date was November 1, 2021, built in to give tenants time to secure rental assistance.⁸ Courts were required to reduce any damages award by the amount of rental assistance the landlord had already received from government programs or other third parties.

Credit Reports, Tenant Screening, and Taxes

The legislature was explicit that unpaid pandemic rent should not become a long-term drag on a tenant’s recovery through negative credit reporting.¹ Later legislation made the principle enforceable. Under California Civil Code Section 1785.20.4, housing providers and tenant screening companies cannot treat COVID-19 rental debt as a negative factor when evaluating a rental application. Court judgments for COVID-19 rental debt are masked from public view under Code of Civil Procedure Section 1161.2.5, so they should not appear on standard tenant screening reports. If one does surface, the tenant can dispute it for removal.

Tax consequences come into play when a landlord forgives or settles pandemic rent for less than what is owed. The IRS generally treats canceled debt as ordinary income reportable on the federal return for the year of cancellation.¹⁰ There are exceptions for gifts, certain student loans, and amounts that would have been deductible if paid, but no specific carve-out exists for COVID-19 rental debt. A tenant settling with a former landlord should expect that the forgiven portion may generate a tax bill.

For anyone still carrying rent from the pandemic years, the practical question has shifted. Eviction over that debt is no longer the risk; a civil collection action, and whether old entries resurface in credit or screening checks, is.

1
California Legislative Information. AB 3088 Tenancy Rental Payment Default Mortgage Forbearance State of Emergency COVID-19
2
California Legislative Information. California Code CCP 1179.02
3
California Department of Housing and Community Development. Declaration of COVID-19-Related Financial Distress
4
California Legislative Information. California Code CCP 1179.03
5
California Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee. AB 3088 Chiu Policy Committee Analysis
6
California Legislative Information. AB 3088 Tenancy Rental Payment Default Mortgage Forbearance State of Emergency COVID-19
7
California Legislative Information. SB 91 COVID-19 Relief Tenancy Federal Rental Assistance
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California Legislative Information. AB 832 COVID-19 Relief Tenancy Federal Rental Assistance
9
Judicial Council of California. COVID-19 Rental Debt in Small Claims Court
10
Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 431 Canceled Debt – Is It Taxable or Not