After a 5-day eviction notice in Arizona, you have five calendar days to pay everything you owe or vacate the unit. If you do neither, your landlord can file an eviction lawsuit called a special detainer action, and the case can reach a hearing within about a week. The notice itself doesn’t end your tenancy or force you out, but the clock it starts is short and the consequences of letting it run out are serious.
The Five-Day Window: What You Can Do Right Now
Five calendar days means weekends and holidays count, and the clock starts when you actually receive the notice. You have two clean ways to avoid a lawsuit: pay in full or move out before the window closes.
Paying in Full
If you pay all past-due rent plus any late fees spelled out in your written lease before your landlord files suit, the rental agreement is automatically reinstated. The landlord has no discretion; the statute uses the word “shall.”1Arizona Legislature. Arizona Code 33-1368 – Noncompliance With Rental Agreement by Tenant
You can still reinstate after the landlord files the case, but at that point you also have to cover the landlord’s attorney fees and court costs. Once a judge actually enters a judgment against you, reinstatement is entirely up to the landlord.2Arizona Judicial Branch. Non-Payment of Rent The gap between “before filing,” “after filing,” and “after judgment” is wide, so the sooner you pay, the fewer extras you owe and the more control you keep.
Why Partial Payments Are Risky
Offering part of the rent can backfire. If your landlord accepts a partial payment knowing you’re behind, that acceptance normally waives the landlord’s right to evict for that default. But the landlord can preserve the right to proceed by having you sign a written agreement at the time of the partial payment that spells out the terms and a date by which the balance is due.3Arizona Legislature. Arizona Code 33-1371 – Acceptance of Partial Payments; Waiver of Right to Terminate; Exception Break that agreement and the landlord can file for eviction without sending a new 5-day notice.
One detail worth knowing: if you receive housing assistance and the assistance payment goes to the landlord, that payment alone doesn’t count as a partial payment and doesn’t trigger any waiver protection for you.
Moving Out Voluntarily
Leaving before the five days expire avoids a lawsuit and keeps an eviction judgment off your record. Moving out doesn’t erase the debt, though. Your landlord can still sue you separately for unpaid rent, and depending on your lease, that could include rent through the end of the term.
If You Don’t Pay or Move: The Lawsuit Starts
Once the five-day window closes with no payment and no move-out, your landlord’s next step is filing a special detainer action in justice court. This is Arizona’s eviction lawsuit, and it moves fast.4Arizona Legislature. Arizona Code 33-1377 – Special Detainer Actions; Service; Trial Postponement
What the landlord cannot do is take matters into their own hands. Arizona prohibits landlords from changing your locks, shutting off your utilities, or physically removing your belongings to force you out. If a landlord does any of those things, you can recover up to two months’ rent or double your actual losses, whichever is greater, and you can get a court order restoring your access.5Arizona Department of Housing. Arizona Residential Landlord and Tenant Act – Sections 33-1367, 33-1374 Even after winning in court, the landlord cannot disconnect utilities until the day after a writ of restitution is executed.
The Court Hearing
After the complaint is filed, the court issues a summons the same day. The hearing must be set no fewer than three and no more than six days from the summons date, and you must be served at least two days before the hearing.4Arizona Legislature. Arizona Code 33-1377 – Special Detainer Actions; Service; Trial Postponement Service can happen through personal delivery or by posting a copy on your front door and mailing another copy by certified mail. If the summons is posted and mailed, you’re considered served three days after mailing.
At the hearing, both sides present to the judge. You can file a written answer before the hearing or respond orally in court. If you need more time, you can ask for a postponement of up to three days in justice court, but you’ll need to show a good reason and submit a sworn statement explaining why.
If the landlord wins, the money judgment can go well past the rent you missed. The court can add late fees (if they’re in a written lease), attorney fees, court costs, unpaid utilities the lease required you to pay, and property damage tied to the breach. Rent that accrues between the filing date and the judgment date gets tacked on too.2Arizona Judicial Branch. Non-Payment of Rent
Defenses That Can Stop the Eviction
A nonpayment case feels lopsided because the central question is simple: did you pay or not? Even so, several defenses can get a case dismissed or change the outcome.
- Defective notice. If the landlord never delivered a proper 5-day notice, served it incorrectly, or the notice didn’t meet statutory requirements (for example, it failed to state the amount owed or the intent to terminate), the court must dismiss the case.2Arizona Judicial Branch. Non-Payment of Rent
- Acceptance of rent after the default. If your landlord took rent, or part of it, knowing you were behind, and didn’t get you to sign a written partial-payment agreement at the time, that acceptance waives the right to evict for that default.3Arizona Legislature. Arizona Code 33-1371 – Acceptance of Partial Payments; Waiver of Right to Terminate; Exception
- Retaliation. If you complained to a government code-enforcement agency about health and safety conditions, complained directly to the landlord about a violation, or joined a tenant organization within six months before the eviction was filed, there’s a presumption the eviction is retaliatory. A successful retaliation defense can entitle you to two months’ rent plus double your actual damages. The important limit: retaliation is not a defense if you’re genuinely behind on rent. The statute allows a landlord to proceed when the tenant is in default.6Arizona Legislature. Arizona Code 33-2148 – Retaliatory Conduct Prohibited; Eviction
Raising a defense doesn’t guarantee a win, but it can force a dismissal or create leverage for a negotiated move-out that keeps a judgment off your record.
After a Judgment: The Writ of Restitution
A judgment alone doesn’t let the landlord reclaim the property. The landlord must wait five calendar days after the judgment, then request a writ of restitution from the court.7Arizona Legislature. Arizona Code 12-1178 – Judgment; Writ of Restitution; Limitation on Issuance; Criminal Violation; Notice The writ is a court order authorizing a constable or sheriff to physically remove you. No one else can carry it out, and your landlord cannot change the locks or enter the unit until the constable or sheriff has served the writ.8Arizona Judicial Branch. After an Eviction Judgment
If you leave personal property behind, the landlord must inventory your belongings and notify you where they’re stored and what storage costs. You have 14 calendar days to reclaim your property. Even before paying storage fees, you can retrieve clothing, work tools, identification documents, and financial records. After 14 days with no reasonable effort to collect, the landlord can donate or sell everything, with sale proceeds applied first to unpaid rent and any surplus mailed to your last known address.9Arizona Department of Housing. Arizona Residential Landlord and Tenant Act – Section 33-1370
Appealing an Eviction Judgment
You have only five days after the judge signs the judgment to file a notice of appeal. Miss that window and you lose the right entirely.8Arizona Judicial Branch. After an Eviction Judgment
Filing the appeal alone doesn’t stop the eviction. To stay in the unit while the appeal is pending, you must post a supersedeas bond with the trial court. The bond amount is based on rent owed from the judgment date through the next rental period, plus costs and attorney fees. This bond cannot be waived or deferred, regardless of your financial situation. On top of that, you must keep paying your monthly rent directly to the court on or before each due date throughout the appeal. There’s also a separate $250 cost bond for filing the appeal, which can be waived or deferred if you qualify.
Appeals in eviction cases are uncommon because the financial burden is steep. If the trial court made a clear legal error, such as allowing the case to proceed on a defective notice, an appeal may still be worth pursuing.
How an Eviction Affects Your Record
An eviction filing shows up on tenant screening reports, which most landlords check before approving an application. These records typically stay visible for seven years under federal Fair Credit Reporting Act rules. That’s true even if the case was later dismissed or you paid in full after judgment.
The eviction itself does not appear on your regular credit report. Credit bureaus don’t track eviction filings or judgments. What can appear is a collection account: if your former landlord sells the unpaid rent debt to a collection agency, that account stays on your credit report for seven years from the date of the first missed payment that triggered it.
Arizona requires courts to seal eviction records when the case is resolved in the tenant’s favor, which helps if your case was dismissed or you won at trial. If you lost, the judgment stays accessible to screening companies for the full seven-year window, and it can make renting significantly harder, often leading to higher security deposit requirements or outright denials.