House Bill 404 called the “Safe at Home Act” has been passed, signed by the Governor, and goes into effect on July 1st 2024. This new law makes only two significant changes that will impact the owners and managers of rental houses.
First, this law now limits the amount charged for a security deposit to be no more than two months rent. While this will not be a problem for Excalibur’s operations, it may mean that some tenants with recent bankruptcies or other significant credit issues will be denied housing when a landlord may have given this tenant an opportunity to rent if a larger deposit was available to offset the increased default risk.
Second, this law requires all residential landlords who are threatening to evict a tenant for unpaid charges to physically deliver and post a notice to vacate or pay all past due charges within 3 business days PRIOR to initiating an eviction action against that tenant. This notice must be posted in a sealed envelope conspicuously on the door of the property.
Best practice – Florida has required a similar notice posting for some time. In Florida, some attorneys have successfully challenged that the landlord complied with the posting requirement because there was no “proof” that the notice was posted on the same day that the notice was dated. So you need to incorporate into your delivery procedure that the envelope used to post the notice is dated and that you take a photograph which is date/time stamped of the notice posted on the door. While the law does not require the landlord to use a process server, that is another good technique a landlord can use in order to prove the notice was delivered as required under the law.
The costs of evicting a tenant are going up. But note that there is no language in this new law prohibiting a landlord from charging a tenant when the landlord is required under this new law to incur this additional expense in the process of collecting past due rent.
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