Trump Administration Rolls Back Federal Rules For Eviction Notices

The White House is pushing to rescind tenant protections codified after the pandemic to make it easier to evict residents late on rent. 

The Department of Housing and Urban Development and Department of Agriculture separately rescinded rules that had required that public housing tenants get at least 30 days’ notice ahead of an eviction.

The agencies argue that the rules are covered by existing regulations and are an unnecessary burden on landlords and public housing authorities. But tenant advocates say the shift erodes tenants' rights and will lead to evictions being fully executed in as little as three days. 

“Trump’s HUD abruptly and unlawfully reversed course on a critical tenant protection that was years in the making,” Marie Claire Tran-Leung, the eviction initiative project director at the National Housing Law Project, said in a statement. “This rule gave extra stability to some of our country’s poorest tenants, including millions of children, who will now be at even higher risk.”

The rules were initially adopted on an interim basis at the height of the pandemic before being codified indefinitely in 2024. USDA’s policy shift is effective immediately and applies to tenants receiving subsidies through programs for rural multifamily and farm worker housing.

The provisions have proven unnecessary because other rules typically require housing agencies to provide 30 days’ notice prior to eviction, the agency wrote in a summary outlining the regulatory shift. 

"The Covid-19 pandemic is long over, and HUD regulations will now reflect that reality," HUD Secretary Scott Turner said in a statement. "Today, we are giving HUD-subsidized property managers the flexibility to enforce policies that best serve their constituencies. This deregulatory action advances HUD’s mission of cutting red tape, promoting local flexibility, and increasing housing affordability."

HUD's news release, which was sent after this article's initial publication, includes statements from eight industry groups in support of the policy rollback.

The agency's shift, set to be formally published to the Federal Register on Thursday, similarly rolls back policy to pre-2021 requirements, which provided tenants with between five and 30 days’ notice ahead of an eviction, depending on the program and local laws. 

The National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials, an industry trade group for public housing authorities, community development agencies and other housing officials, said the shift in policy streamlined guidelines and gave landlords more flexibility. 

“PHAs operate under strong state and federal protections that give residents ample opportunity to pay rent or pursue grievance procedures,” NAHRO said in a statement. “In practice, the 30-day requirement often conflicted with state law, created confusion, and led to extended notice periods that strained agency resources.”

The rule change will have practical consequences for affordable housing operators, Eric Oberdorfer, NAHRO’s director of policy and legislative affairs, said in an email. Drawn-out eviction timelines increase losses for public housing authorities, and the layer of federal oversight on top of local regulations created unnecessary administrative complexity, he said. 

“The 30-day mandatory notice period also created unintended consequences,” Oberdorfer said. “Because court timelines are slow and expensive, some PHAs felt pressure to initiate the eviction process earlier to avoid prolonged losses.”

HUD’s update to the rules will be open for public comment, but the agency is planning to move ahead regardless of feedback. HUD is relying on a good cause exception to avoid the usual public participation requirements because the agency says it has “already received extensive public comment on this matter from a wide range of stakeholders” during the last two rulemaking rounds. 

Tenants living in public housing who are covered under the 30-day notice requirement would be entitled to at least 14 days’ written notice before an eviction under the new guidelines. 

The federally mandated 30-day notification timeline for tenants receiving aid from project-based rental assistance programs, including Section 8, would disappear, and the eviction process would instead be dictated solely by local laws. That shift could allow some landlords to evict tenants in as little as three days in some jurisdictions, according to NHLP. 

The HUD policy shift would also eliminate the ability of tenants behind on rent to avoid eviction by getting current in states that don’t have the right to cure nonpayment, including Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, West Virginia and Ohio, NHLP said. 

Nearly 4 million people live in federally subsidized housing covered by the 2024 rule, according to the tenant advocacy group.

“Instead of fixing the housing crisis, Trump’s unlawful action takes away our freedom and gives more control over our homes to landlords,” Tran-Leung said.

UPDATE, FEB. 25, 1:00 A.M. ET: This story has been updated to include a statement from HUD and to note industry support for the policy shift.