On Wednesday, April 1, 2020, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine issued Executive Order 2020-08D.

In it, DeWine “requests” landlords of Ohio property to ”suspend, for a term of at least ninety days, rent payments for small business commercial tenants in the State of Ohio that are facing commercial hardship due to the COVID-19 epidemic.”

DeWine also requests landlords to provide a moratorium for evictions of small business commercial tenant for a period of at least 90 days.

The Supreme Court of Ohio issued an order tolling the time limits for filing pleadings in court cases for the duration of the COVID-19 emergency that the Governor of Ohio declared on March 9, 2020, or until July 30, 2020, whichever is earlier. The court does authorize courts in specific cases on a case-by-case basis to consider and issue orders to impose time deadlines when immediate attention is necessary.

The Ohio General Assembly enacted a statute last week that tolled time limitations in court proceedings until July 30, 2020.

Taken together, these actions mean that as a practical matter, collecting rent from commercial tenants or evicting tenants with the assistance of the court system until the end of July will wind up being a challenge, if not impossible.

Please contact a member of Taft’s Real Estate group for guidance.

Please visit our COVID-19 Toolkit for all of Taft’s updates on the coronavirus.