RELATED: A step-by-step process of how an eviction works.

Evictions are trickier now during the pandemic and legal experts are still trying to figure out how California’s new law, AB 3088, dovetails with the recent CDC announcement barring evictions nationally through Dec. 31.

The basics of an eviction, pre-Covid, work like this: A landlord delivers a notice to a renter that they have a set number of days (in California, it’s three days but under AB 3088 it’s 15) to pay unpaid rent or fix a situation that violates the rental contract. (An example might be having a pet when the lease forbids pets.) If the issue is unpaid rent, the renter has to come up with what they owe within the time period of the notice.

If the renter does not pay their rent or fix the contract issue, the landlord may go to court and file an unlawful detainer complaint, prompting a hearing to be scheduled before a judge. The landlord has to then serve the tenant with a summons, and the tenant has five business days to file a response challenging the unlawful detainer lawsuit. If they do not file, a landlord can ask for a default judgment from the court.

If the case does go to trial – either party can ask for a court date – and the tenant loses, the landlord will obtain a writ of possession and request the sheriff to post a notice on the dwelling that states the tenant has five days to vacate. If the tenant does not leave in five days, the sheriff comes back within 15 days, and may physically remove the tenants.

For now, those evictions can only happen if the tenant is creating an unsafe situation or breaking the contract. If a renter states on a form provided by the landlord under penalty of perjury that they are experiencing hardship due to Covid-19, the eviction process cannot commence until March, unless the renter has paid a minimum of 25 percent of their rent between September and January.

Renters will have to provide documents to back up their claims. They still owe the full amount and landlords can go to small claims court to collect what they are owed.