By: Tia Politi, Forms Committee Chair
September 6, 2021

There have been some substantial impacts to some of our forms, including 10-Day Notice to Pay or Vacate for Nonpayment of Rent – ORHA form 4A; 13-Day Notice to Pay or Vacate for Nonpayment of Rent – ORHA form 44A; Past-Due Rent Reminder – ORHA form 14; and Notice of Termination with Cause – ORHA form 38 (just in case you’re using this form to collect money from the tenant). These forms have had language added to comply with statute. That language reads as follows, “Eviction for nonpayment of rent, charges and fees that accrued between April 1, 2020 and June 30, 2021 is not allowed before February 28, 2022.”

If you want to continue to use notices that do not have this language, that’s fine as long as you write in that required statement. It is required to be included on any notice of termination for nonpayment and any reminder notices regarding protected debt (debt incurred during the Emergency Period). This change lasts through February 28, 2022.

I’m excited to announce that our new rental agreements are available on the Forms Store and also in print version. You will notice substantial changes not only in the look of the forms, but also in the text in response to your suggestions. Many thanks to committee member, Jason Brush of Klamath Falls, who spent many hours working with me on the agreements to create “boilerplate” language that won’t need to be frequently updated. He brought a great perspective to our team that was much needed.

We are also now selling our long-awaited Week-to-Week tenancy forms. With the advent of increasing restrictions on housing providers, the week-to-week option provides a lot more flexibility and control over tenancies and skirts a lot of the restrictions imposed both by statute and by COVID-19 restrictions. Our week-to-week forms include a rental agreement, rent increase notice, termination for no-cause and termination for cause. While week-to-week agreements do have some benefits, they also have some special limitations with no ability to charge a security deposit or any fees at all. This, however, does not mean that residents won’t be liable for damage. We think this will be a great option for providers who wish to rent short-term or rent rooms in their own home. For now, these are only available on the Forms Store site. If we get enough interest, we may be able to print small batches.

As we work through the rest of the updates to our forms, and creation of some new forms, we will continue to roll those out on the Forms Store just as soon as they are available and let you know when updated forms can be printed and ordered.

With no office space or employee, I’ve moved the physical forms to my office in Eugene and am handling forms orders for now. But another upcoming change will be to have a centralized printer who will receive and send out our orders. We anticipate that change will be implemented within the next month or two. This will eliminate the constant problem of overordering and purging outdated stock, which has plagued ORHA for years! We are forever losing money on forms, but with the new system, orders will be printed and filled as needed, eliminating the problem of keeping or purging inventory as forms change.