The Oregon Court of Appeals recently issued a ruling that residential
eviction notices must specify the date and time of the termination of
the tenancy. In Greenway v. Parlanti, 245 Or. App. 144, 261
P.3d 69 (2011), the landlord provided tenant with a 24-hour eviction
notice after receiving threats of violence from the tenant’s son. The
notice indicated that the tenancy would end 24 hours from the time of
personal service of the notice on the tenant. The time the notice was
served was included with the served notice. After the trial court judge
found in favor of the landlord, the Oregon Court of Appeals reversed
finding that the applicable statute (ORS 90.396(1)) requires that the
specific date and time of the termination of the tenancy be included in
the notice. Rather than “24 hours from the time listed below,” the
landlord needed to specifically identify the termination time on the
following day. The court also reasoned that because service of eviction
notices can be made in a number of ways, including mailing, ruling
otherwise would, in certain circumstances, force the tenant to guess
when the termination became effective. To avoid uncertainty when
serving residential eviction notices, landlords can identify a specific
time and date that provides more notice than is required. For example, a
72-hour residential eviction notice served at 9am on Tuesday, November
1, 2011 could indicate a termination date and time of 12:00 pm (noon) on
Friday, November 4, 2011, despite that the termination time could be a
little earlier that day.
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