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Comment by moverthrowaway | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone know if this is legally binding, or just a recommendation? I'm moving from one of the affected counties to another of them very soon. I've already paid a deposit on movers and signed a lease, and I need to move out of my old apartment or I'll be paying rent in two high-rent areas at the same time. I can't afford to pay over $7000/mo while I wait to see when this will be lifted. If my movers refuse to disobey the health order then I don't know what I'm going to do. I just don't have the money...

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Suspension of rent and mortgage payments is very possible. Current landlord won’t have any replacement renter or ability to evict you. Unlike 9/11 or 2008, this could be viewed as one giant economic freeze for everyone.

I'm in the same boat (as is the person who is moving out of the place I'm going to move into).

I was planning to do the move myself, with a rental truck. I'm not confident that rental trucks will be available. I'm not sure I'd want to be in one anyway -- even before the pandemic the sanitary condition of rental trucks was dubious at best.

I'm hoping that moving will be considered essential travel, although tonight is just before the start of the new policy. If a lot of people ignore the "shelter in place" during the next week, the enforcement will probably get stricter.

I don't have an answer for you but it's a real problem. Paying double rent (or rent plus a mortgage) involves a huge amount of money in the Bay Area.

I'm probably going to try to contact the county government tomorrow and get an answer but I'm sure I'll be the millionth person on hold on the phone.

(Also, guess who needs a smog check to register his car and might not be able to get one?)

Please let me know if you get any answers about relief from the government.

You should be okay on the smog check, because auto repair shops are considered essential in the order.

Some of my local moving companies have shut down, but others have decided they are essential businesses. So far, the order is not being enforced and it is essentially voluntary for individuals to leave their homes. I would suggest moving as soon as possible in case the government decides to really lock things down.

It just counts as necessary travel - no cop is going to give you a hard time about moving apartments

I'm not worried about me personally getting pulled over, I'm worried about moving companies not operating. I need a moving truck in order to vacate my old apartment or I'm stuck still paying rent.

Yeah this is a real concern. I have heard that home staging companies (for home sales) are not operating, and appraisers may follow suit. Movers are a sort of adjacent industry and may shut down operations. Try giving them a call. They probably don't know for sure either but may give you some peace of mind and/or direction.

Why don’t you call and ask them. Better yet you should talk to both landlords and attempt to push this date back some. What are you going to do if you or the movers get injured? This seems unacceptably risky to me and if the new landlord wouldn’t accept a delay then I would walk away from the lease personally. Take it to court if needed.

It would really suck to load up the truck and get partway to the new place, only to find out that the cops do give people a hard time about this.

Yeah, I'm having similar problems but I'm trying to go across country.

Call the new landlord and ask them to delay the move in date.

I definitely can't do that, because I have a job that I'm moving to take.

If your new job is in an affected county as you said, then this order appears to require the new company not to allow you to enter its offices.

Unless the job is in a pharmacy, grocery store or hospital, your start date may have just moved right by at least a month Or at least you won't be going into the office.

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