Delaware Pay-to-Stay Eviction Law 2026

5. What happens once the court gets notice of redemption

Once the court receives notice or evidence of redemption, it issues an immediate stay of the writ or the underlying nonpayment proceedings, with a minimum 5-day window for any related filings or evidence. If the judgment itself is what's being addressed, the court vacates it and terminates any writs tied to that failure-to-pay basis.

[Cite: Delaware Code Title 25, § 5716A(b)(3), (5)]

6. The specific rule if the writ has already posted

Timing matters more once a writ of possession has actually been posted. If payment happens after that point, the tenant, not the landlord automatically, has to file a request with the court to stay the writ. The stay doesn't happen on its own just because payment was made; the paperwork has to go in.

[Cite: Delaware Code Title 25, § 5716A(b)(3)a.]

Separately, a landlord can ask the court to delay any further action until a check used for payment has fully cleared the bank, which protects a landlord from having to treat a payment as final before it's actually settled.

[Cite: Delaware Code Title 25, § 5716A(b)(3)b.]

7. Third-party payments count the same as the tenant's own

A check, electronic or written, from a charitable organization or a government entity has the same legal effect as a payment made directly by the tenant. A rental assistance program or a nonprofit covering a tenant's arrears triggers the same redemption protections as if the tenant had paid out of pocket.

[Cite: Delaware Code Title 25, § 5716A(b)(4)]

8. The two-judgment, 18-month disqualification

This is the provision worth getting exactly right, since it's been reported inconsistently elsewhere. A tenant against whom 2 judgments of possession for failure to pay rent have been entered in the 18 months before the current action doesn't get this redemption right for that case. Notably, a judgment that was itself vacated because the tenant successfully redeemed still counts toward that 2-judgment total.

[Cite: Delaware Code Title 25, § 5716A(b)(6)]

That last detail matters operationally. A tenant can't reset their count by redeeming; a redeemed judgment still shows up when a landlord or the court is calculating whether the 2-in-18-months threshold has been crossed. For a landlord tracking this, maintaining accurate records of nonpayment judgments, including ones that were later vacated through redemption, is what makes asserting this exception possible.

9. Payment method rules, by stage

The payment-method restrictions are consistent across both the pre-judgment and post-judgment statutes. Before a judgment is entered, a landlord can restrict payment to whatever method the lease already specifies. Once a judgment has been entered, a landlord can require payment by certified check or money order specifically, rather than accepting whatever form of payment the lease originally allowed.

[Cite: Delaware Code Title 25, §§ 5502(d)(1)-(2), 5716A(b)(7)]

One exception applies at every stage: a landlord can't apply these restrictions to a payment made by a charitable organization or government entity, which is treated as valid regardless of the form it takes.

10. The notice period and late fee timing, confirmed together

Separately from the redemption right itself, the pay-or-quit notice a landlord sends before pursuing eviction now has to give the tenant at least 7 days to pay. That notice also can't go out until after the window between the rent due date and the date a late fee could be imposed has passed, and a late fee itself can't be imposed within 5 days of the agreed rent due date, and can't exceed 5 percent of monthly rent.

[Cite: Delaware Code Title 25, §§ 5501(d), 5502(a)]

Practically, this sequencing means a landlord can't issue a pay-or-quit notice on the day after rent is due. The 5-day late-fee grace period has to run first, and then the 7-day notice period begins from whenever the notice is actually given.

11. Where this applies: more than just standard leases

Section 5716A specifically applies to actions under Chapters 55, 57, or 70 of Title 25, which cover standard residential tenancies, the summary possession process itself, and manufactured home community lot rentals. A property manager who assumed this only affects conventional apartment leases should know it reaches manufactured home communities as well.

[Cite: Delaware Code Title 25, § 5716A(a)]

12. What property managers should do before relying on this law

The practical starting point is updating internal eviction procedures to reflect that a payment can still stop the case well past the point where it previously would have been too late, right up until the eviction is physically carried out. Staff handling nonpayment cases need a clear process for what happens when payment arrives after a writ has posted, since the burden shifts to the tenant to file for a stay, but a landlord still needs to know how to respond once that filing happens.

Keeping accurate, accessible records of nonpayment judgments, including ones later vacated through redemption, is also worth building into a standard process now, since that history is exactly what determines whether the 2-judgment, 18-month exception applies to a given tenant.