"It's Midnight -
And Your Eviction Just Died"
Oregon's Newest Eviction Trap Is Hiding in Plain Sight on the Form You've Been Using for Years
Every landlord who has ever tried to evict a tenant has felt it — the slow-burn frustration of a tenant who simply refuses to follow the rules. You gave notice. You followed the steps. You filed the paperwork. And then a judge dismissed your case on a technicality so obscure, so seemingly trivial, that it borders on absurd.
Welcome to Oregon eviction law in 2025.
A recent Oregon Court of Appeals decision has created a new and very expensive trap for landlords — one that is currently hiding inside the standard forms sold by at least one major Oregon landlord association. If you are a self-represented landlord, or if your property manager is using off-the-shelf forms without legal review, you may be walking into this trap right now.
The Case: Johnson Mobile Park, Inc. v. Schoffstall
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In June 2025, the Oregon Court of Appeals issued its decision in Johnson Mobile Park, Inc. v. Schoffstall, 341 Or. App. 264, 571 P.3d 230 (2025). The Oregon Supreme Court denied review in October 2025, making it final and binding statewide.
The facts are straightforward. A mobile home park landlord served a tenant with a termination notice. The notice told the tenant her tenancy would end "at 12:00 midnight (end of day) on May 31, 2023." The tenant did not make the required repairs. The landlord filed for eviction. The case went to trial. The landlord won.
Then the Court of Appeals reversed.
The landlord lost — not because the tenant had a right to stay, not because the repairs were made, and not because anything in the underlying violation was wrong. The landlord lost because the words "12:00 midnight (end of day)" are legally ambiguous under Oregon law.
Why "Midnight" Is Now a Four-Letter Word in Oregon Evictions
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Here is the problem the court identified. "Midnight" does not mean one thing. It means two.
"Midnight on May 31" could refer to:
• 12:00 a.m. at the very beginning of May 31 — the moment the clock strikes midnight between May 30 and May 31; or
• 12:00 a.m. at the very beginning of June 1 — the moment the clock strikes midnight at the end of May 31.
Both readings are linguistically defensible. And that ambiguity, the court held, is fatal to a termination notice.
The legislature saw this problem coming — ten years ago. In 2015, the Oregon Legislative Assembly amended ORS 90.160(1) specifically to eliminate midnight language from Oregon landlord-tenant law, replacing it with "11:59 p.m." The legislative history makes clear that lawmakers recognized that identifying a deadline as "the end of the day at midnight" creates confusion.
The 2025 court stated it plainly: the landlord's notice "used the confusing wording that the legislature deleted from ORS 90.160(1)" a decade earlier. That alone rendered the notice invalid. The eviction was dismissed.
The Forms on Your Shelf May Already Be Defective
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Here is where this becomes a crisis for self-represented landlords and property managers: standard termination notice forms sold by at least one prominent Oregon landlord advisory association still contain "midnight-end of day" language — the exact phrasing the court condemned.
If you purchased a form kit, downloaded a notice from an association website, or have been using the same templates for years, there is a real chance your notices contain this language right now. You would have no way of knowing it is defective unless you were tracking 2025 appellate decisions.
An invalid termination notice is not a minor procedural hiccup you can correct at trial. Under Oregon law, an FED action based on an invalid notice must be dismissed. Hickey v. Scott, 370 Or. 97, 112, 515 P.3d 368 (2022). The violation does not matter. The tenant's conduct does not matter. The notice is the case — and if the notice fails, the case fails with it.
What Happens When Your Eviction Gets Dismissed
The consequences of a dismissed eviction are not just inconvenient. They are expensive:
• Your tenant stays. They remain in possession while you start the entire process over with a corrected notice, adding weeks or months to the timeline.
• You may owe attorney fees. Oregon's Residential Landlord and Tenant Act authorizes an award of attorney fees to the prevailing party. ORS 90.255. A dismissed eviction means the tenant may walk out of court with a fee award against you.
• You've lost your filing fees, your time, and potentially months of unpaid rent or an ongoing lease violation.
• The violation continues. Every day your tenant remains — with the unauthorized pet, the unpermitted occupant, or the material lease breach — is another day of ongoing harm to your property and your investment.
The Broader Lesson: Oregon Eviction Law Demands Precision
Oregon's Residential Landlord and Tenant Act is one of the most tenant-protective regulatory regimes in the country. Courts apply it strictly. A termination notice must provide "precise and accurate information" so that a tenant does not have to guess about the nature of the breach or the deadline to cure. Hickey v. Scott, 370 Or. at 110-11.
This means:
The exact method of service matters.
First class mail, post-and-mail (nail-and-mail), and personal delivery each carry different requirements and different effects on notice periods. Using the wrong method — even if the tenant actually receives the notice — can invalidate the entire proceeding.
The cure period must be calculated correctly.
The statute requires a minimum number of days depending on the type of violation. First class mail adds three days. Nail-and-mail service is only authorized when the lease contains a specific, reciprocal provision — and most form leases do not. Getting the math wrong by even a single day is grounds for dismissal.
The termination date must be unambiguous.
As Johnson Mobile Park makes clear, a court will not read ambiguous language in a landlord's favor. Courts will dismiss the action first and let you serve a new notice second.
Subsequent notices must be handled with care.
Serving a new notice after a prior notice has been given — even for a different reason — can, under certain circumstances, be argued as a waiver of the original termination right.
The lease must be drafted correctly in the first place.
The service methods available to you, the pet provisions that give you the right to terminate, and the accommodation process for disability-related requests all depend on what your lease says. A lease that is silent on a required provision gives that right to your tenant, not to you.
Self-Representation in Evictions Is a High-Stakes Gamble
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Oregon eviction law is not intuitive. It is a specialized field where the rules change with appellate decisions, legislative sessions, and local ordinances. Portland has its own eviction rules. Multnomah County has its own procedural requirements. A notice that works in Clackamas County may not work in the City of Portland.
The self-represented landlord walks into this environment with a form from the internet and reasonable intentions. What they don't have is awareness of a 2025 Court of Appeals ruling that just made their standard form a liability.
Hiring an attorney for an eviction is not an extravagance. It is insurance. The cost of a competently handled eviction proceeding is almost always less than the cost of a dismissed case — especially when attorney fees, continued lease violations, and restarted proceedings are added to the ledger.
The Fix Is Simple. The Risk of Not Fixing It Is Not.
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Replace "midnight-end of day" or "12:00 midnight (end of day)" with "11:59 p.m." on every termination notice you issue. It is a two-second change that eliminates the Johnson Mobile Park ambiguity entirely.
Then have your lease, your notice forms, and your service procedures reviewed by an attorney who practices Oregon landlord-tenant law. Not because you've done something wrong, but because the law changes — and in Oregon, it changes in the direction of tenant protection, consistently, year after year.
We Can Help
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At Howell, LLC, we represent Oregon landlords in residential and commercial evictions, lease disputes, and real estate litigation throughout the Portland metropolitan area. We review lease agreements and notice procedures, draft notices that comply with current Oregon law, and litigate FED actions from filing through judgment.
If you have received a form-based termination notice and are not certain whether it complies with Johnson Mobile Park and current Oregon law, contact us before you file.
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April 24, 2026
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Tyler Howell
PO Box 337
West Linn, OR 97068
(503) 710-2566
This article is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Reading this article does not create an attorney-client relationship. Oregon landlord-tenant law is complex and fact-specific. If you have questions about a specific tenancy or notice, consult a licensed Oregon attorney.