SACRAMENTO — Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill Wednesday that will extend the amount of time tenants have to fight evictions.

AB2343 by Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco, stipulates that weekend days and holidays do not count in the time tenants are given to respond to an eviction notice. The bill spells out that renters have three court days to pay rent after receiving such a notice and five court days to respond to an eviction lawsuit.

Previously, weekend days and holidays counted in the time tenants had to respond. The new law takes effect Sept. 1, 2019.

“Tenants in California are facing unprecedented hardships and constantly living under the threat of eviction,” Chiu said in a statement. “A few extra days can be the difference between staying in their home or becoming homeless.”

Legal aid attorneys argued that landlords were purposefully filing eviction notices late on Fridays before a holiday weekend so that tenants did not have time to respond or correct an error.

“Landlords will no longer be able to game the system by serving an eviction notice or complaint right before a long weekend or a holiday, and tenants will be better able to fix a problem with a rent payment or get help complying with an eviction notice and remain in their homes,” said Alexander Harnden, a policy advocate with the Western Center on Law & Poverty. “Given California’s housing crisis, we must enact common sense reforms to prevent avoidable evictions that lead to homelessness.”

Melody Gutierrez is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mgutierrez@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @MelodyGutierrez