Property owners rely on state institutions to enforce claims to rent associated with real property ownership. However, the COVID-19 pandemic is reorganizing how state institutions sort and enforce owner and occupant claims to property. The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in eviction and credit-reporting restrictions across the United States, which bolster the recognition of occupant claims to property and limit owner claims to rent associated with real property ownership. In this paper, I advocate that a claims-driven approach better reflects how real property ownership relies on state institutions' active enforcement of owners claims to land and improvements. Buiding from a comparison between the global financial crisis, I detail how the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in state institutions adjusting frameworks and policies which property owners rely on to collect rent -- bolstering state recognition of occupant claims to property. From this, I suggest that literature should more systematically account for how state institutions' frameworks and policies actively shape owners' abilities to extract rent from property, shaping the value of income-producing commercial properties.