The FARBR calls specifically for mediation, then court action. 

You have to go through formal third party mediation and offer payment plans if somebody falls behind on rent before attempting to evict for nonpayment.   

Are there intermediate steps that could be taken to re-mediate that while we arrange financing , I dont want it to deteriorate further .some general qns for knowledge:1.

A lot of the negative changes came from the pandemic when they added an extra court case for mandatory mediation.

Never even went to trial, just mediation.

We are general contractors and property managers in the Syracuse, NY area.Your property manager MUST require all contractors to sign a lien waiver as well, because in this case you could still get hit with a mechanics lien if you refuse to pay, and I would refuse to pay or attempt to mediate the amount. 

They were already backed up by about a year and the system then basically just forced mediation if the tenant was still interested in pursuing a case.Charging pet fees and rents and any non-refundable fees of any kind aren't legal in CA and yet they are charged on a regular basis without tenants knowing they could fight them, and even if they learned they were not legal, what are the odds they'd sue?

Was there no offer of mediation before taking this all to court, and/or is that still an option?

Court systems are there to mediate.  

This is what I did and while that was working it's way through the legal system, I began working on the tenant and eventually went to court but by that point, we had come to an agreement, so all we had to do was go into a room with a mediator and give them the details of the agreement, which in my case was forgiveness of the 1.5 months of back rent and I threw in some cash to help him move.The problem with taking general advice with evictions is that these things then to be very state and city specific, so what might work in one area could be problematic in another.