So What If I Have a Little Mold In My Apartment?

On October 9, 2015, Governor Brown approved a new law which became effective on January 1, 2016 which concerns residential mold in rental units. In essence, Cal. Civ. Code sec. 1941.7 states that:

1) a tenant has a legal duty to report mold to their landlord, and;

2) a landlord has a legal duty to abate the mold once reported.

But what, exactly, is mold? Under Cal. Health & Saf. Code sec. 17920(j), mold is defined as “microscopic organisms or fungi that can grow in damp conditions in the interior of a building.”

Visible mold is one of the substandard building conditions set out under Cal. Health & Safety Code sec. 17920.3 (13).

• “Visible mold growth, as determined by a health officer or a code enforcement officer, as defined in Section 829.5 of the Penal Code, excluding the presence of mold that is minor and found on surfaces that can accumulate moisture as part of their properly functioning and intended use.”

As of January 1, 2016, mold is listed as a substandard building condition. See Cal. Health & Safety Code sections 17920 and 17920.3.

If you are a tenant and you notice visible mold growth in your dwelling unit which is a major issue, you have a duty to notify your landlord. It is advisable to notify your landlord in writing such as in an email which you also have a copy of and/or in a certified mailing which requires your landlord or property manager to sign indicating receipt of your notice. In all cases, be sure to keep a copy of your written requests to abate the mold.

It may also be necessary before reporting serious mold conditions, to get a third party official to document the mold. A building inspection department member may document conditions that cause mold such as a leaky roof or toilet whereas a health officer may document the actual mold conditions. For more about mold, see the newly revised document entitled “Mold or Moisture in My Home” published by the California Department of Public Health.

In Oakland, the building inspection department can be found here, Also click here:

Check your lease agreement. You may have signed an addenda related to mold which underscores your duty, as a tenant, to report the mold. See sample addenda here from the Apartment Association of America USA. If you fail to report the mold, you could be held legally liable for your landlord’s cost to abate the mold.

Mold can be a serious health issue. The new law concerning visible mold has been enacted to protect tenants and landlords alike. If you have visible mold growth in your dwelling unit, try to find the source of the mold growth and if you cannot abate it yourself, the mold growth could be due to a building condition. Report the mold growth to your landlord or property manager and work together to get rid of the mold. If your landlord or property manager fails to promptly respond and to abate the issue, report it to a government agency who will notify the landlord if there is a water leak or moisture problem causing the mold growth.

Bottom line: your health may be compromised by the mold. And, if you fail to report serious mold conditions, you could assume legal liability for your failure to report the mold.

What Happens to My Digital Assets When I Die?

A digital asset may be a social media account, email account, on-line financial account, or digital photos. It can be anything that is created and stored in binary format and includes your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumbler, yahoo and  Gmail accounts, on-line cloud storage and more.

But, what happens to your digital assets when you die?  Who has control over these accounts? Who has the authority to ask for account deletion or preservation?

These questions, and others, are being hotly debated across the United States.  It is not just your privacy that is at issue, it’s also the privacy rights of others. For example, what about email dialogues between you and your significant other, spouse, or sibling?  

The KTVU report “Bill which aims to preserve on-line privacy” that aired on September 15, 2015 discusses the bill AB 691 when it was first introduced in California and which has not yet been passed into law.

In the interim, PEW Research details what you can do as part of your estate plans to address how to control your digital assets after your death. What happens to your digital life after death?

Because your legal rights to your digital assets are not yet “set in stone,” you may want to discuss this issue with your estate attorney or, minimally, to keep a list of your accounts and user names in a safe place such as your safe deposit box and available to your executor or fiduciary after death.

It will be interesting to see how the rights to one's digital assets plays out in the legal landscape. 

WHAT HAPPENS TO MY DNA TEST RESULTS WHEN I DIE?

In an effort to discover their family heritage, many people are electing to trace their family lines through DNA testing. Such services as Ancestry.com, FamilyTreeDNA.com, the National Geographic Genome Project, and 23andme.com offer DNA testing for individuals. But, if you order DNA tests and receive interpreted and raw DNA results, just who has rights to these results after you die?

This is largely unchartered legal territory, but the rights to your DNA test results partially depends upon the releases that you have electronically “signed” with DNA test providers. If you have elected to keep your DNA test results private, then how does a family member gain access to your results after you die?

When you receive your FamilyTreeDNA test results, you are asked to name a Beneficiary to these results which allows you to record the person’s name, their e-mail address, and telephone number. But, FamilyTreeDNA also provides their members with a Beneficiary document which provides your designated family member with the legal right to “do all lawful acts which may continue my involvement with FamilyTreeDNA.com.” This document can be signed and witnessed by a notary, filed with your Will or Trust and provided to the company along with a certified copy of your death certificate. The document also includes your DNA kit test number.

But how do other services such as Ancestry.com provide for sharing your DNA test results after death? Good question! While Ancestry.com has no beneficiary designation currently provided with their service, users may be able to develop a beneficiary statement similar to FamilyTreeDNA.com with their username and DNA activation number as a proactive step towards preserving your family records until such time as Ancestry.com directly addresses this issue.

The GNIA, or Genetic Nondiscrimination Information Act, is a federal law which took effect in 2008 and which provides overarching guidance concerning sharing DNA data and limits the use of test results for employment and health insurance.

Also see: The Government Owns Your DNA. What are they doing with it?

WHEN SOMEONE DIES

Eventually, we will all experience the death of a family member or friend. And if we are the person responsible for their affairs, it can be overwhelming. Family members and friends need to be notified about the death, bills need to be paid and services suspended while the funeral home is addressing the burial requests of the person who died. And, all of these practicalities are compounded by one’s grief.

The majority of Americans die without a will or a trust, that is, they die “intestate.” When this occurs, state law dictates who will inherit the estate assets after death. When someone dies, their assets become part of their estate or trust.

The minority of Americans die with a will or a trust which will state who the beneficiaries of the estate are and how the estate or trust is to be distributed.

If someone dies and you are the person responsible to handle their final affairs, some of the first steps that you need to take are outlined below. You will need to: 

• Determine if the person left advance instructions about their burial arrangements; 

• Select a funeral home and work with them to determine the burial or cremation options and costs;

• Notify family members and friends about the person’s death; 

• Determine if the person was a U.S. veteran and if the Department of Veteran’s Affairs offers any burial benefits; 

• Ask the funeral home for at least 10 copies of the decedent’s death certificate of which at least 3 should be certified copies; 

• Visit the residence of the person who died (the decedent) to gather bank statements, utility bills, rent or mortgage statements, employment, and other financial records and to lock up the property; 

• Organize these records to determine the value of the decedent’s assets; 

• Determine where the decedent’s car is located, find the keys and ensure that the car is securely stored; 

• Notify the banks, financial investment, utility companies, landlord, property manager, or mortgage holder, credit card companies and the employer about the person’s death. Banks will require a certified copy of the death certificate.

Some resources to help you address these responsibilities are provided to the right of this article. Also see: What to Do When A Loved One Dies

DON'T LET THE BED BUGS BITE!

Bed bug infestation is a huge problem for both Landlords and Tenants. These tiny, parasitic creatures feed on human and animal blood. They can quickly infest an entire building and require expensive measures to eradicate.

Both Tenant and Landlord have a responsibility to prevent bed bug infestation. But, if a Landlord is aware of a bed bug infestation in his or her property, the Landlord should act quickly to control it.

In the case documented below, the Landlord failed to respond to multiple notices concerning bed bug infestation from both his Tenants and from the Health Inspection Department. This lead to an arrest warrant being issued for his alleged, criminal violations of a new City of Concord ordinance concerning bed bugs in rental property and made history in California, if not across the United States.

Concord: Allegedly ignoring bedbugs bites landlord; judge issues arrest warrant

http://abc7news.com/home/concord-looks-to-arrest-landlord-over-bed-bug-infestation/379697/

TENANTS AFFORDED ADDITIONAL PROTECTION IN OAKLAND FROM LANDLORD HARASSMENT

Aggravated by significant rent increases in Oakland during the past few years, the tension between rent-controlled tenants and landlords has increased.  Tenants want affordable housing and landlords want fair market rental rates. What was fair in 2010 is probably not a comparable market rate today and Landlords face additional pressure from mortgages, property taxes, property insurance, garbage removal, and general property upkeep, costs which may also have escalated. 

There is a delicate balance in the Landlord and Tenant equation, particularly with tenants protected by rent control and marginal rent increases consistent with the Consumer Price Index or CPI.  These opposing tensions sometimes lead to Landlords being tempted to coerce their Tenants to relocate through threatening behavior.

State law affords some protection for Tenants from Landlord harassment. Under Cal. Civ. Code sec. 1940.2, the law states:

"it is unlawful for any landlord . . . for the purposes of influencing a tenant to vacate a dwelling to 1) engage in conduct that violates [Cal. Penal Code § 484] . . .3) use, or threaten to use, force, willful threats, or menacing conduct constituting a course of conduct that interferes with the tenant’s quiet enjoyment of the premises in violation of [Cal. Civ. Code §1927] that would create an apprehension of harm in a reasonable person]. . .” [Emphasis added.]

In a court proceeding against a Landlord, a Tenant may receive up to a maximum of $2,000 for each provable violation of this law.  Moreover, the law cannot “expand or diminish the ability of local government to regulate or enforce a prohibition against a landlord’s harassment of a tenant.”

The City of Oakland adopted a new Tenant ProtectionOrdinance (TPO) effective November 18, 2014.  This ordinance provides broader tenant coverage than either the Oakland Rent Adjustment Program or the Just Cause for Eviction program but there are still some dwelling units that are exempt from the TPO.

Notice of the TPO is incorporated into the Rent AdjustmentProgram (RAP) Notice published on 11/18/14. If you are a new tenant in a non-exempt unit who signed a lease after November 2014, check your lease agreement to ensure that you receive proper notice.

And, if you are being harassed by your Landlord, keep a log of each event, the date and time it occurred, what the harassment consisted of, and if there were any witnesses. You may want to pursue administrative or legal action consistent with the ordinance to stop the harassment.

CITY OF OAKLAND PASSES HISTORIC MORATORIUM ON RENT-HIKES

Succumbing to public pressure and noted as one of the highest rental rate markets in the United States, the City Council of Oakland, California passed a 90-day moratorium on rent increases effective April 5, 2016 and ending on or about July 4, 2016.  During this 90-day period, Oakland will be reviewing permanent revisions to the Oakland Municipal Code which controls both the Oakland Rent Adjustment Program and the Just Cause for Eviction ordinance. Some of what this ordinance controls is listed here as excerpted from the Ordinance Digest:

"The Emergency Ordinance does the following:

• Eliminates the exemptions from rent control for owner-occupied duplexes and triplexes and substantially rehabilitated properties;
• Places a moratorium on rent increases above the annual cpi adjustment; 
• Affirms the city's prohibition on illegal evictions; 
• Affirms the city's duty to publicize city policies establishing tenant rights; and
• Direct the city administrator to evaluate potential permanent rent stabilization measures."

The Emergency Ordinance also: 

• "Directs the City Administrator to report to City Council no later than May 17, 2016 on the status of awarding the contract for Tenant Protection Ordinance education and outreach;
• Directs the City Administrator to schedule a status report to City Council on May 17, 2016 regarding awarding $240,000 to implement the Minimum Wage law; 
• Affirms the city's duty to publicize city policies establishing tenant rights; and
• Directs the City Administrator to evaluate potential permanent rent stabilization measure."

To read more about this Emergency Ordinance, click here.