Landlord Retaliates Against Tenants and Makes the News

Tenants in Ohio faced with retaliatory eviction for reporting habitability complaints to code enforcement received 30-day eviction notices.  But, these tenants went to their Legal Aide office and reported their complaints to local TV news!

While this story occurred in 2015 in Ohio, it's a classic tale of landlord retaliation, a story that is frequently repeated in California and across the United States.

Like Ohio, California has a state law designed to protect tenants against retaliatory evictions. And, rent-controlled cities like Oakland, Berkeley, and San Francisco may offer additional protections against landlord retaliation.

Oakland landlords given 40 days to correct ‘inhumane conditions’

By Filipa A. Ioannou

Monday, January 23, 2017

A judge ordered the owners of a 30-unit Oakland apartment building at 1620 Fruitvale Ave. to fix the building within 40 days or face possible contempt of court charges.

One family slept on the kitchen floor to avoid a bedbug infestation. Another lived in an apartment with no working fire alarm, and a tenant and her 8-year-old daughter became aware a fire had broken out in the building only when smoke began to billow from the walls of their bathroom.

Those incidents appeared in court documents that detail harrowing conditions endured by the tenants of a 30-unit Oakland apartment building at 1620 Fruitvale Ave., whose owners have been ordered by a judge to fix the building within 40 days or face possible contempt of court charges.

Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker filed a request for relief with the Alameda County Superior Court this month and won last week when a judge issued an order against the landlords.

“It is critical that the City hold accountable landlords who violate tenants’ rights and turn a blind eye to inhumane conditions that persist at their properties,” Parker said in a news release.

The building is infested with cockroaches and bedbugs, lacks a functional fire alarm system in many of the units and has raw sewage problems, court documents say. Alameda County has assessed the value of the property at around $1 million.

Most of the tenants are predominantly Spanish-speaking families.

Since the building was purchased in 2007 by a group of landlords — Jad and Suad Jaber; Najeeb and Mary Christina Shihadeh; Daoud, Hala, Fahed and Haifa Salfiti; and 20 other people unnamed in court paperwork — it has been the subject of 20 complaints, according to city records.

The property, built in 1930, was dogged by problems even before its purchase by the current owners. City records show several complaints of failing plumbing, moldy walls, leaky ceilings, lead paint, roach infestations and a collapsed ceiling in the period from 1997 to 2003.

BANKING ON A RENT INCREASE

I lease a rent-controlled apartment and consider myself fortunate. "Techies" are moving into Oakland. Oakland is becoming the place to call home.

Expecting an annual rent increase on the anniversary date of my tenancy, I waited for a rent increase notice and was surprised when I didn't receive one. To ensure that the notice wasn't "lost in the mail," I called the property management company and they confirmed that no rent increase notice was sent.

While I felt grateful to have my rent frozen at it's old rate, I also know that my landlord can "bank" the allowable rent increase and send me a notice of a whopping rent increase in the future.

Here's a snippet from the Oakland Rent Adjustment Board website:

"A property owner can raise rent above the CPI rate [Consumer Price Increase] rate...One justification [for this increase] is “banking”.

“Banking” refers to deferred allowed annual rent increases. These annual rent increases are determined by the City and are also known as ...annual general rent increases. Annual rent increases that were not given, or were not given in full, can be carried forward to future years. Subject to certain limitations, property owners may defer giving annual general increases up to ten years. General increases that were not imposed within ten years expire. If challenged, evidence of the rental history of the subject unit is required."

So, what can you do to prepare for a banked rent increase? You can set up a savings account to bank the increases that you could be paying and collect interest on the money, leaving it untouched for as long as you are living in your rent-controlled apartment. Or, you could put the money into a low-risk interest earning investment.

For more about banked rent increases, click on the following links:

Oakland

Berkeley

San Francisco

With housing costs skyrocketing, rent control is on the docket again in Sacramento (excerpted)

by Andrew Khouri

Protests over the high cost of housing and aggressive landlord tactics have erupted in Los Angeles and throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. And voters in two cities up north passed new limits on rent increases in November, seeing them as a way to stop dramatic hikes that have displaced lower- and middle-income households.

But cities can only go so far in capping rents — something AB 1506 seeks to change.

“The momentum is very much on the side of rent control,” said Dean Preston, executive director of the statewide renters group Tenants Together.

In Long Beach, which doesn’t control rents, tenants are increasingly seeing eye-popping hikes. One elderly tenant recently reported a $925 hike on a $1,100-a-month, two-bedroom unit, said Josh Butler, executive director of advocacy group Housing Long Beach.

”A rent increase of that magnitude is tantamount to an eviction,” he said.

Those stories are driving support for caps, as well as strong eviction protections that typically are elements of the ordinances. That’s particularly true in the expensive Bay Area with its explosion of tech wealth.

In November, voters in Richmond and Mountain View, home of Google, approved rent control ordinances that the California Apartment Assn. is now fighting in court.

Like most ordinances, the laws tie increases to changes in the consumer price index and require a “just cause” for eviction — such as damaging a unit or failing to pay rent.

Beverly Hills also strengthened its current ordinance this year, reducing the maximum annual increase to 3% from 10%.

But with Costa-Hawkins in place, cities are limited in the number of units they can include for protection.

In Los Angeles, property owners have removed thousands of rent-controlled units in today’s hot housing market, a dynamic that was a major focus of the debate surrounding Measure S, the anti-development initiative that failed on the March municipal ballot.

Larry Gross, who heads the local tenant group Coalition for Economic Survival, said expanding rent control is vital, because it provides tenants with a stability akin to homeowners with a fixed mortgage, giving lower- and middle-income folks a better shot at staying in expensive cities.

Gross, who pushed for passage of L.A.’s law decades ago, panned business group’s assertion that construction would drop off if Costa-Hawkins was repealed.

“Builders want to build here,” Gross said. “Rent control provides protection and levels the playing field.”

No matter what happens in the Legislature this session, “at least we’ve finally been able to get the discussion [going],” he said.

Debra Carlton, senior vice president for public affairs with the California Apartment Assn., said the group is taking the threat of a repeal “very seriously.”

"I think it’s — unfortunately — the beginning of the conversation," she said.

See full article published on March 17, 2017 in the LA Times here.

DON’T SHUT ME OUT!

Apparently, some landlords act like kings and queens, ruling their domain with a stick (literally!) and acting as if they are the law.

Having been served with an invalid “combo” notice to terminate their tenancy which informed the tenants that they had 30-days to relocate or, if they paid another month’s rent, their tenancy would be extended, the tenants opted for an extension of tenancy and paid the rent in full.

Having resided in the same home for eight years and faithfully paid their rent, the recent California rains exacerbated certain conditions in their home. Exterior walls were wet to the touch and covered in black mold, rats made their home in the basement and attic, and there was a leak in the sewer pipe beneath the home. This leak released methane gasses into the home, causing headaches and other ailments due to the noxious fumes.

As thanks for reporting these conditions in the home, the property owner served the tenants with an eviction notice while simultaneously demanding rent payments. When the tenants paid to extend their tenancy so that they could salvage their belongings which were now permeated with mold, the property owner accepted their rent check, cashed it, and changed the lock to the front door. She even barricaded the back door with a board and, yes, a stick to prevent access to the house!

Under Cal. Civ. Code section 789.3(b)(1), “A landlord shall not, with intent to terminate the occupancy…prevent the tenant from gaining reasonable access to the property by changing the locks or using a bootlock or by any other similar method or device…”

The statute continues to state that every day the tenants are locked out, there is a maximum $100 penalty per day and no less than a $250 penalty, actual damages (such as the cost to hire a locksmith), and attorneys’ fees. 

Looking in from a Window

If this happens to you, immediately call the police to report an unlawful lockout. You may have to provide evidence of your tenancy to the police such as a copy of your lease agreement, a copy of the notice, a copy of the most recent rent check, and evidence from your bank that the check was cashed to prove your legal right to occupancy. 

The police will confer with your landlord and attempt to resolve the issues between the parties involved or the issues may be decided in a court proceeding.

So, what's the moral of this story? If you are a landlord, don’t use self-help to evict your tenants. You must file an eviction proceeding in a court of law to lawfully evict your tenants. Resorting to a lock-out or shutting off the utilities, is strictly illegal.

Demolition is the New Excuse for Eviction

Demolitions of rent-controlled buildings are a hot topic in Berkeley. Developers are acquiring older buildings for investment purposes and proposing the development of multi-story buildings to the city after demolition of the existing building. The city needs to expand affordable housing and wants to balance this critical need with the need to preserve rent-control and to assist “sitting tenants” in rent-controlled buildings slated for demolition.  

The Berkeley municipal code designed to regulate demolitions was revised in March 2016. See Berkeley Municipal Code Chap. 23C.08. The demolition ordinance cites to the Just Cause for Eviction code which provides that, if all necessary permits are secured, demolition of a rent-controlled building is a just cause for eviction. 

Sitting tenants are offered a nominal relocation benefit ($400) and reimbursement for moving costs which is capped at less than $1,000. See Berkeley Municipal Code Chap. 13.84. When evicted, sitting tenants have a right to the difference in rent paid on their rent-controlled unit versus the rent in a comparable replacement unit; the landlord is required to pay this difference until the new building is built and ready for occupancy. Although construction estimates vary depending upon the building plans, it generally takes one to two years to construct a multi-story building during which this rent differential is required to be paid for every sitting tenant evicted through demolition.

Sitting tenants will also receive the right of first refusal to a comparable unit in the newly constructed building. However, what is “comparable” is not defined in the municipal code leaving an important ambiguity in the ordinance. Moreover, if the developer pays an impact (or mitigation) fee to the City for each of the rent-controlled apartments, sitting tenants will be offered right of first refusal to an apartment in the newly constructed building, but the rent will be at fair market value. However, if the developer decides not to pay the impact fee, sitting tenants must be offered a comparable unit in the new building at below-market rates. There are nuances to the code which must be carefully reviewed since relocation benefits and rental rates at the new building for sitting tenants may also be affected by their income and the percentage of affordable housing offered in the new building.

The impact fee has not been finalized but the fee being discussed is $105,202 and is calculated as follows ($105,202 * the number of rent-controlled units demolished) divided by the number of units in the newly constructed building. Suffice it to say, this impact fee, which is paid by the landlord to the City when the sitting tenants vacate the existing building, is significant and is on top of demolition permit fees, design review committee fees, construction permit fees, etc.  

In Berkeley, it generally takes at least one year to secure a demolition permit and it can be further delayed by public outcry, tenant advocacy groups, and the planning and zoning commission requirements. An example of a hotly debated demolition concerns a building on Durant Avenue which was recently demolished after a court-battle between the developer and the city.

Net, net, if you are a tenant and your rent-controlled building is sold to a new landlord, and if there is talk about demolition, check-in with the rent-control board to determine your legal rights. And, check-in with your fellow tenants, too. Your landlord must continue to invest in the existing building to ensure that your building is habitable until you are actually evicted and your actual eviction, based on demolition, is contingent upon the city issuing all necessary permits including a demolition permit.

New Rent Control Information in Oakland and Berkeley

Berkeley just published its 2017 Guide to Rent Control and Evictions which can be found via the link below:

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Rent.../Notices.../ GuidetoBerkeleyRentControl_Web.aspx

And the City of Oakland created a new website dedicated solely to its rent adjustment program which can be accessed by clicking here.