Knowing Your Rights and When Not to Waive Them

If you reside in a leased apartment in San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, Richmond, or any other municipality in the Bay Area, check to see if the apartment is covered by rent control and/or just eviction municipal ordinances. Make no assumptions that your new apartment IS covered even if the lease agreement attaches notices relating to these municipal ordinances. 

When an apartment is covered by rent control, the landlord is required to register the unit with the rent board and pay an annual fee to the City. But even through a landlord may be required to register the unit doesn't mean that they will always follow the law. 

Your first step - before you sign the lease agreement - is to verify coverage or exemption from rent control and/or just cause eviction statutes. Contact the City rent program board and ask them for details. To do this, you may need to pay the city housing counselors a personal visit or, minimally contact the housing counselors by email or telephone.

Before you contact the housing counselor, do a little research. Ask: 

1. Was a Certificate of Occupancy issued for the building and when was it issued? Usually the City Building Department will have those records.

2. When was the building actually built? Again, city building department records may be helpful here.

3. What is the configuration of the leased units on the property? Bring a description of the property to the rent board housing counselor. 

For example, explain that there is a single family home at the front of the property and that you lease a backyard cottage that has been divided into two units. Or that you live in a duplex. Or that you lease one unit in a 8-unit building.

If you lease a single family home or a condominium, it is likely that the building is not covered by rent control due to the Costa-Hawkins Act but, even then, there may be some nuances to municipal law and a complicated analysis may ensue to determine coverage or exemption from rent control.

4. While you are speaking to the housing counselor and if you discover that your apartment is covered by rent control and/or just cause eviction ordinances, ask if the city requires any notices to be attached to the lease agreement that further describe tenants' rights.

Even if your apartment is covered by one or more of these ordinances, the landlord may have failed to provide you with the requisite notices or to have provided you with the correct notice but an outdated version.

Finally, if the apartment IS covered by a just cause eviction statute, never waive your rights as one landlord attempted to do in this lease agreement:

"There will be no month-to-month lease extensions [at the termination of this fixed-term lease.] This clause by agreement between Tenant and Landlord supersedes any other requirement or rule that may apply regardless of the entity including the City of [fill in the blank] Rent Board."

This clause is void and against public policy and would likely be stricken by the court in a legal proceeding involving the lease agreement. This clause implies that the "entity" could be the State of California, disclaiming even state law. If you see a clause like that in your lease agreement, write a line through it (strike it) and initial the revision in the margin of the lease agreement. The landlord may object to this change but that's probably a landlord that you don't want to lease from in the first place.