MORE PROPOSED CHANGES
TO THE RENT CONTROL LAW

At Rent Board Story Part 86, (The New City Hall Dog and Pony Show), I informed you of the efforts being made by the Rent Board’s friends, family members and former Rent Board attorneys to expand the Board’s powers so that it can keep its friends and supporters gainfully employed, despite vacancy-decontrol mandated by the Costa-Hawkins Act. That column reported that at the Rent Board meeting of March 1, 2001 and the City Council meeting of March 6, 2001, tenant attorneys told horror stories and paraded their clients before the Rent Board and City Council for the purpose of advocating expansion of the Rent Board’s powers and continuing the “gravy train” that Rent Board has become for Santa Monica’s left-wing radicals (a.k.a., “rads”). These efforts continued at the Rent Board meeting of August 9, 2001 where the Rent Board Legal Staff came forward with the following proposals to be submitted to the City Council as soon as possible.

The first set of proposals concerns amendments to the Rent Control Law. These proposals will be taken to the City Council so that it may adopt new proposed amendments and place them on the ballot at the next possible election. The following issues and quotations are from the Legal Staff Report issued at the Rent Board meeting of August 9, 2001.

First: the Staff Report recommends that the “just cause eviction” requirements of Rent Control Law section 1806 should be amended so that landlords are required to supply the Rent Control Board with all copies of notices which may result in tenant evictions, except for notices to pay rent or quit. The Staff Report ends discussion of this issue by stating: “Allowing a landlord’s failure to submit a copy of the notice as a defense in an unlawful detainer action will provide some needed teeth to the requirement.”

Second: the Staff Report recommends that the Rent Board should “Clarify the last paragraph of section 1806 to define what constitutes a wrongful eviction and to include threats of eviction under owner-occupancy or Ellis procedures in the definition of wrongful victims. Add a provision allowing the Board as well as the tenant to bring actions for injunctions and for money damages for wrongful evictions.”

Notice that the Board’s definition of “eviction” includes “threats of eviction.” Thus, it is not necessary to evict a tenant to be charged with unlawful eviction. It is only necessary to utter “threats of eviction.” Of course, anything that is said about evictions for owner-occupancy or going out of business under the Ellis Act will be construed as a “threat” because those subjects are themselves “threatening.” It never ceases to amaze me how the left-wing liberals can claim to be defending our Constitutional First Amendment freedoms by supporting the rights of smut peddlers like Larry Flynt to publish all types of porn and trash while they also support laws to restrain and penalize anyone who says anything they believe to be wrong or dangerous. This approach seems inconsistent and intellectually dishonest to me.

Third: “Add language to section 1806 to clarify that the landlord’s dominant motive for recovering possession of the unit must be one of the listed bases for eviction.” This amendment does not only apply to owner-occupancy or Ellis Act evictions where the tenancy is terminated without the tenant being at fault. Under this proposed provision, you could evict (or attempt to evict) a tenant for non-payment of rent or violating the rental agreement and still be in violation of the Rent Control Law if the reason stated under the Rent Control Law was not your “dominant motive.” And guess who will decide what your “dominant motive” was when you evicted the tenant? The Board will be happy to assign that task to its hearing examiners, of course.

Fourth: “Add to Rent Control Law section 1806’s listing of permissible reasons for eviction the ground that the landlord wishes to withdraw from rent or lease all rental units under the Ellis Act.” Note the term “wishes” in the middle of that sentence. As the Staff Report explains, there have been occasions when landlords have abandoned applications to go out of business under the Ellis Act, but tenants vacated rental units while the landlords were considering that option. This proposed amendment would permit the Board to apply Ellis Act penalties to owners who have not gone out of business under the Ellis Act and/or whether or not they have “evicted” tenants.

Fifth: “Consider incorporating the provisions of the harassment ordinance in the Rent Control Law section 1806 in order to address the abuse of Costa-Hawkins and coerced move-out agreements under the threat of filing to withdraw from the rental business under Ellis.

As President Reagan used to say, “Here they go again.” Although the “voluntary vacancy” provisions of the Costa-Hawkins Act expired on December 31, 1998, the Rent Board wants to put them back into effect permanently by requiring that tenants who felt “harassed” at the time they vacated the rental unit can seek penalties and damages from property owners.

Sixth: “Include in section 1801 (d)’s listing of housing services the authorized number of tenants in the unit.” In other words, if you rent a unit to a number of people at the beginning of the tenancy, the remaining tenants have a right to seek replacement if any of them vacate the unit. The Staff Report explains this as follows. “Thus, if one tenant moves out of a unit, the remaining tenant(s) must pay the rent or be forced to move out as well. Landlords and tenants’ interest can be protected in the decrease proceeding by providing for the landlord’s consent to the roommate (unless the rental agreement is silent with regard to subletting) but requiring that the consent may not be unreasonably withheld.” (Isn’t it nice of them to consider your rights?)

In other words, if you rent to two, three or four persons, you must continue to rent to that same number of persons unless you convince one of the Board’s hearing examiner’s that you reasonably withheld consent to the additional persons. Of course, it is a virtual impossibility to convince any of the Board’s hearing examiners that a landlord is reasonable or that a tenant is unreasonable. And in the event that you prove it once, the tenants need only select another proposed roommate for you or approval in order to begin the process again. Sooner or later, you lose and they win.

In addition to the six amendments to the Rent Control Law, the Legal Staff would also like to add three new Ordinances to the City Municipal Code as well. Those proposals are as follows.

The first proposed Ordinance would prohibit landlords “from limiting the number occupants of a unit to fewer than the number of bedrooms in the unit.” In other words, you must rent your two-bedroom units to at least two tenants, three bedroom units to three-tenants, etc. (I wonder how many tenants must be allowed in “single” or “bachelor” units?)

The second new proposed ordinance would permit tenants to invite their grandchildren to share the rental units with them. The following quotation demonstrates the strange and socialist mind-set of the Board’s Legal Staff: “The Rent Control Law allows owners to evict tenants for occupancy by their grandparents (among several other close relatives.) Balance requires that tenants should be protected against eviction for grandchildren.”

Notice how the Staff reasons that tenants should be able to add their grandchildren because landlords can evict to add their grandparents. If the Staff was really looking for ‘balance” it would compare rights to add grandchildren to rights to add grandchildren. In other words, it would compare apples to apples, not apples to oranges. However, landlords have no right under the Rent Control Law to evict tenants to provide a rental unit for their grandchildren. Therefore, if the Legal Staff really wants “balance” it would recommend amending the Rent Control Law to allow landlords and tenants the right to have their grandchildren live on the property. However, you can bet dollars to donuts that ain’t going to happen because “balance” and/or fairness are dead last on the list of Rent Board priorities.

The third and final proposed Ordinance concerns the tenants’ “rights”to have “guests” share the controlled rental units with them. The Staff Report objects to restrictive provisions of various rental agreements and ends the subject by stating the following:

“Forms provided by Action Apartment Association, used by several owners have this provision:
NO ASSIGNMENT/ SUBLETTING/ GUESTS:. . . In addition, RENTER shall not take in or allow occupancy by any person whether that person is a boarder, lodger, roommate or guest . . . .” Under this provision, tenants are placing their tenancy at risk by having any guests at all.”

A possible solution to this problem is an ordinance that prohibits landlords from restricting the length of guests’ visits to less than 15 days. This is the allowable length of stay in the guest provisions set forth in rental agreement forms provided by the California Association of Realtors, also used by several landlords.”

Of course, the Legal Staff fails to mention that the Realtor’s Forms are not designed for radical rent-controlled areas like Santa Monica. In non-rent controlled areas, “guests” are not a major problem because property owners can raise the rent or terminate the tenancies at any time. However, the argument could also be made that “balance requires” that landlords who own property in the most restrictive areas should have the most restrictive rental agreements. Therefore, if you are using rental agreements that makes the “rads” at the Rent Board happy, you shouldn’t be using them. Or, to restate the subject, if the ACTION rental agreement form makes those unreasonable people unhappy, it must be a pretty good form.
You can find that form in the Members Only section of this site.

Therefore, if you believe that your problems are over just because the State Legislature enacted a law that gave you vacancy decontrol, you have better think again. Maybe you should go to the Rent Board office and read the Rent Board Story titled, “Proposals for Additional Tenant Protections” issued at the Rent Board meeting of August 9, 2001.