Today our group joined forces with EBHRA and BPOA at the state capitol for a legislative day in which we met with state politicians to express our concerns over several bills that have been proposed by legislators.
There were three proposed bills discussed, in summary the bills included:
Bill AB-2343 Real Property: possession: unlawful detainer
This bill would increase the required unlawful detainer notice for non-payment of rent from the standard 3 day notice, to 10 days. Meaning that by law, a tenant would be granted a "grace period" of between 12-15 days to pay rent instead of the current 2-8 day period. Seeing as a property owner's mortgage payments are considered late after the 15th of the month, extending this legal grace period clearly jeopardizes a housing providers ability to stay current in their financial obligations.
This bill would also increase the time period for a tenant's unlawful detainer response at the court level to be increased from the current 5 day period, to 14 days. A tenant's response to a unlawful detainer is a very simple process, and increasing this time period only arbitrarily lengthens what is already a very time consuming and expensive experience for a property owner.
The bill also contains a clause that would grant a tenant the ability to legally stop paying rent for 180 days if that tenant is able to prove that they have recently joined any type of tenant protection group, even after having received a 3 day notice for non-payment. This means that a tenant can be delinquent in rent, join a tenants group, then get 6 months of rent free based on the idea that a landlords actions for unlawful detainer are retaliatory based on that tenant's joining of a tenants group. Clearly this is the most ludicrous/backwards part of the bill, as it's clearly hard to find any type of justification for this type of entitlement.
Bill AB-2925 Tenancy: eviction: good cause
This is a statewide initiative that would essentially grant broad yet undefined just cause for eviction policy for all cities,regardless of local policy decisions. Cities that have not decided to vote in rent control nor just cause for eviction protections would be subject to these state laws. There is no definition of what just cause is in this bill, and every 30 or 60 day notice that is served to a tenant in jurisdictions without local just cause protections would essentially wind up in the court system, essentially creating a cluster in a state court system that is already backed up. Clearly local municipalities should be able to follow what has been voted on to be acceptable for their own specific communities, and not be subject to the bureaucracy set forth by the state.
Bill AB-2364 Rental Control: withdraw from accommodation.
This bill would increase the time period for reintroduction of a property to the rental market after an Ellis act withdrawal from the current 5 years, to 10 years. This means that a property owner who removes their property from the rental market, pays exorbitant relocation costs to their tenants, would have to wait a decade before they could legally re-rent their property at market rents (assuming Costa Hawkins is not repealed). This is a blatant attempt by law makers to try and prevent property owners from removing their properties from a rental environment that is exceptionally risky and increasingly unfavorable to property owners. This also prevents/delays units from be reintroduced to the market, further diminishing supply to an already scarce situation.
All in all this is another set of regressive reforms presented by lawmakers as a means to squeeze owners out of their property rights, as they continue to try to close the only avenues we might have to escape the draconian laws that far surpass the intention of basic tenants protections. These bills, as well as the looming repeal of Costa Hawkins protections, can only be viewed as a movement to redefine the concept of private ownership of property. One that is so heavily regulated, that private ownership ceases to exist, and that tenants are granted more rights to a property than the actual owner.
AURHP, EBHRA,BPOA and other local associations will continue to represent the cause of housing providers as best we can in this tumultuous political environment.