Lauren Carden: Hi everyone. Thank you for joining us today for this California training on protecting older renters, understanding the California Tenant Protection Act. I’m Lauren Carden. I’m the Director of California Housing Advocacy at Justice In Aging, and I’m joined today by Rebecca Smith, the managing attorney of the Redwood Regional Office at Legal Services of Northern California. I’m going to go through a few logistics and then we’ll get started on the content of the webinar.
Okay. So, everyone is on mute. You can use the Q&A function for substantive questions or if you have technical issues, and we will try to answer some substantive questions at the end of the webinar. For folks we don’t get to, we do try to follow up with an email afterwards. If you have any technical difficulties, you can feel free to email us at the email address here, trainings@justiceinaging.org. This webinar is being recorded. The recording and slides will be available on our website after the training and closed captioning is available. To access closed captioning, click the CC button on your Zoom control panel.
Okay. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Justice In Aging, we’re a national organization that uses the power of law to fight senior poverty by securing access to affordable healthcare, housing, economic security, and the courts for older adults with limited resources. We really appreciate Rebecca at Legal Services of Northern California for being here and sharing her expertise with us today. The mission of Legal Services of Northern California is to provide quality legal services that empower the poor to identify and defeat the causes and effects of poverty within their communities efficiently utilizing all available resources. LSNC provides direct legal services to individuals in 23 Northern California counties in mostly rural areas, and LSNC helps with housing, public benefits, healthcare, civil rights, elder law, and more. So again, we really appreciate Rebecca for being here with us.
We also wanted to quickly reiterate Justice In Aging’s commitment to justice. So we believe Justice In Aging means ensuring that everyone has access to what they need as they age without discrimination and regardless of race, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, ability, language, or country of origin. And to make sure you are receiving all our notifications for future trainings and resources, you can join our network either through our website or by emailing us at info@justiceinaging.org.
Okay, so before we go into the specifics about the protections of the California Tenant Protection Act, I wanted to give some background on why renter’s rights are important for advocates who are working with older adults and aging services providers. So first, tenant protections really help older adults stay housed and avoid homelessness. As I’m sure many of you’re aware from our past webinars, older adults are the fastest growing population of people experiencing homelessness. The UCSF Benioff report titled Towards Dignity Understanding Older Adult Homelessness found that 81% of older adults experiencing homelessness entered homelessness from a housing situation, and 35% of those were leaseholders. They entered homelessness after an eviction notice or a threatened eviction. Also, many older renters are cost burdened. That just means they’re paying more than 30% of their income on rent. And when older renters lose their stable housing, it can be extremely difficult to reenter the rental market and avoid displacement from their communities.
So, helping older renters stay housed. So all advocates who are working with older adults, especially legal services providers, can help older renters stay housed. The slide lists the ways you can help, but advocates can help by just having your own understanding of the eviction protections, educating all the renters about the statewide protections like the Tenant Protection Act, helping all renters enforce their rights and hopefully, representing older renters in eviction defense cases or affirmative cases, which we’ll talk about a little later today.
Okay, so since we have a mix of attendees today, I was going to just briefly review the eviction process in California. Many of the rights that we’re going to talk about today under the Tenant Protection Act, they most often come up when a tenant is going through the eviction process. So this is just like a very surface level overview of the eviction process. I’ll say this again later, but if you are not a legal services organization and you have a client who is in some part of this process, we always recommend that you refer them to a legal services provider.
So, the eviction process starts when a tenant receives a notice to terminate their tenancy. So this could be like a three-day notice to pay rent, a 30-day notice, 60-day notice, or another type of notice. The type of notice a tenant is entitled to really depends on the reason that the tenancy is being terminated and the type of tenancy that the tenant has. We are going to talk a lot today about the allowable reasons to terminate a tenancy for people who are protected by the TPA. We will go into all that in a few slides.
Once that notice to terminate the tenancy has expired, the tenant is then served with a Summons and Complaint for unlawful detainer. And that’s just the legal term for an eviction court case. After the tenant gets the Summons and Complaint, the tenant has to respond within 10 days, not counting weekends and court holidays. And the most common response from a tenant is called an answer. And in the answer, a tenant can raise defenses, the reasons why they think the eviction is not lawful. For instance, a defense would be saying like the landlord did not comply with the Tenant Protection Act.
If a response is filed, the court sets the case for trial. The trial could be held within a few weeks. The parties go to trial, they argue their case, and a judgment is entered after the trial, either for the landlord or for the tenant. If the landlord wins, the tenant receives a sheriff’s notice to vacate and the sheriff can come lock out the tenant from their home. And this whole process could take as little as a month to complete, depending on the circumstances and the court. So again, reiterating that it’s very imperative if you are working with someone who is in some part of this process, you should always refer them to your local legal aid organization for counsel and advice or potentially representation.
And again, if there are questions, you can put them in the Q&A and we’ll try to address them at the end of the webinar. Okay, so an overview of the Tenant Protection Act. So now, we’re going to dive into the basics of the Tenant Protection Act. I’m going to start calling it the TPA for short. I’m going to give an overview of the rent cap and just cause protections. And then Rebecca is going to dive more depth into some of the no-fault scenarios that could affect older renters.
So the Tenant Protection Act was established by AB 1482 in 2019. It’s a statewide law that protects tenants through two main avenues. So the first is through the rent cap protections, and these can be found at Civil Code Section 1947.12. And the second avenue is through just cause protections found at Civil Code Section 1946.2. I’ll talk about this more in a few slides, but very briefly, the rent cap protection just refers to limits that are placed on rent increases for properties covered by the TPA, and just cause protections means landlords have to have a valid reason for terminating a tenancy of a tenant who is covered by the TPA. And just another note, this act is going to sunset on January 1st, 2030 unless it gets renewed by the legislature.
Okay. So properties covered by the rent cap protections, so the rent cap and just cause protections are statewide, but they only apply to certain properties or properties that are not excluded under the act. I’m going to give an overview of both the properties covered by the rent cap and properties covered by the just cause protections, but keep in mind that you will likely see situations that don’t easily fit within the language of the statute. So we always encourage people to reach out to us if you have any questions about whether a specific type of property is covered.
So for the properties covered by the rent cap protections, if you’re helping a tenant that lives in one of these housing types, which I’ll go through, they would most likely be protected under the TPA rent cap protections. So that’s most apartment buildings built at least 15 years ago or more than 15 years ago, single family homes owned by a corporation or an LLC, duplexes if the owner doesn’t live in one of the units and mobile homes owned by the management of a mobile home park. So mobile homes that are in a park that are owned by the management of that park.
Some of the properties that are excluded are listed here, but these are not all the properties that are excluded. So please consult civil code section 1947.12, subsection D, list the excluded properties in the actual language of the statute. But common exclusions are certain affordable housing types where there’s a deed or a regulatory agreement that regulates the rent. So this could be like LIHTC housing, low income housing tax credit program housing. The reason for this is most of these programs have their own separate protections. So like for LIHTC, they have their own rent increased protections that mirror the TPA. So there’s still protections generally, but in a different section of the law. Other excluded properties include school dorms. Housing that’s built within the last 15 years, so new construction. Single family homes, but there’s exceptions and duplexes where the owner occupies one of the units.
For the properties covered by the just cause protections, the covered properties are very similar, but there are slightly different properties that are excluded from coverage. Again, the exclusions are listed in the statute at civil code section 1946.2 subsection E. So this is not a comprehensive list of all the excluded properties. Please consult the statute if you want to double check if a property is excluded. But again, the covered properties are similar to the rent cap covered properties, but the exclusions also include transient and tourist hotels, hospitals, residential care facilities, including residential care facilities for the elderly and other licensed extended care facilities.
[inaudible 00:12:43] housing is also excluded. School dorms, new construction housing built less than 15 years ago. Single family homes, it’s not listed here with exceptions, like in the rent cap protections and duplexes where the owner occupies one of the units and then also, some owner-occupied single-family homes and mobile homes. So again, if you have a situation that’s not clearly addressed by the language of the statute, we especially see a lot of confusion around single family homes because there’s specific requirements that the landlord and single-family home has to meet in order for it to be excluded. So we really encourage you to reach out to us or if you’re not a legal services organization, you can refer your client to your local legal aid or for them to assess the type of housing.
Okay. Now, I’m going to just go very basic overview of the two protections in the TPA. So once you determine whether a property is covered, the question is then what does the tenant actually get or what protections are actually afforded to the tenant? So if you have a tenant that’s living in a property covered by the rent cap protections, then that tenant’s rent cannot be increased by more than 5% plus the CPI or 10%. Whichever is lower of the two. And the landlord had only increased the rent two times in a twelve-month period and the total increase within that twelve-month period cannot exceed that rent cap, the 5% plus CPI or 10%. We’ve linked a rent calculator here. This is probably a more helpful tool for providers that are not legal aid organizations. It can just give you an idea of whether this rent increase might be unlawful, but the allowable rent increase will really depend on your area. So it’ll vary by geography.
I don’t know if I want to say this because I haven’t checked within the last month, but a lot of counties currently are around 7.7% is the 5% plus CPI. But for larger urban areas of the state, this is different. So again, you just always have to check what the CPI is, do the math and then see which is lower, and that would be the allowable rent increase.
For the rent cap protections, they’re also only in place when the tenant is living in the unit. So if a tenant with the rent cap protections leaves the unit, the landlord can raise the rent back-up to market rate when they’re leasing to a new tenant. And then that tenant who left, if they go to a new unit, their new prospective landlord can also have the rent at market rate. And then as always, with any rent increase, the owner must provide written notice of the rent increase. So likely, this will be a 30-day notice. But again, tenants can consult with their local legal aid organization to determine if a rent increase is valid under the TPA.
Okay. So, the other pillar is the just cause protections. So under the TPA, if a tenant has occupied the unit for 12 months, or if at least one tenant has lived in the unit for 24 months, they are afforded additional protections when their tenancy is terminated, namely that the landlord has to have a specific reason for terminating the tenancy and they have to list that reason in the notice of termination of tenancy. So there are, and the statute lists this, we’re going to these in second. There are at fault reasons and there’s no fault reasons that the landlord could give or could list in the notice as the reason for the eviction or the termination. And if it’s an at-fault reason, so saying it’s something the tenant did or failed to do, if it’s something that is curable like the tenant could fix it, then the landlord has to give a notice to cure or fix this issue before they move on to giving a notice to terminate the tenancy.
Okay. So, I’m not going to read all these, but these are the at fault reasons that are allowable under the TPA. Again, you should consult the statute just to see the specific wording of each. These are my summarization of the at-fault reasons. Again, these are the reasons that a landlord can evict due to an action or inaction of the tenant. Obviously, the most common one we see is non-payment of rent. And for the at-fault terminations, many times, only a three-day notice is required. But it will depend on the specific reason that’s listed and it may depend on the type of tenancy. So you always want to check the notice itself to make sure it’s accurate.
I was going to give another plug to refer someone, but again, even if you see a notice that lists one of these at-fault reasons, it is still important to reach out to either a legal aid organization or if you are a legal aid organization, you can reach out to me for a case consultation just to see if the notice is valid despite listing a reason. Because there could always be, there’s always nuances to all of these issues that we’re talking about.
So for the no-fault reasons, so the statute lists for allowable no-fault reasons that a landlord can use to terminate the tenancy of a tenant that’s protected by the TPA. So they’re listed here. These include owner move-in, withdrawal of the property from the rental market, the owner complying with an order from a government agency or the owner is planning to substantially remodel the property.
If the landlord, sorry, is terminating the tenancy for one of these no-fault reasons, one of the four listed here, then the tenant is entitled to a 60-day notice to terminate the tenancy. And this notice should state the reason for the termination. So one of the four listed here, and the notice has to let the tenant know of their right to relocation assistance. So when an owner is terminating a tenancy for one of the no-fault reasons, they have to provide relocation assistance to the tenant. It’s just one month’s rent. And this can either be a direct payment to the tenant or waiver of the final month’s rent. Overwhelmingly, we see a waiver of the final month’s rent as the most common way that a landlord will deal with the relocation assistance provision. Okay. So I’m now going to pass it over to Rebecca to go into more detail on some of these no-fault reasons and how they play out for older adults.
Rebecca Smith: Thank you. All right. If you want to advance to the next slide. Yeah. I’m going to talk about some… The Tenant Protection Act was passed in 2019, I believe went in effect in early 2020 and has since been updated a couple of times. And one of the areas of updating has involved clarity around some of what the no faults reasons for eviction means. So I’m going to flag that and talk about how we see these cases affecting older adults. So for substantial remodel, the way this law was… Just quick background, the way this law was originally written, I believe it said intent of the landlord to substantially remodel the property. So, there was arguments at least, that that standard might be met by some sort of general future plan to remodel the property. There were also strong arguments for why it should be more than that, but the law was clarified to make clear that it needs to be something more than just cosmetic repairs.
And so, it added some additional requirements and clarifications including that it should be something that actually really does require the property to be vacant because under the health and safety rules, a person can’t really live in a property during the type of remodel or renovation that’s happening. So it should be replacing a major system that requires a permit or fixing dangerous materials like asbestos. The work should take at least 30 consecutive days and the renter cannot safely live there while the work’s being completed.
One of the updates that was very useful to actually provide the information on, oh, what is actually happening? Especially because renters, getting these notices might be like, yeah, there’s a few things wrong, but there’s nothing seriously wrong with the property. What is the basis for this? Another reason this is important, just to go back to what Lauren was explaining earlier, is because once you get a notice, that’s the very beginning of an eviction process. So if you think there’s something that might not be fully true about the reason that someone’s being told they have to move out of their home, it’s important to have as much information as possible so you can decide, do I comply with this notice and move out as quickly as I can? Or do I maybe have a strong defense and should try to get some legal assistance and potentially defend against this eviction and go through the eviction, the unlawful detainer process. So just because a notice says something doesn’t make it true.
And so the update, it includes that a notice based on substantial remodel needs to include a description of the work that’s going to be done and attach a copy of the permit and then if no permit is needed, then a contract for the work that’s going to happen. So that might be like asbestos remediation. There’s not always a specific permit required depending on the jurisdiction, but there should be a true plan. So like a contract with a remediation company. And also then, on any days that a renter can safely live there, then they have a right to stay. Unclear exactly how that is used, particularly because part of the update was to clarify that cosmetic repairs are not sufficient. And so, really, to meet the standard of substantial remodel, the remodel needs to be something that wouldn’t really allow a tenant to live there. But in any event, that’s a tenant protection for sure. All right, you can advance to the next slide.
And so, I just thought I’d put an example together to explain how this might come up. So this example is Susie, an 83-year-old who’s lived in the same one bedroom apartment for 22 years. Her rent is below market rent and the building is sold to a real estate investor. The investor painted the vacant units and the building, replaced the old refrigerators, put in some basic furnishings and then listed them on Airbnb. And so then in April, Susie receives a notice increasing her rent by 20%. And after challenging the illegal rent increase because this is a TPA covered tenancy and as we just learned, a rent increase under the TPA cannot be more than the 5% plus the CPI or 10%. So we know right off the bat, a 20% increase wouldn’t be permissible under the TPA. And so,, after challenging the illegal rent increase, the landlord then serves a notice of termination alleging substantial remodel.
So the reason I think this is important is because for a case like this, there’s a lot of questions. First of all, did the notice include the contract or the permit? We’re silent on that, but if it did not, that would be a notice problem on its face regardless of whether or not the landlord is actually planning to substantially remodel the unit. They didn’t comply with the law because they didn’t provide the information that’s necessary at that very early stage in the eviction process.
Another issue that’s raised here is, so the landlord with the units that were vacant at the time, that the landlord purchased the property, turn them all into Airbnbs after doing what are pretty cosmetic repairs. So, having a fact like that is actually really important to know if one does, because I think it gives rise to a valid assumption that perhaps, that’s the same plan that the landlord has for other vacant units or for Susie’s unit if she were to move out.
And then of course, there’s the retaliation, which is outside the scope of our presentation, but we include that because when someone might be describing their housing situation and what’s occurred, often, facts like that are actually very legally relevant even if they seem like they don’t really have anything to do with the notice that they’ve been served. So she just received a notice saying substantial remodel. So without that additional information and fact gathering about what’s happened recently, you’ve been there 22 years, has there been any changes? Oh, yeah, well, someone new just bought the apartment and they turned something into Airbnbs. I just thought an illegal rent increase, all of those things might help to show that this situation might be in violation of the Tenant Protection Act for all of those reasons. All right.
Okay. So, owner move-in. This is another one where we wanted to flag it because it was recently tightened up. There was additional information added into the law. So the owner move in, generally an owner, their immediate family plans to move in and then for leases entered into on or after July of 2020, then this only applies if the renter agrees in writing to the termination or if the lease allows the owner to end the lease for that reason. So this is pretty important. So while the Tenant protection Act allows owner move-in as a basis for no-fault determination, it may not be available in all cases. So again, another important reason to try to get a legal consultation related to these cases. And anyone can do that too. Even just looking at the lease and checking and doing the timeline can be really useful, but it’s possible that you could determine that a notice alleging an owner move in as the no-fault just cause basis for terminating a tenancy, would be invalid without any further information just looking at the lease and whether or not it’s allowed.
Okay. So, these are additional updates. So similar to substantial remodel, there was the owner move in had a similarly vague description in the way that the Tenant protection Act was originally drafted. And so, I believe it said intent of the owner or qualifying family member which is identified, I believe it’s kids, parents and maybe siblings, I’d have to check, but it identifies who can qualify for an owner move-in eviction, but it didn’t really explain when does the person have to move in. And so this was updated to explain that the landlord or their relative, so the qualifying person under this owner move-in provision, must move in within 90 days after the renter moves out and must live in the unit for at least a year. And then if they don’t, the renter has a right to return to the unit at the same rent and the same term, the same contract, basically. And the landlord must pay the renter back for any moving expenses. So that’s pretty protective.
Basically, it’s a way to sort of enforce, give some teeth to that. It’s pretty protective because, and we’ll get into this in a few slides, but if these things aren’t actually happening, there may be a cause of action for a lawsuit against the landlord. And also, because it could be pretty expensive if the renter did find out that the landlord wasn’t moving in and chose to move back into the unit themselves. And so, the eviction notice must state the name and relationship to the landlord and the person moving in and if the renter requests proof that the person qualifies, the landlord must provide it. So that might mean, please give me more information about who’s moving in and when, where are they moving from. Show me that they’re really your daughter or something like that.
And so, it just helps… Those kinds of details in legal cases are really helpful because if someone provided an owner move-in for a vague plan that wasn’t really happening and you pushed to get more details and it became clear that wasn’t happening, even if the notice is valid, there might be a strong defense to the eviction and the next steps in the process if they didn’t really meet the requirements for the owner move in under the TPA.
Okay. And so, there’s additional requirements that the renter cannot be evicted if the person moving in already lives on the property or if there are similar empty units available. If the landlord rents the unit to a new renter within 12 months, then the rent must not be higher than what the displaced renter was paying. So, that’s also important. It’s actually an exception to the… Generally, there’s no real vacancy control in the TPA, but this provides it in this sort of specific situation. And then there’s other requirements, like I said, landlords could be prohibited from doing owner move-in depending on what the lease says, how they own the home or what share of the home they own. So sometimes, there’s some additional investigation necessary to determine whether or not the owner move-in just cause is available for a specific tenancy.
Okay. I have another case example which is, so Daniel lives in a small apartment in rural northern California. He receives a owner move-in eviction notice. Discovery in the lawsuit that shows that the individual who the landlord said was moving in is a successful real estate agent living in Portland, Oregon who had recently refinanced their $1.2 million home and had school-aged children with a shared custody arrangement. So I think the reason I wanted to include these types of facts for this example is because the notice in this case may be valid. So reviewing just the notice might not show any role problem with complying with the Tenant Protection Act, even the new requirements. So, it might say this real estate agent, let’s say Sharon. Sharon is moving in, she’s the owner’s daughter and have all the correct information but discovery… And when I say discovery, because I know there’s lots of different people in this webinar, I’m talking about the formal process that’s available in a lawsuit after to obtain more information from other parties.
So that can be through depositions or requests for information and is a process available in eviction lawsuits as well. And so in this case, the discovery may have asked for more information about who’s moving in, what is their current job, what’s their current living situation, and resulted in some information that just makes an owner move-in in this situation very suspicious. So this would be a case where the tenant who received this notice might have a strong defense to the lawsuit and that would play out further along in the case because again, the notice itself in a situation like this may have no obvious problem. So it may include all the legally required information under the Tenant Protection Act, but the underlying facts just make what the notice says unlikely to be true. Ultimately, that will be decided in court and there’s a lot of risks to going all the way through an eviction case and a trial.
So of course, would want to evaluate it for any individual with a consultation of an attorney. But I think it’s important to keep in mind that even when a notice might contain all the correct information, particularly for no-fault reasons, it’s good to try to gather as many facts as possible because there’s a lot of reasons that landlords may want to try to remove a tenant, especially if they have a under market rent or they have something else that they would prefer to do with the property. But the whole purpose of the Tenant Protection Act is to protect tenants and stabilize renters in housing.
Okay. So withdrawal from the rental market. So this is a no-fault just cause basis for eviction. That remains unclear. I do want to flag that putting a rental home on the market for sale, so selling a home that’s currently being rented is not necessarily withdrawal from the rental market. So this is, I would say, an area where there hasn’t been that clarity that future updates to the Tenant Protection Act provided in substantial remodel and owner move-in. But I think the next slide will talk about this, but one of the more recent updates to the Tenant Protection Act included some enforcement options and a cause of action. And that on its own does provide some, I think, teeth to these no cause reasons because violations of the Tenant Protection Act could result in additional affirmative lawsuits against the landlord and penalties. But this is one where what does withdrawal really mean? Can still sometimes be unclear.
All right. And you can advance to the next. So, like I mentioned in the last slide, one of the updates to the Tenant Protection Act provided for a cause of action and a really clear defense to an eviction if the landlord does not follow the Tenant Protection Act. So if a landlord tries to evict without just cause, so maybe they say they have a just cause. So in some of our examples maybe they’re saying, oh, substantial remodel. But it becomes clear that really, it’s just about painting and adding some basic furnishings for purposes of doing an Airbnb. Maybe there’s evidence of that.
And so, it’s really, they really don’t meet the requirements for this eviction. Then a renter can sue the landlord in court and also for various financial penalties. Local and state governments can also sue landlords who break the law and there’s a process to contact the Attorney General’s office or the city or county counsel where the renter lives to report these violations. There’s a special unit in the Attorney General’s office. And so, again, adding that cause of action makes it more important to follow these rules and gives tenants some more, I would say, power in enforcing the Tenant Protection Act.
So some examples of affirmative cases to enforce the Tenant Protection Act. Long-term renters who received a notice increasing their rent by $100 per month every month until the rent more than doubled. So that would be a fact that’s again, a case that’s covered by the Tenant Protection Act. Clearly, a notice stating that this is the landlord’s plan to gradually increase the rent $100 every month. That’s clearly in violation of the Tenant Protection Act because the rent cap provisions only allow two rent increases in any 12-month period. And they also have pretty specific requirements and limitations for how much the total rent increase would be. So I guess depending on the total rent at the beginning, maybe the first two would be okay. But after that, this recurring every month increase is in violation of the Tenant Protection Act.
And so a notice like that would probably be pretty much enough on its own to show a violation because on its face it would say what the landlord is doing and if they actually took those actions, it would be a violation of the Tenant Protection Act and could result in damages and other financial penalties.
Another example is a landlord that provides a notice to tenants that it would increase their rent to fair market rent or they could provide a 30-day notice to vacate. So this type of notice, if the increase to fair market rent exceeds the allowable increase under the Tenant Protection Act, which for purposes of this, we can assume it does, then that increase is not allowed under the Tenant Protection Act because the rent increase limits, as we just learned, are 5% plus the CPI or 10%, whichever is lower. And so any increase that exceeds that amount wouldn’t be allowed. And then saying, or you can provide 30-day notice to vacate, that’s not a valid termination notice. That’s basically saying either agree with this or you can leave and give me your notice. But that’s not a just cause for termination, neither at fault or no fault.
So these are the kinds of tactics that on their face, might not seem obviously illegal, but assuming these tenancies are protected by the Tenant Protection Act, they would give rise to a affirmative cause of action. So a lawsuit that the tenant could bring against the landlord for violating the Tenant Protection Act. Then we have on here that these types of cases also may involve other claims including unfair business practices, and ordinarily, filing an affirmative lawsuit, normally that would be raised as well because this kind of conduct in a commercial transaction like this would usually be an unfair business practice as well. All right, I’m handing it back to Lauren. Thank you.
Lauren Carden: Yeah, thank you so much. And I think we will have time for lots of questions. I’ve been noting them down, so we’ll go into that in a second. But just wanted to have these resources available, particularly for folks who are working at a non-legal aid organization. So the first bullet point is a guide that’s issued by the state. It’s available online just detailing many more details about residential tenant and landlord rights and responsibilities, including some of what we’re covering today. But yeah, if you have any landlord tenant questions that you’re just curious about, you can access this guide. You can also find your local legal aid organization that helps with housing issues. By using this link, it directs you to lawhelpca.org and you can find your local legal aid provider.
So we are going to go into questions now. First, I’m just going to start with, I want to thank everyone who pointed this out. This is the problem with trying to simplify slides and then not following notes. So maybe I’ll just go back to that slide really quickly. I apologize everyone for the scrolling.
So the covered properties, I do want to clarify that the single family homes owned by corporation or LLC are only covered if the LLC, in the LLC at least one member is a corporation. So yes, I don’t think I said that during my portions. Oh, sorry. So thank you everyone who did point that out.
Let me just reshare really quickly. Other questions, so, [inaudible 00:44:20] Rebecca, I’ll let you answer some of these, but just doing some clarifying just based on some of the questions. So just wanted to point out that these are not the only rights that tenants have when living in their units. I think there was some questions about habitability issues and reasonable accommodations. So today, we’ve essentially just covered mainly two sections of the civil code, but tenants have many more rights that we haven’t covered today. So, there are fair housing rights, there’s the rights to a habitable premise. You can find more about these in the guide that was on the previous slide. But for both of, or for the folks who did ask this question, the situations do seem like something like you probably would want to refer the client to a legal aid organization or if you are a legal aid organization, I’d be happy to chat with you more in depth about those issues. Okay, so we will go into some questions.
Okay, so one question was about tax credit apartments, which just said we’ve been told by tax credit apartments that they’re exempt from rent control. Is this not correct? Rebecca, do you want to talk a little about the LIHTC protections?
Rebecca Smith: Yeah. Well, what I can mention is that generally speaking, a LIHTC property is not covered by the law we’re focused on today. However, there are other rules and some fairly new protections for renters in LIHTC properties that mirror a lot of the TPA protections. But it’s not the TPA, it’s a separate law.
Lauren Carden: Thank you. And then just on this covered properties thread, again, someone just had clarification about the 15 years. So it is 15 years from whatever the date is. I don’t know the exact language off the top of my head, but it’s worded as housing built within the last 15 years would be excluded from coverage. So then covered properties would be anything older than that. Like the statute only lists the excluded properties, so we’re doing two steps to figure out what is covered. A question also on the rent cap, if the rent can be raised twice a year and they up the rent two times at 10% each time for a 20% rental hike. Rebecca, do you want to answer this?
Rebecca Smith: Yeah. So I think I may have typed one, so the two increases within a twelve-month period cannot exceed the allowable increase for that twelve-month period. So basically, this situation, normally a landlord, if they’re complying with the Time Protection Act would give one increase that raises the rent the allowable amount at one time. But if for some reason they decided to give, let’s say a 5% increase and then a couple months later wanted to give a 3.7% increase to get to the 7.7% total allowable increase for a year, that’s allowed. But if they gave a 2% increase and then another 2% increase, they’re done for that twelve-month period, even though that 4% rent increase is less than the maximum increase allowed under the Tenant protection Act. I hope that helps.
Lauren Carden: Thank you. Also, someone had just asked another question about how do you know when a home was built or if it was built within the last 15 years? And Rebecca, you can add in, I think… The person also mentioned Zillow. Yes, you can check publicly available websites to see when the home is listed as being built can also look for a certificate of occupancy for apartment buildings. Are there any other methods you use Rebecca?
Rebecca Smith: No. The certificate of occupancy is what it’s based on, so that’s what you would really want to look for. But if you’re just trying to find out if it’s close at all, that publicly available information might be pretty helpful, like Zillow that might show that. But really, the more certain information you would find at the reporter or the assessor’s office in the county where you are, which would have the recorded documents.
Lauren Carden: Okay, thank you. There was another question. We had some questions about no fault evictions. One was, during substantial remodeling, does the landlord have to offer relocation? Yes, if that’s the notice of termination. Tenancy says the tenancy is being terminated because the landlord is going to substantially remodel the unit. They would have to offer relocation, but again, it’s just one month’s rent and it can just be a waiver of the final month of rent. So it’s not relocation that would actually help the tenant pay a new security deposit or cover moving costs. It’s just that one month’s rent.
There was a hypothetical of Rebecca, let me know, you kind of did clarify this after the question was asked, but someone asked, for a client who may have moved out due to a landlord selling the home is there a time limit for the client to reach back out to the landlord for payment of one month’s rent that they should have been given for moving assistance? I have thoughts, but Rebecca you can go.
Rebecca Smith: Yeah, that’s a good question. The first thing I would want to do is confirm that they were entitled to the relocation assistance and look at what notice they did receive. Because the other thing about the relocation that can be tricky is it’s a 60-day notice and most of the time, it’s not a cash payment, but it’s the waiver of the final month of rent. And so, if a tenant moves out, so they get two months notice, say they move out part way into the second month for which rent is waived, I don’t think it’s clear that at that point, the tenant would be able to receive the remaining amount in cash. I think that can get confusing. So I would want to gather those facts to try to figure that out. But I believe the cause of action under the Tenant Protection Act is three years. So I would look at the timeline of when this happened, but yeah, I believe the statute of limitations for the new cause of action under the Tenant Protection Act is three years.
Lauren Carden: Okay. Yeah, that was perfect. Someone had asked, are there any protections specific to seniors? So again, we’re talking about these two, civil code sections today. And so just to clarify, these protections do apply to all renters, not only to older adults, but again, there may be additional fair housing protections that an older adult would have when they’re in this eviction process. So it’s always helpful to assess someone’s legal issues if they are an older adult, but just specifically for the TPA, there’s no carve-outs or additional protections based on age.
Let’s see if we have any other quick questions. So there are a lot of much more detailed questions. So again, we’ll try to answer those. I will try to answer those by email after this webinar. But if your question does get answered or you don’t hear from me, you can always email us. It’s not here, but it’s info@justiceandaging.org. Or you can email me directly. My email is on this slide. Yeah, I think this one you had already answered, Rebecca. I was just asking for clarification on what is substantial remodel? Is there a dollar amount or what is “a standard repair” that would qualify under substantial remodel?
Rebecca Smith: So, the way the statute reads is it’s supposed to be replacing a major system in the home, and it’s not just cosmetic repairs. So, it’s not really framed in that way how much it needs to cost the landlord, the upgrades. It’s more about how long it will take and that it’s a significant upgrade. So these are often case by case. I will say, I think something that if the repair requires a permit and there’s not a permit with the new requirement to attach the permit, that would be a problem for the landlord to not have pulled a permit for the repair that they say that they’re doing. And would also be, I would say, a trigger for an advocate or someone working with them to look into what the substantial remodel being alleged actually is.
Lauren Carden: Thank you. And then [inaudible 00:55:02] that just came in that I just want to provide another clarification for. So also, you may be working with a lot of tenants that are in federally subsidized housing. So those issues are murky. If there’s a Section 8 voucher and someone is in a property that’s a covered property, generally, they should be protected by the TPA in that tenancy. But if they’re in a project based section 202 housing, they would have different protections. So any of those situations, yeah, we just encourage you, you can reach out to us if there’s a specific case you need assistance with. There’s also a lot of resources about federally subsidized housing on the National Housing Law Projects website and we collaborate with them frequently so you can also reference their website for more of those federally subsidized housing issues.
I think that’s all the questions we’ll cover today in the webinar. Again, I’ll try to follow up with a lot of you, [inaudible 00:56:16] questions were not answered. But again, thank you all for attending and thank you again, Rebecca, for joining us today and sharing your expertise. Thank you all.
