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Residents in west Contra Costa County will vote this spring on a parcel tax that could help rescue the financially beleaguered Doctors Medical Center in San Pablo.
Registered voters will receive mail-in ballots sometime over the next two months and must return them by May 6th to be counted. The required threshold is two-thirds vote. The two-thirds is determined by the number of returned mail-in ballots.
The tax, which would cost property owners $0.14 cents per square foot, would be permanent, even if the hospital merges with another medical facility or is purchased.
All residents — including those in multifamily… Read More
The California Apartment Association is analyzing thousands of bills introduced by the Feb. 21 deadline and is preparing to take positions on those relevant to the rental housing industry.
Below are summaries of some key measures on which CAA will likely take positions in the coming weeks:
Ellis Act — Legislation has been introduced to substantially weaken the state Ellis Act and allow local jurisdictions to prohibit rental property owners from selling or converting their buildings. This would force rental property owners to stay in business even if they are losing money.
Seismic retrofit – Legislation would require the seismic… Read More
Tagged: AdvocacyLegislation
Question: After a lease expires and it is month-to-month, how much notice must a tenant give me in order to legally terminate the lease? He says one week. Is this true?
Answer: In California, 30-days written notice is required to terminate a month-to-month tenancy and can be served by either party at any time during the tenancy. If all of the occupants have been in possession for one year or longer, the landlord must serve a 60-day notice.
Question: Someone told me that if a resident is committing a crime on the premises they can be evicted in three days. … Read More
Question: A tenant’s guests broke a window of the recreation room by throwing a ball through it. The host tenant claims he should not be responsible because the damage occurred outside the apartment and while they were playing catch in the common area. My tenant also refuses to give me the name or any information about his guest who caused the damage. What can I do?
Answer: In California, tenants are liable for the negligence of their guests while on the premises. The premises not only includes the actual rented unit, but the common area as well. Therefore the tenant… Read More
Tagged: ColumnsComplianceLegal Q&A
Overall, San Francisco rents were up 2.74 percent last year, but not every neighborhood contributed to that statistic, according to the real estate website Zumper.
In some areas of San Francisco, rent prices were either flat or veered the other direction.
Check out the color-coded map with this BusinessInsider.com article.
It shows rents spiking dramatically in some neighborhoods, such as Soma and Bernal Heights, but decreasing in other parts of The City. The Financial District, for example, dropped more than 10 percent in rents, according to the map.
But much of the media talk centers instead on rents in traditionally… Read More
Tagged: Rental Prices
A former California Assembly speaker delivered a dinnertime speech. The state’s legislative analyst offered a bright economic forecast. And rental housing leaders took aim at California’s drought.
These are some of the highlights from the California Apartment Association’s first board meeting of 2014, held Thursday, Feb. 20.
On the eve of the meeting, CAA held its leadership dinner, with former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg as the guest speaker.
Now running for state Senate District 18, Hertzberg provided a boisterous speech that touched on a number of issues, from his own political background to the far-reaching influences of technology to how… Read More
Tagged: Leadership
The city of Anaheim on Tuesday unanimously approved a self-inspection program for multi-family housing, allowing property managers to examine apartments themselves — without paying inspection fees.
This represents a big improvement over Anaheim’s original proposal to charge property owners $16 per unit for city officials to handle the inspections.
After learning of this proposal last year, the California Apartment Association immediately began negotiations with the city.
Over a nine-month period, CAA’s South Coast/Orange County division successfully eliminated the fee and created the self-inspection program.
To show further support of CAA, the Anaheim City Council amended the ordinance during Tuesday’s meeting… Read More
Tagged: InspectionsLegislation Orange County
Foster City will likely ban smoking in most public places, but the city won’t regulate the habit on private property, including apartments.
During a study session Monday, the City Council told staff to proceed with an anti-smoking ordinance but to leave out multi-family and single-family homes. The vote was 4-1.
The California Apartment Association has been working with the city on the smoking ordinance since the idea came up in September.
At Monday’s session, CAA pointed out that renters increasingly demand smoke-free housing, and property owners are listening.
“Due to the fact that most multifamily building communities are voluntarily smoke-free,… Read More
Tagged: LegislationSmoking Tri-County
Question: Do I have to pay a tenant interest on his security deposit?
Answer: There are no state laws requiring that interest be paid on the tenant’s security deposit. However, some rent control ordinances and/or other local ordinances do require interest to be paid.
Question: We served a three-day notice to pay rent or quit. What is the latest date we could start an unlawful detainer without our three-day notice “becoming stale” and having to be re-served?
Answer: It depends on the facts of any given case, but the longer you wait, the more of an argument you are giving… Read More
AB 2405 (Ammiano, D-San Francisco)
This bill would convert all Ellis Act court filings to general civil actions; they would not fall under the usual expedited unlawful detainer eviction process as they now do. This means that Ellis Act proceedings if challenged by a tenant in court would take years to finalize. The clerk of the court would be prohibited from allowing the general public to access the court records filed in the Ellis Act civil case. The bill will also allow a city or county to completely prohibit use of the Ellis Act by owners if the city or… Read More
Tagged: Ellis Act