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In a flurry of activity before adjourning for the year on Aug. 31, California lawmakers approved a number of CAA-supported bills intended to boost the state’s housing supply.
In the paragraphs that follow, we summarize the most significant of those housing-supply proposals.
Gov. Jerry Brown has until the end of this month to sign or veto the following:
Tagged: Legislative Summary
The California Apartment Association is mobilizing its members and coalition partners to help stop a temporary rent control measure from coming to unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County.
On Tuesday, Sept. 11, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors will decide whether to pursue a temporary 3 percent rent cap for areas of the county that fall outside city jurisdictions. Click here to read the motion by Supervisors Sheila Kuehl and Hilda L. Solis and here to see Tuesday’s agenda.
A bipartisan coalition of political leaders from across California has urged voters to reject a ballot measure that would repeal the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act and return radical forms of rent control to the state.
The coalition, including officials from the city, county and state levels, says Proposition 10 would hurt local budgets while underming efforts to tackle California’s affordable housing crisis, the No on Prop 10 campaign said in a news release.
If voters approve Prop 10 in the Nov. 6 election, cities will be authorized to apply rent control to single-family homes and new multifamily housing. They’ll also… Read More
Tagged: Costa-HawkinsNews
Thanks to CAA, a recently signed law ensuring a tenant’s ability to pay rent through a third party also contains protections for landlords.
Historically, landlords have been unwilling to accept payments from third parties over concerns that a third party would claim a right to possession of the unit.
The California Apartment Association worked with the author, Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, to prevent this from happening.
Tagged: Legislation
Less than four months remain before a California plumbing code change bans water-wasting fixtures in older multifamily housing.
The code change comes from Senate Bill 407, a water-conservation law that’s been rolled out in phases since 2009. The phase taking effect on Jan. 1 applies to pre-1994 multifamily housing and commercial buildings.
Since the mid-1990s, California has required that all plumbing fixtures sold within the state meet water-conserving benchmarks. So if you’ve replaced your fixtures since that time, you are likely in compliance.
But if your apartment building was built before Jan. 1, 1994 — and you still have some… Read More
Tagged: ColumnsComplianceNews
Question: If a rental unit is broken into and there is subsequent damage, who is responsible for the repairs?
Answer: If the damage is to the rental property as opposed to the tenant’s personal items, the tenant could be held responsible if the landlord could prove the tenant was negligent for instance by leaving their doors or windows unlocked. Otherwise, the landlord would likely be responsible to fix the repair, but would not be responsible for the tenant’s personal items.
Tagged: ColumnsComplianceLegal Q&A
After missing a deadline to place rent control before Sacramento voters this fall, tenant advocates on Thursday submitted signatures in hopes of qualifying their initiative for the March 2020 ballot.
Sacramento city officials will now determine whether tenant activists submitted the required number of valid voter signatures to qualify the measure. If the petition is rejected, tenant activists, including members of Service Employees International Union and Alliance of Californians for Community Engagement, would need to start the initiative process over for any chance at making the ballot in 2020.
After resoundingly rejecting rent control and just-cause eviction proposals in October 2017, the city of Palo Alto early Tuesday morning adopted a relocation-assistance emergency ordinance for no-fault evictions.
Since the ordinance was adopted as an emergency, it took effect immediately following the City Council’s vote. The new law only applies to rental properties with 50 or more units.
Under the new law, affected property owners can continue to remove tenants without cause. However, a relocation payment to the household of up to $20,000 will be required if the household makes up to 100 percent of the area median income, or… Read More
The California Apartment Association today published revised versions of several forms related to the tenant-screening process.
The revisions come in response to an Aug. 20 California Supreme Court decision in Connor v. First Student. The ruling expanded the application of a California law known as the Investigative Consumer Reporting Agencies Act. Under this act, landlords, employers and consumer-reporting agencies must follow the procedures for “investigative consumer reports” when seeking and providing reports that relate to an applicant’s “character, general reputation, personal characteristics, and mode of living.” The law doesn’t define these terms, but in the rental housing context, unlawful-detainer eviction… Read More