If a rent controlled unit is not the master tenant’s primary address, can the rent be raised to market rate? Not necessarily. For the past 25 years we have written about the benefits of the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, a state law which permits an owner to impose an unrestricted rent increase when the last
Am I required to have an on-site manager for my 16-unit building? There is a resident who takes care of the building’s maintenance for me in exchange for discounted rent. Is this good enough? The short answer is “no.” There is common misunderstanding about this requirement in our industry. The law that speaks to this
The last master tenant moved out of my unit and is asking me to return the security deposit. I know I have 21 days to return it, but I just sent a market-rate rent increase notice to the subtenants residing in the apartment, to which they have 60 days to respond. I’m wary of returning
When noticing my tenants of a rent increase, should I include the names of unauthorized subtenants? Absolutely not. In 2018, we, the multi-family housing industry in California, spent upwards of $70 million to defeat Proposition 10, a ballot initiative that would have repealed the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act and further diminished the supply of new
This November, our industry faces its toughest challenge in almost thirty years: Saving Costa-Hawkins from repeal and preventing the inevitable rebirth and expansion of vacancy control. More than enough ballot signatures have been collected and certified to place the Costa-Hawkins repeal measure on the November 2018 state ballot, meaning between now and then the campaign
We bought a tenant-occupied duplex and didn’t revise the lease at the time of purchase. The same tenant is still there, and there are some changes we’d like to make to the lease, including use of common areas. Can we change the lease, two years after taking ownership? You must first serve a thirty-day written