The Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles has filed a lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles seeking to prohibit the city’s enforcement of two recently passed renter-protection ordinances.
The lawsuit, which was filed in the Superior Court of the State of California, seeks to overturn two city ordinances, one requiring a financial threshold of past-due rent equal to one month’s fair market rent be met prior to initiating eviction proceedings, and another that forces rental housing providers to pay substantial penalties when a rent increase on housing legally exempt from either local or state rent control rules exceeds a specified percentage.
“These new ordinances are clearly illegal under state law,” said Cheryl Turner, board president of the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles.
“Under state law’s Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, rental units such as newer construction, single-family homes, and condominiums are exempted from price controls such as rent stabilization ordinances, yet the city’s new ordinance No. 1877764 potentially imposes severe financial penalties on any owner that increases rent above specified limits on a rental unit that is exempt from rent control, should the renter then decide to relocate,” she added.
Turner, who is an attorney, added, “This new requirement that a housing provider sit back and allow past-due rent to accumulate in order to meet the city’s required financial threshold of what it constitutes as past-due rent flies in the face of state law, which allows owners to serve three-day notices and initiate legal proceedings to quickly recover rent owed after the due date to pay rent has passed. Now owners may have to wait months or even years, at which point the past-due rent will likely never be collectible and renters may now stay housed in violation of their lease agreement without recourse.”
The city’s ordinance has created a scenario where renters, not the property owners, can effectively establish the amount of rent they wish to pay, according to Turner.
Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles’ Executive Director Daniel Yukelson said, “Now, anyone who owns a condominium or single-family home in the city of Los Angeles will be subjected to very complicated and potentially costly regulations should they decide to rent their properties temporarily or otherwise. In particular, the latest move by the city of Los Angeles under ordinance No. 1877764 provides protection to the city’s wealthiest renters – often those who make far more income than the individuals providing them with their housing. A renter living in a mansion in Bel Air, for example, is now being given protections by the city and might receive thousands of dollars in unwarranted benefits.”
Regarding ordinance No. 187763 requiring that a financial threshold of past-due rent be met prior to proceeding with an eviction, Yukelson said that “unscsrupulous renters” can string out legally owed rent payments for months or even years in some cases by short-paying rent in increments of $50, $100 or more per month, and rental property owners will be left with little or no recourse whatsoever.
According to Yukelson, once any portion of unpaid rent is past due more than 12 months, there are very few remedies under state law to collect the aged, accumulated rental debt.
The Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles is no stranger to lawsuits.
In March, the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles and the Apartment Owners Association of California filed a joint lawsuit against Los Angeles County seeking, among other relief, an injunction against the enforcement of the County of Los Angeles’s residential eviction moratorium, for which a preliminary injunction was granted.
The Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles also joined Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association in filing a lawsuit last December against Measure ULA, claiming that the measure violates state and local tax law because it is a special tax designated for a specific purpose.
