New Rent Laws: Renters get longer notice for rent increases above 10%

New Rent Laws: Renters get longer notice for rent increases above 10%

By Lynda Carson - October 15, 2019

The renters in California are getting ripped off by the landlords from here to hell. According to Zumper, during October of 2019, San Francisco is listed as #1 in the nation for having the “highest median rents” for one bedroom units costing as much as $3,500 per month, Oakland is listed as #4 in the nation at $2,480 per month, with San Jose coming in at #5 with $2,460 per month for rent, Los Angeles is listed as #7 in the nation with median rents for a one bedroom unit at #2,270 per month, and San Diego is listed as #9 in the nation with the median monthly rent for a one bedroom unit going for $1,800.

With rents this outrageous and the greed of landlords running amuck, it’s no surprise that California has a homelessness crisis.

However, starting January 1, 2020, AB 1110 takes effect which requires landlords to serve tenants in a residential dwelling with a month-to-month tenancy a “90 day notice” if the landlord “jacks up the rent” by more than 10%. Presently, the landlords are required to serve the tenants a “60 day notice” before raising the rent more than 10%.

According to AB 1110, “It is the intent of the Legislature to respond to tight rental market conditions by providing tenants with additional notice when served with rent increases of more than 10 percent. The longer notice period prescribed in this act provide tenants with additional time to respond to rent increases. The longer notice period is not intended to constitute rent control, nor is it intended as a statement of public policy regarding acceptable or unacceptable levels of rent increases.”

Considering that Gov. Newsom signed AB 1482 into law, a “watered down rent law” that also goes into effect on January 1, 2020, which places a cap on rents at 5% plus inflation, in addition to statewide “just cause eviction protections” for renters in covered units, its difficult to tell what effect AB 1110 will have to protect renters.

Additionally, since AB 1482 was watered down before Newsom signed the bill, reportedly activists are collecting signatures for the Rental Affordability Act for voters to vote on in 2020, “In just two short months, rent control advocates in California have collected more than 325,000 signatures for the Rental Affordability Act, a statewide ballot measure that will allow local communities to expand rent control in California. The total number collected so far by the organizations leading the effort, Housing Is A Human Right and AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), is slightly more than half the 623,212 signatures needed to qualify the initiative for the November 2020 California election. Backers of the initiative intend to collect more than 915,000 voter signatures as a cushion for the state’s signature verification process.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom also signed SB 329, a bill that protects Section 8 tenants (a.k.a. Housing Choice Voucher holders). SB 329 makes it illegal in California beginning Jan. 1, 2020, for landlords to reject a Section 8 voucher holder as a prospective tenant solely based on the applicants use of a federally subsidized Section 8 housing voucher (a.k.a. Housing Choice Voucher).


Alleged Notorious Landlord Attorney Dennis P. Block Urges Evictions Before January 1, 2020:


Reportedly, wealthy landlord attorney Dennis P. Block is urging landlords to hand out no-fault eviction notices to tenants with low rents, before the new rent laws take effect on January 1, 2020.

Reportedly, Dennis Block is allegedly a notorious pro-landlord attorney who brags about evicting more than 200,000 renters since 1976, and apparently Dennis Block of Calabasas, CA., loves to rant and rave against rent control laws on his Twitter account, but has been repeatedly trashed on Yelp.

Reportedly, during January of 2019, the court of appeals in California revives malicious prosecution suit against Dennis P. Block.

Unfortunately, reportedly Gov. Newsom vetoed SB 5, which would have raised billions of dollars for much needed affordable housing projects in California.

Lynda Carson may be reached at tenantsrule [at] yahoo.com

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