Rent Control

Some cities have rent control, eviction protections, mediation, 
or mobilehome rent controls

    Rent control is a special set of laws that particular cities adopt. It generally includes rent increase
limits and eviction restrictions. Some cities' rent controls require relocation assistance to be paid to
tenants under certain circumstances, and interest on security deposits. Some cities have rent control only for mobilehome and RV parks, but not apartments. Some cities only have Just Cause Eviction, but not rent control. Some cities have only weak "mediation" programs to appear to do something.   Check the list.

    These laws apply only to the city that enacts them, and not to other cities, nor to every rental unit in the city. One of the most commonly misunderstood ideas by tenants is that they were under rent control, when they weren't. Don't assume. Find out. Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, and West Hollywood have rent control, but Glendale, Burbank, Torrance, Pasadena,  Downey, and other cities nearby have nothing like it. 

Giant Los Angeles
   Tenants may live in such places as Encino, Van Nuys, Hollywood, Northridge, San Pedro, Westchester, Canoga Park, Venice, and Hollywood, and think they don't live in "Los Angeles." However, these are all parts of the City of Los Angeles, and not separate cities, at all.  These are rent controlled areas. In contrast, people living in this general area of the country we call "LA" may actually live in a separate city, falsely believing that they have rent control to protect them. If you are in the Los Angeles area and pay water and electricity, check your bill to see what city is getting it. Los Angeles has "DWP" as their utility. 
    Here's a map to help you determine if you're an Angeleno.  
    For a simplified explanation of Los Angeles rent control, look here.

Not All Units are Covered
    Adding to the confusion is what structures have rent control. Just because they are in a rent
controlled city does not include them within the protection of those laws. For example, Los Angeles
passed rent control in 1978 amid cries from the landlords that rent control would prevent future
apartment construction, so Los Angeles exempted any structure built after October, 1978 as a
political compromise. Newer structures [built after 1978] in Los Angeles are not under rent control, at all. 
    Under the "Costa-Hawkins" law, when a tenant voluntarily leaves or is evicted for most reasons [ie, not 30-day notice, nor after change of a term, for that term], the landlord can raise the rent to ANY AMOUNT for the new tenant, whose rents are thereafter locked into the rent control limits [4% or whatever].  Any rental unit built after 2/1/95, as well as houses and condos, are not under rent restrictions.  However, even where these rent restrictions do not apply, eviction protections do continue. 

     Cities that have rent control provide call-in numbers where you can find out whether the area you
live in has rent control and whether your unit is registered under that rent control. You can also have
them mail you a packet of the rent control law, if you love the details. Start with your City Clerk.

Without  Rent Control, gouging increases are legal
    Since rent control is primarily a limit on rent increases, if your city doesn't have rent control, your landlord can raise your rent to any amount he wants, even $1,000,000 per day. And he can increase it every day, and twice on Sunday. He doesn't have to give you your money's worth, have made any improvements to justify it, or give you any benefit in return. He doesn't have to charge the other tenants the same amount, and he can give them privileges which you don't have. Without rent control, the landlord can suddenly change your terms of tenancy, such as to take away your parking spaces, or the right to keep your pet. Without rent control, you can be evicted for no reason, so that a power-mad manager who tells you to do something can back it up with an eviction for your disobeying the manager's orders. 

    Without rent control, all you get is a 30-day notice of the increase or or any other change of terms of tenancy, except that under State law you get a 60-day notice of a  rent increase which will make the new amount more than 10% higher than it was 12 months previously. [Civil Code 827] That is, if you've had 3 increases over the past year -5%, 4% and now 3%, the 3% increase has to be a 60-day notice, because it will now bring the year's total increases above the 10% mark. Also, the new law adds 5 days for mailed notices of change of terms of tenancy. A mailed 30-day notice is effective 35 days later; a mailed 60-day notice is effective 65 days later. 

How Can We Get Rent Control? 

   Rent control is really only necessary where the vacancy rate in the area is below about 5%, because at about that point, landlords don't worry about having a vacancy by raising the rent or neglecting repairs, and you don't have much of a choice when you look around. A vacancy rate of only 5% is considered by the housing experts to be an "emergency housing shortage." Currently in Los Angeles, and most congested cities, the vacancy rate is far worse: about 1%. Consequently, landlords are in control of a necessity of life that is in short supply. If you want a place to live, you pay whatever you have to, and the rest of the economy and you and suffer so that landlords gets richer. They certainly aren't raising the rents because they have to! Proposition 13 froze their property taxes decades ago, and their mortgage is a flat fee. They raise the rents because they can, and you pay whatever they ask in order to have a place to live. 

   There is no "free market" where a necessity of life is in such short supply. Rent control is the only way to stop these gouging rent increases. It is not likely going to be a state law, because the problem is local, related to city congestion. There is no more room to build housing, but the population continues to grow and the jobs are in the cities, so unless you're able to get a job outside the urban areas, you're stuck renting in the city. 

   There are two ways to get rent control. The easiest but weakest is for your City Council to enact it, as Los Angeles did. The hardest but strongest is where tenants organize and put rent control on the ballot by getting petition signatures [and then the voters approve it], like Santa Monica did. Both of these require tenant voting clout, that a large number of tenants are registered to vote, do vote in the local election, and all vote together. If the City Council enacts it, it would be an ordinance [city law], but the voters can make it a Charter Amendment [a city constitutional change, more powerful]. 

    Your first step would be to go to the City Council meeting, and during the Oral Presentation portion [or whatever public input is called there], you tell them about the problem and ask if they are considering enacting rent control [like Beverly Hills, Palm Springs, San Francisco, Santa Monica, and other high class towns have], or at least Just Cause Eviction, like Glendale [a notoriously conservative town] has. You want to mention these towns in your presentation, since their first knee-jerk reaction is that "rent control destroys cities," but they can hardly say that about those cities. 

    They say whatever publicly, but you then make an appointment with them individually to see where they personally stand and how far they would go. You might find that Just Cause Eviction is not objectionable, and that they might even agree with paying relocation assistance for tenants of buildings being demolished or going through major rehabilitation or termite fumigation. Avoid being confrontational with them. They don't want to offend the landlord contributors to their campaigns, but may be sympathetic enough to put their political toe into the water. If you get a majority of them to privately approve of something, one of them has to introduce the idea in public discussion.

   If the City Council is going to enact something, they want to be heroes for doing it, even if it's short of rent control. While they are getting ready to take that step, you'll want to be in touch with the local newspaper to talk about your plan to organize tenants for better legal protections. Once you're in the news, other tenants will start to contact you, and you can form a group that can all go the City Council and amplify what you have said. This public clamor then triggers the City Council's response to take action, and you're on your way.  The group thanks the City Council for their concern and they get to see the public reaction to that.  If it's a good reaction, they are encouraged to do more.

   Meanwhile, you do need to find other tenants who are both motivated to do something by their own situation and willing to put in some time to do it. Senior groups, some religious institutions, teachers, firemen, labor unions, the local Democratic Club or similar liberal group, some liberal organizations, and a lot of local business owners, can help in various ways to get the word out and help you form a political group. There are a lot of talkers, but few doers, so you want to get volunteers into project-based committees, which naturally filter out the talkers. Here's a helpful explanation for the new people.

   If you have to get rent control by petition, you might as well have the strongest possible law, since the landlords are not going to fight you any less if the law is weak. They fight dirty all the way, and always have. Election fraud is their main tool. Propaganda, false information, and misleading arguments are all you hear from them. They have the money to buy millions in political advertising, while you'll be lucky to get out one mailer to the voters.  They will have celebrities and public figures telling the public that Rent Control will bring crime to your city, turn it into a slum, drive down their property values, steal from the landlords, prevent the landlords from being able to pay for repairs, run up millions in taxpayer expenses, and force landlords to evict all their tenants. Here's some common rent control myths. None of these are true, of course, but unquestioning voters will be persuaded.  On your side, you have public controversy, newsworthiness, talk shows, newspaper stories, TV coverage, and pathetic stories about landlord abuses of vulnerable tenants. The political battle is not over the wording of the law, at all, but over emotional and philosophical issues in general. People who are against rent control will be against it no matter how weak it is. You can't persuade them. Don't waste your time. Getting out the tenant vote is your top priority, and getting them registered to vote is your hardest challenge..

   The technical wording of the rent control law requires a lawyer to write. It needs to be constitutional, not prevented by State laws, cover all the loopholes, and effectively create the kinds of protection you want. It has to be clear and organized, so that it can be easily followed and doesn't end up in court for years. When it is circulated for signatures, there are specific laws that must be followed as to procedure, format, timing, and public information, and you should have a lawyer's help to make sure that those things are done. This website CAN provide some of that assistance, but as a practical matter, local legal advice is necessary. For a start, here is a draft of a rent control law that you might want to circulate by petition in your city. It can be modified to some extent, easily, but major changes would require a re-drafting because so many things are interconnected within it. [Rent Control Draft] 

   Tenant voter registration is the critical part of this process. Tenants are so used to not having a say, not having their views considered, not having any power to change their lives, that voting seems inconsistent with how they've come to view themselves. Only about 5% of tenants actually vote in local elections. Tenants are truly a politically disenfranchised majority. Landlords are only 2% of the population, but seem to run things, because they leverage their money and power. A mere 10% tenant voter turnout could change the history of politics in your town. Politicians would stop saying they're against rent control, and start expressing concern for the abused tenants who need their help. It's a numbers game, to be sure. 

   If you are really sincere about wanting to take action, there are groups like ACORN that will help, for a percentage of your donations. There may already be a tenant group formed in your town, which the local reporters or city clerk might know about, and you can join them. You aren't the only one thinking like this.