Council Members Urge Seizing Slumlords’ Rent

Saying that even jail sentences have failed to deter Los Angeles’ slumlords, two City Council members proposed legislation Thursday that would empower the city to seize rents and use the money to finance repairs.

In a press conference staged near a graffiti-smeared building formerly owned by convicted slumlord Dr. Milton Avol, Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky and Councilwoman Gloria Molina said the “rent escrow account program” would ensure that buildings are brought up to code--whether the owner authorizes the work or not.

By threatening to “take away the mother’s milk of slumlordism--the monthly rent check,” even recalcitrant landlords would recognize the need to perform repairs, Yaroslavsky said.

Molina said she is optimistic that the council would support the measure. Recent council decisions have shown a stronger pro-tenant, anti-landlord ideology than in past years.

If approved, the measure would grant landlords who have been cited for health code and building and safety code violations six months to correct deficiencies. If the owners fail to bring their buildings up to standard in that time, the tenants would send their rent checks to a special escrow account administered by the city’s Community Development Department.

If the landlord did not act immediately to correct the problems, the city would then use the money to hire contractors to perform the repair work. In addition, the landlord would also be charged a 40% fee to cover the administration of repair work, as well as $50 per unit per month to cover the cost of setting up the escrow account.

Seek Reimbursement

Leftover money--if any--would be returned to the landlord. In cases requiring major repairs, the city would draw on city funds and seek reimbursement from both the escrowed rents and directly from the landlord.

Public hearings would be conducted before the escrow accounts are ordered, enabling landlords to appeal.

The proposal represents an ambitious escalation in efforts to enforce housing codes.

Under circumstances now, landlords face fines and jail time--but such action can be delayed for years through court appeals.

While tenants’ rights activists hailed the proposal, a landlords’ organization criticized it, saying it placed complete blame on property owners and none on tenants.

“They assume the landlords can clean those buildings up. But the landlords aren’t able to clean them up unless the tenants help them,” said Dan Faller, president of the Apartment Owners Assn. “There are enough laws on the books. They won’t even fight a tenant who has rats and cockroaches in his apartment. They just assume it’s the landlord. They should cite both parties.”

Dino Hirsch, an organizer of United Tenants, said the measure would mean “tremendous relief to tenants.” Hirsch said many landlords now routinely ignore orders to upgrade buildings, pocketing rent money that could go into repairs.

City records show that in 1985, the Department of Building and Safety issued 1,823 written code violations. Of these, more than 23% were not corrected within six months. Those property owners, under existing law, were prohibited by the state Franchise Tax Board from claiming tax deductions on the buildings.

Escrow Program

Although the escrow program may be used to correct problems created by the recent earthquakes, Yaroslavsky stressed that it would not be used to finance improvements required by the city’s seismic reinforcement law. Such seismic work is being administered in a separate building and safety program. Under that effort, all pre-1933 unreinforced masonry buildings are supposed to be buttressed by 1992.

Yaroslavsky and Molina said the rent escrow plan is necessary because even landlords who are required to serve jail time--such as Avol, who also served a widely publicized sentence in one of his own slum buildings--still profit from their slumlord practice, the council members said.

The rent escrow plan grew out of 1986 council hearings concerning the problem of utility shut-offs in master-metered buildings. At the time, the council learned of the City of Detroit’s program, in which special accounts are used to pay overdue utility bills and property taxes. Though that method was not used to resolve the utility shut-off problem--instead, a lien against the landlord’s property was adopted--Yaroslavsky urged that escrow accounts be studied as a way to improve substandard buildings.

The building that served as a backdrop for the press conference--”The Rutland” at 1839 S. Main St.--is the subject of a similar program enacted by court order. Under that plan, rents are being collected into an escrow account to be used to repair the building, but the courts have yet to release the funds, according to the city attorney’s office. The city has filed complaints against both Avol and the present owner, Hyoung Pak, trying to order repairs.