A Tale of Two Tenants : One May Have to Move Out While Other Stays On as ‘Guest’
If King Solomon were still around to make legal decisions, a case being heard this morning in Santa Monica Municipal Court might be perfectly suited to the wise king’s talents.
At first, Wilkes vs. Gioe would appear to be a standard eviction under the provisions of the state’s Ellis Act, which allows landlords in rent-controlled areas to quit the rental business by withdrawing their units from the market. In Santa Monica, landlords frequently invoke the act because they say stringent laws have kept rents so low that the rental business isn’t worth the hassle.
But in this case, there’s a twist.
The landlords say that one of their two tenants, 87-year-old Leon Russell, can remain, rent-free, in the bungalow he has occupied for 31 years. He’ll become their guest. The other tenant, Phillip Gioe, has to go and Gioe is crying foul, contending the plan is a misuse of the Ellis Act. The landlords, he asserts, are just camouflaging a selective eviction by wrapping it around the emotional specter of an old man becoming homeless.
“We’re at the point where we don’t want any more renters,” says landlord Jack Roten. “If Leon was a younger man, he’d be going too. But due to his age, he can stay. He can stay rent-free until his dying days.”
In 1986, Roten and Kenneth Wilkes, partners in a dirt-bike manufacturing company, bought a three-bedroom house with three bungalow rental units behind it for $270,000. Roten lives in the house with his wife. When they bought the property, a room in the house’s attic also was rented, as well as a one-room apartment in the house.
Using cajoling or monetary inducements, Roten and Wilkes have managed to get all the tenants off the property except two: Russell, who pays $259 a month for a one-bedroom bungalow, and Gioe, a writer and screenwriter, who pays $100 for a studio bungalow plus another $136 for the attic room, which he uses primarily as an office.
Roten and Wilkes have had a stormy relationship with Gioe from the start. Some of the disputes have been over repairs, but what really burns them up is Gioe’s legal right--tested in an acrimonious rent-control hearing--to occupy the attic, which he enters through an outside staircase.
“We have to get Gioe out of the attic,” says Roten. “My privacy is being invaded by the guy flushing the toilet every night.”
They’ve offered Gioe, who has lived in the bungalow for more than a decade, up to $12,000 to leave both units or $5,000 to leave just the attic. Gioe, who declines to give his age but who appears to be in his late 30s, has turned down the offers.
“The letters they write are so insulting,” he says. “They’re written with a ‘Take this, you jerk’ attitude. But I’m willing to sit down and talk. What they don’t seem to understand is that even if you’re paying rent, after awhile a place becomes home.”
Gioe suggests that the landlords could rent him an empty bungalow in exchange for the attic. The landlords reply that, at this point, they’ve had it with the rental business and they want him gone. Gioe contends they can’t evict him selectively--so, in effect, Russell would have to be evicted as well.
If Gioe were forced to move under an Ellis Act eviction, he would receive a rent-control-mandated relocation fee of $4,000. Russell’s would be $3,750.
The rental units at the center of the dispute are well-kept, cozy living quarters in a good neighborhood three blocks from the beach. All have a partial view of the ocean. They’re the type of small bungalow apartments common in Hollywood and Raymond Chandler detective stories. They’re homes-in-miniature. And at those rents they’re incredible bargains.
“It’s near the ocean. The air is fairly good. There’s a view of the ocean. I like it for that,” says Russell. “The other reason is, where would I go? There’s nothing I could afford. The kind of place I have runs $1,000 a month these days.”
If Solomon were judging the case, he might suggest a compromise whereby the tenants paid more rent. Make it financially attractive for the landlords to stay in the rental business. But under Santa Monica’s rent-control law, this is illegal.
In the Bible, there’s no mention of Solomon having to deal with lawyers, but you can be certain this isn’t the case in Santa Monica: Roten and Wilkes have engaged the services of two attorneys. Gioe, who was once a paralegal and can recite chapter and verse of the Ellis Act, has one. In fact, the only one without legal counsel is Russell.
Coincidentally, the Municipal Court magistrate hearing the case, Judge David Finkel, is a former rent-control commissioner.
Roten and Wilkes have retained attorney Dwayne Hall to handle the eviction, plus Tom Nitti, to take care of “Ellis-ing” the property. (In Santa Monica, the Ellis Act is bandied around so much that it is used as noun, verb and adverb.)
Nitti is a fervent opponent of rent control. From his point of view, Roten and Wilkes are perfectly within their rights to let Russell stay as a guest.
“A lot of people have assumed that under Ellis, a landlord has to evict all the tenants,” says Nitti. “But nowhere in the rent board regulations does it say that. The only requirement is that the landlord go out of the rental business.”
Gioe has retained Lisa Monk Borrino, also a Santa Monica Rent Control Board commissioner. She supports rent control with the same fervor as Nitti opposes it.
“This is a complete abuse of the Ellis Act,” Borrino declares. “What this landlord is trying to do is pick and choose who he has live there. Under Ellis, they have to withdraw all accommodations, period.
What both sides do seem to agree upon is that they have Russell’s best interests at heart.
“If we don’t fight now, then Leon loses all his rights,” says Gioe. “What if they decide six months from now they want Leon out of the apartment? He’s got no legal rights.”
Landlord Roten points out that if he didn’t care about Russell he’d evict both tenants under the Ellis Act.
“Why would we go through all this expense and in six months change the locks on Leon?” says Roten. “We’re trying to make Leon’s life easier. Otherwise, Leon would be basically out on the street. He wouldn’t have a clue to finding a residential unit.”
Russell himself is alert and exceedingly polite, as you might expect for a former first trumpet in the Santa Monica symphony; he was in the band at Santa Monica High School, where he graduated in 1922.
As befits a man who’s managed, Solomon-like, to keep both sides in the dispute on his side, he’s very circumspect in answering questions. “I don’t want to offend either side,” he says. “I’m friendly with Phillip, and the landlords have been good to me.”
