Tenant Suit Against Irvine Co. Dismissed : Courts: The company leased apartments that officials knew would be converted into condos, tenants had alleged. But judge rules they have no legal basis to sue.

An Orange County Superior Court judge on Wednesday dismissed a suit alleging that the Irvine Co. failed to notify tenants that the apartments they had leased would later be turned into condominiums.

Judge Randell L. Wilkinson agreed with the Irvine Co.’s argument that the tenants had no legal basis for filing the civil suit. Leases for many of the tenants filing the suit already had expired, and those rental agreements had become month to month.

“Whether the units were condos or apartments is not for this court to determine,” Wilkinson said. The tenants “can’t prove damages.”

Represented by members of Tenants United For Fairness at the hearing, tenants said the Irvine Co. leased units in a development in Orange, near Rancho Santiago College’s Orange facility, for periods of six months to one year, knowing that they would later be turned into condominiums.

But L. Scott Karlin, the attorney representing the tenants, said the tenants were misled.

“We are not suggesting that any of these tenants should stay a day past that stated on the lease. All the tenants are saying is that when I go to rent a home, tell me the truth.”

Many residents would not have moved in if they had known that the apartments would later be converted to condominiums, Karlin said.

Originally, he said, the tenants only wanted to keep their apartments. The suit, however, also sought compensation for moving expenses and emotional stress.

Karlin said that more than 500 families were affected.

Coincidentally, a bill singed by Gov. Pete Wilson on Wednesday requires landlords to notify tenants before signing their leases that the apartments might later be sold as condominiums.

Tenants United For Fairness had lobbied for that bill.

“It would have been one huge loophole waiting for the next person to fall into the web,” said Henry del Rio, a member of that group and a tenant in one of the Irvine Co. complexes in Orange. “Renters across the board would have been at the mercy of the developers.”

Since the law is not retroactive, it will not affect tenants in the Irvine Co. case. Karlin said he planned to appeal the ruling.

“I’m disappointed that the judge could make this kind of landmark ruling,” Karlin said. “If taken literally, it would just open a Pandora’s box. It would let any landowner in the state say any lies, fail to disclose important information about the rental units, so long as the tenant is month-to-month.”