State, Local Laws Offer Shelter of Fairness to Renters
Since January, renters in California have had for the first time the right to demand documentation for deductions landlords make from security deposits for repairs or cleaning.
That is just the latest in a series of landlord-tenant regulations -- many of them providing protections to renters -- enacted at the state and local levels in the last six years.
“There’s an inherent unfairness in a system that’s so complex and difficult,” said Steven Kellman, director of the Tenants Legal Center of San Diego. “A powerful landlord can illegally evict, and a guilty tenant can easily remain in a property.”
About 13.8 million people live in rented homes in California, including 4.7 million of Los Angeles County’s residents, according to the 2000 census. Nationally, one-third of Americans rent, according to the National Multi Housing Council.
Tenant laws vary widely by state, but New Jersey, New York and California are considered among the most consumer-friendly, said Barbara Vassallo, vice president for state and local policy for the National Apartment Assn., which has affiliates in 38 states and tracks about 2,000 legislative items each year.
The South tends to favor landlords more, she said.
Higher populations generate greater tenant organization, Vassallo said. Chicago, Boston, New York City and Los Angeles are the most heavily regulated, she said.
“We’re often teased for being the left coast, but in fact we often do things that the rest of the country picks up later,” said Janet Portman, an attorney and editor of “California Tenants’ Rights.” Laws passed recently, she said, “tightened up the procedures to make things more fair. For good landlords, it should not pose that great a burden.”
Debra Carlton, senior vice president of legislative affairs for the California Apartment Assn., said California is known for its friendliness to tenants.
“We do have owners who operate in many other states, and it’s unanimous that to operate in California is much more difficult,” Carlton said.
“California in general is one of the most tenant-friendly, landlord-hostile states,” said Jeffrey Lerman, a partner with Lerman and Lerman, a Bay Area law firm that specializes in real estate transactions and litigation. “California leans over backward both in legislation and courts to protect tenants.”
The amendment to the security deposit law, sponsored by state Sen. Tom Torlakson (D-Antioch), follows a change that took effect last year. Under that provision, landlords were required to provide tenants with a move-out inspection two weeks before residents’ departure, giving tenants the chance to clean and fix any damage themselves.
In California, up to twice the monthly rent, or three times the rent if the unit is furnished, may be required as a security deposit.
Robert Griswold, author of “Property Management for Dummies” and a rental property owner, said the objectives of the law are good, but he would have preferred that smaller repairs were exempt.
“If you deducted $400 for painting, you should see the bill, but if they replaced one flat in the mini-blinds? You’ve got to look for the big dollars and not the small change.”
Portman said the bill was necessary because “enough landlords were misusing this money. A lot of them were retaining it for illegal reasons and figuring that people would be intimidated or just not bother to take them to court.”
Property owners say keeping such close tabs on deductions will be costly.
“It’s probably going to add, I would say, several man-hours per week to our cost of doing business,” Griswold said. “Labor’s not cheap anymore, so to have someone digging through a file for receipts -- it seems like a simple thing but ... it slows down the whole process, increases the whole red tape of government.”
Deanna Kitamura, staff attorney with the Western Center on Law and Poverty, disagreed.
“If they’re legitimate deductions, what’s so hard about it? If you lose your receipt” there are ways that landlords can still prove deductions, she said. A copy of a catalog page that prices a similar item would be accepted, she said.
“I don’t understand how putting something in a file takes hours. Those arguments really don’t fly,” Kitamura said.
Property owners and advocates say the new law provides two benefits. It legitimizes the common practice by which landlords or their own workers complete repairs. It also allows a landlord to charge for estimates if the tenant fails to complete the repairs in 21 days, rather than having to wait for the work to be completed to deduct from the security deposit.
In addition to the deposit law, other measures protecting tenants were passed last year. Already a requirement for Spanish-speaking tenants, a law that came into effect this year mandates that a qualified interpreter translate the lease if the applicant speaks Tagalog, Chinese, Korean or Vietnamese.
A law passed in 2002 forces owners to give a 60-day notice to tenants in “no fault” evictions, but tenants need give only 30 days’ notice when they leave.
An amendment passed last year said landlords are no longer required to give a move-out inspection if the tenant is being evicted via a three-day notice, which is allowed in cases of criminal behavior or failure to pay rent.
Those are the sorts of regulations that make California among the most heavily regulated rental housing markets in the country.
Kitamura said those laws are needed to protect tenants because of California’s tight housing market.
In areas without rent control -- 12 cities in California have rent control, including Los Angeles, San Francisco and Santa Monica -- landlords can “up the rent if they give the proper notice, and they can up the rent as many times as they want,” Kitamura said.
“In this state, where there’s such a limited amount of rental units that are affordable, that’s really scary for a lot of tenants,” said Kitamura.
She said the lack of affordable housing caused many low-income people to live in deplorable conditions.
“The solution is more housing options,” Griswold said. “You build more units, which provides more choices for the tenants.”
Landlords who do not treat their tenants well will experience low vacancy or high turnover, the No. 1 cost for property owners, he said.
“What you need to do is really crack down on the bad ones -- do what you can to get them out of their business -- because we need more people renting units,” Griswold said. “Tenants are the ones who are buying you your future wealth and retirement. Treat them like gold.”
