Sacramento Report
By Ron Kingston

For more than a year we have steadily worked on SB 782 (Yee), a bill that we took quite seriously. It had originally proposed to protect victims and aggressors of domestic violence in residential rental housing.

The bill had proposed a novel, illusory and easily misunderstood law—a civil proceeding that would have permitted a victim of domestic violence and the aggressor a right to remain in rental property. If such a dangerous condition would have been required under law to remain, we would have been prohibited from taking immediate action to provide for the safety of tenants, including the victim..

This year there was a sea of change of content on the measure that still addresses victims of domestic violence in rental housing. Notably, the bill was totally rewritten, and we were one of two apartment associations (the other was the Apartment Association of Orange County) that not only continued to devote numerous hours to the bill, but obtained many amendments.

The bill that was just approved by the Assembly Judiciary Committee looks nothing like last year’s bill. It is important to:

• Review the content of the “new” bill.
• Understand our most recent position.
• Discuss why we differ from the state apartment association’s position. The bill as amended:
• Landlords would be prohibited from terminating a tenancy based on acts of domestic violence if:
• The acts are documented with a temporary restraining order or emergency protective order or an issuance of a written police report stating that the tenant filed a report alleging that he or she was a victim of domestic violence issued within the last 180 days. A copy of one of the reports must be delivered to the landlord.
• The person against whom the order or report has been issued is not a tenant of the same dwelling.
• The landlord believes the presence of the person against whom the order or report was issued is a threat to other tenants, the landlord gave at least a 3-day notice to correct AND the victim allowed the aggressor to visit the property for any reason.
• A very important negotiated amendment that we focused on was to remove the liability of the landlord to other tenants for any action that could arise due to the landlord’s compliance with this bill should it become law. This is a very important amendment for landlords for obvious reasons.
• Landlords would be required to change the exterior locks of a protected tenant’s dwelling unit upon written request of the protected tenant not later than 24 hours after the protected tenant gives the landlord a copy of a court order issued within the last 180 days against a person who IS a tenant in the same dwelling; and if the landlord fails to change the locks, the protected tenant may change the locks of similar or better quality in a workmanship like manner and the tenant may change it without the landlord’s permission under certain circumstances.
  Landlords would not be liable to the person excluded from the dwelling in this situation. The person excluded would continue to be liable to perform under the rental agreement. There is a similar procedure where the person that is excluded from the unit is NOT a tenant. In that case, landlords already are not liable to that person to provide access to the unit, etc.

Our most recent position:

• Despite the substantial and meaningful progress that we have made with the author and sponsors on this important measure, we lead the opposition before the Assembly Judiciary Committee because:
• If the victim elects to remain in possession, we will never be able to terminate a tenancy.
• Three-day notices to correct a violation (a nuisance or interfering with the quiet enjoyment of the property) will become meaningless because we will not be able to enforce it.
• Note that the Apartment Association of Orange County devoted testimony to the problems with the replacement of exterior locks to the dwelling. Of key importance was to give a landlord the right to change the locks prior to the victim taking action. The only other opponent was the Apartment Association of Greater LA.

The state apartment association position:

• Supported the bill without qualification. We hope you understand why you are separately represented before the California Legislature.

Ron may be reached at: Ron@CALPCG.com
or you can call him at (916) 447-7229.