Sacramento Report
By Ron Kingston

Over 40 of 120 members of the California Legislature are new and have arrived with a high degree of energy and interest in issues, including matters of great interest to landlords and property managers.

If experience is our teacher, this “freshman class” of legislators, not unlike previous classes, has arrived with ideas to help solve the problems of fellow Californians. Let’s look at a few bills from 2006. Last year, for example, a legislator learned of one homeowner in a homeowner association having difficulty in displaying a political campaign sign. That legislator quickly learned that while the homeowner could follow a specific state law giving him new legal rights, tenants did not have similar rights. So, SB 540 was introduced. That bill would have permitted tenants to display campaign signs relating to any election or legislative vote in all windows of apartments and anywhere on the exterior surface and yard of a single-family rentals. Your Association successfully opposed that bill for several reasons. Among the reasons to oppose the bill was we argued that government could cite and fine landlords for tenants that violate the sign law and we would loose control over the appearance of rental property.

Another bill a legislator introduced last year was to impose new “clarifying language” to the state law on condominium conversions. The “clarifying language” that the legislator was seeking would have resulted in an outright ban of conversions. One of the provisions in the bill would have required landlords to assure no financial hardship was created on any tenant that could or choose not to purchase the apartment that was proposed to be converted. AACSC successfully opposed that measure as well.

Then there was a bill last year that would have required landlords that “go out of business” to divest of all real estate holdings. I suspect I don’t need to explain why the Association opposed this bill.

All-in-all, there were three dozen bills that AACSC was actively involved in last year. If history proves itself, we can expect a similar number of bills this year. Let’s briefly look at bills that will be introduced this year.

We are already aware that tenants will sponsor a bill this year to extend the number of days that a tenant can respond to in an unlawful detainer (UD) action.

Senator Leland Yee (D.- San Francisco) will author a bill that will permit landlords to voluntarily offer to sell a surety bond to an incoming tenant instead of a security deposit. The sponsor of the bill, Sure Deposit, is offering the bond to landlords in 40 other states. More will be written about the bill in the coming months.

Of course we can expect at least one bill to be introduced this year to address liability of landlords and property managers and safety of tenants when confronting a prospective tenant that is a Megan’s Law sex offender.

Finally, AACSC will sponsor a bill this year that will prohibit cities and counties from enacting and enforcing law that will prohibit landlords from renting to illegal immigrants. The Association will argue that laws like this are discriminatory. This was a significant issue in the city of Escondido recently. Last year members of the Escondido City Council approved on a 3-2 vote, an ordinance that would have barred landlords from renting to illegal immigrants. The ordinance was scheduled to go into effect on November 17, 2006. A judge however put the ordinance on hold and sided with plaintiffs in a series of preliminary rulings in November. Ultimately, the ordinance was withdrawn but the possibility of an identical or similar ordinance being considered by other local governments remains a very serious threat.