Sacramento Report
By Ron Kingston

Should landlords and property managers be placed in an impossible position of violating a city or county law which has significant penalties or violating state and federal laws if they choose to comply with the local government requirement?

If Escondido City had begun to enforce an ordinance that it approved on October 18, 2007 and was due to go into effect on November 18, 2007, landlords that have property in that city that choose to comply with state and federal law would have violated that cities law. Enforcement of the ordinance would have made it illegal to “let, lease or rent a dwelling unit to an illegal alien”. Violation of the ordinance would have permitted the city to deny or suspend the business license of the landlord or property manager without any hearing prior to denial or suspension of the license. Further the landlord would have been prohibited from collecting any rent. If a landlord was found to have violated the law more than once, he or she would have been fined $1000 per violation per day and/or a jail term of six months.

And if that wasn’t enough, the city ordinance that required the landlord to remove the “illegal alien” from the dwelling would have his or hers business license suspended until the landlord submitted an affidavit to the city that demonstrated the violation had ended and identified the new address of the “illegal alien”.

Landlords that choose to comply with the Escondido City ordinance would have only ten days to “correct the violation” presumably by evicting the tenant(s) who is an “illegal alien”. This is contrary to state law that prescribes the rights and procedures that must be followed should a landlord decided to proceed with an eviction.

Further, the ordinance placed landlords and tenants in a position that they could not dispute the alleged violation before sanctions were imposed. Landlords had only ten days to correct the violation or face fines and other penalties.The court granted relief for landlords, property managers and tenants in a series of preliminary rulings days before the city was due to enforce the ordinance. Finally, the city determined that it would rescind the ordinance.

Your Association determined that the action of Escondido City was a shot across the bow. Landlords and property managers should never be placed in a legal position of trying to comply with one law while violating several others. Landlords and property managers should not be placed in a position to enforce the law. Nor should they be placed in a position to violate the state and federal anti discrimination and fair housing laws.

As a consequence, AACSC is sponsoring a bill before the California Legislature that is authored by Assembly Member Chuck Calderon. It is to prohibit cities and counties from requiring landlords and property managers from enforcing any law that relates to immigration and citizenship status, because the Association maintains that the federal is exclusively charged with enforcing immigration laws and landlords should never be placed in a position of de facto cops by demanding that they are charged with enforcement responsibilities of government.