Sacramento Report
By Ron Kingston

The Moment of Truth

This month the legislature must act on hundreds of bills that were introduced last year if the house in which they were introduced did not approve them. If they are not approved by that house, they will die on January 31,2008. There are a number of landlord and tenant bills that are subject to this legislative rule.

At the top of the parade are two bills that would seriously hurt our industry. The first is a measure carried by Senator Shelia Kuehl. Her measure, SB 464, is sponsored by the tenants and would require every new landlord to remain in business for the first 5-years of ownership. Can you imagine being forced to stay in business, regardless of circumstance? And if that was not enough, the bill would also require every landlord to give a minimum of one-year notice to vacate to all of the tenants if one or more tenants were a senior citizen (62 years old or older) or a disabled person.

Assembly Member Tran carries the second bill. This bill would affect most every eviction proceeding if the landlord was seeking to evict the tenant for non-payment of rent. The bill would allow a tenant in an unlawful detainer to file a general denial in the action, which alleges the non-payment of rent of up to $2500 (currently a tenant can file a general denial if the rent is $1000 or less). The impact of the bill would make it extremely easy for tenants to file a response to unlawful detainer filings and as a result, answers to legitimate evictions would, more likely than not, immediately escalate and landlords would lose tens of thousands of dollars of lost rent and be forced to retain counsel to handle the eviction.

The third bill that must be acted on this month is AB 1173 (Keene). If you own property with a master water meter you will be very interested in this bill. The bill would compel landlords that own property and have master water meters to retrofit each dwelling unit with a separate water meter if any repair or renovation was made that requires a building permit. If you simply repaired or replaced a water heater, dishwasher, replaced a roof, or upgraded the units to be more efficient, you would be forced to tear up the entire water line system and install a separate water meter. Can you imagine opening interior and exterior walls and floors to re-pipe each dwelling? So, if you follow the law you will bleed money and if you delay repairs and renovations everyone will suffer. This is what one would call a lose-lose situation.

One issue that shows a great deal of promise is SB 482 (Yee). The bill is to provide for an alternative that the landlord could, at his or her option, offer to sell a surety bond for the tenant to pay for in lieu of the tenant paying for a security deposit. It would lower the initial move-in costs of a tenant and landlords could be guaranteed payment in the default of rent or physical damage to the unit. One of the nation’s biggest surety bond companies, Sure Deposit, is sponsoring the bill.

There are a number of bills that seek to change a landlord’s standard of care and increase the liability of a landlord concerning Megan’s law. The most notable bill, AB 148 (Parra) proposes to authorize a lessor to refuse to provide housing to or evict a sex offender. This seems to be somewhat innocuous but can you imagine accessing the Megan’s law database to determine if any adult tenant or occupant was on that database?