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Rent Control: 11 Ways California Prop 10 Will Affect Your Business

This November, California voters will decide whether or not the local government will have the freedom to exercise rent control measures because the voter initiative that would repeal The Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act will be on the state ballot. If this existing 1995 law were to be repealed, cities will no longer be limited on implementing certain renter protections.

Rent Control: 11 Ways California Prop 10 Will Affect Your Business

Proposition 10 seems to be generating a lot of momentum due to the increasing high living costs in California but experts contain that it is the wrong way to go about providing an affordable housing solution. Some proposed ideas include increasing tax credits for renters, passing new bonds to provide public funding for affordable housing construction and requiring developers and cities to build more affordable housing across the state.

Reasons to Vote NO on PROP 10

There are many reasons to vote NO on PROP 10 and here are some of the cold hard facts on why you, as a landlord, property manager and rental property owner should vote NO.

Prop 10..

  • Means allowing for possible extreme rent control measures and the setting of limits on single family homes.
  • Would allow for permanent caps on how much landlords can charge for rent.
  • Not be limited to apartments and will affect single family homes.
  • Will allow regulators to set how much single family home owners can rent even a bedroom for.
  • Will reduce home values.
  • Will give politicians the power to decide what they think fair market value is.
  • Will reduce the availability to middle class affordable housing.
  • Will raise rent for everyone in California.
  • Will discourage new construction and result in rentals taken off the market which will cause a shortage in housing and worsen the crisis.
  • Does not provide any sort of affordable housing protection which could hurt veterans, elderly and low income families.
  • Will trickle down devastating tax effects by lowering the value of rental properties which will affect local property tax revenues by hundreds of millions of dollars.

What is Rent Control?

Rent control is a word used for laws and regulations whose intentions are to protect tenants and renters. These laws, for example, limit the amount of rent landlords can charge, specify reasons as to why and when landlords can evict a tenant, limit how much a landlord can raise rents and so forth.

For the majority of cities, these ordinances are established to prevent extreme and sudden rent hikes but some critics argue that rent control rules are starting to take on different shapes.

One example is requiring “just-cause” terminations which mean a tenant can only be evicted if they don’t pay rent or if the landlord decides to move in to their property. In other words, the ordinance states that if the cause for eviction is out of the tenants’ hands, the landlord foots the bill.

When a city decides to come under some sort of rent control regime, they will create a mediation process as part of their control policies and often create a board which will be in charge of handling petitions for changes either by tenants or landlords to regulations and limits.

Current cities in California under some sort of rent control include Alameda, Berkeley, Beverly Hills, East Palo Alto, Hayward, LA, Los Gatos, Mountain View, Oakland, Palm Springs, Richmond, San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Monica and West Hollywood.

Don’t forget to get out there and vote in November and vote NO on Prop 10 which will not only affect landlords by allowing politicians to get involved in how you manage your business but will also hurt the ones they’re trying to protect, the tenant.

Sources:

http://www.capradio.org/articles/2018/06/20/rent-control-is-coming-to-californias-november-ballot-heres-whats-at-stake/
https://noprop10.org/the-facts/

At Fast Eviction Service, help on any of the issues discussed in this article is simply a click or phone call away. Email intake@fastevict.com or call our office at (800) 686-8686 to discuss your questions for a free evaluation of your case.

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