The Santa Monica City Council in March of 2017 approved a law mandating the earthquake retrofitting of vulnerable buildings that may not survive a major earthquake without potentially fatal damage.  Santa Monica has an estimated 1,660 “Soft story” buildings, which are multi-story buildings where floors have wide spaces or other openings such as apartment buildings ..Read More

The governor is set to sign and enact Assembly Bill 1482 within a few weeks which means landlords will be limited to raising rent to no more than 5% plus local inflation, which in California is 2.5% on average. The bill is now sitting on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk and he has said he will ..Read More

The Los Angeles City Council has adopted a Home-Sharing Ordinance that establishes a legal process to allow home owners or residents to rent their primary address to short term visitors. The new ordinance became effective on July 1st, 2019. The ordinance requires hosts to register their short-term rentals with the city and also requires them ..Read More

On Wednesday, September 11, 2019, the California Legislature passed a bill that would make it illegal to reject a prospective tenant based on the applicant’s enrollment in Section 8. The bill, proposed by Sen. Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles) would ban blanket policies against considering Section 8 recipients as tenants, which would include “No Section 8” ..Read More

Los Angeles County officials will vote tomorrow, Tuesday, Sept 10th, 2019 to direct staff to develop a permanent rent control ordinance. The ordinance will include: Rent Increases based on the Consumer Price Index Eviction controls and “just cause” requirements Relocation assistance in certain circumstances Rent registry These supervisors and county staff members have never studied ..Read More

Hello there! Today we will discuss some ideas to include in your rental criteria and go over an example that Patti Widget has provided to us. Having a solid idea of what you’re looking for in a tenant can save you valuable resources such as time and money. It also helps deter prospects that would ..Read More

As of August 1, 2019 it is illegal to reject potential clients based on the fact they are Section 8 recipients in the city of San Diego. What does this mean for landlords? It means that if the court finds there was some sort of violation of this new ordinance, the court will award against ..Read More

So what happens after you have won your eviction and you now have legal possession of your property? The first thing most landlords do is go inspect it. But what happens when you find the tenants left behind their personal belongings such as furniture, clothes, electronics etc.? There are steps you need to follow to ..Read More

Today’s episode covers the Declaration of Service of Notice. Remember that you can find this and most of the California notices in the free eviction notices section of our website. This form, which is also known as a Proof of Service or POS, is filed along with the copies of the notices served to the ..Read More

Under California’s existing “no-fault” tenant rental law a landlord may terminate a renter’s tenancy by issuing either a 30 or 60 Day Notice to Vacate – the length of time depending upon weather the renter had been in the unit  for under or over a year. However, along with the spread of rent control, over ..Read More