Calls for increased tenant protections have reverberated to Washington

A groundswell of support for stricter tenant protections crosses the desk of President Biden, although California has been the greatest laboratory of tenant rights and is unlikely to be impacted.

There are a handful of measures being mulled over by Biden administration officials, but none of them should be new to California landlords.

Initiatives include making criminal records off-limits when screening rental applicants, sealing eviction records, and giving tenants the right to counsel when they are staring at an eviction, as well as prohibiting discrimination against affordable housing vouchers in violation of fair housing laws.

There are a handful of states, including California, that already have this covered, so our community can ignore any agenda being contemplated on the federal level.

We can't help but draw a parallel to concerns when there was a federal eviction moratorium put into place during the heart of the pandemic - it was irrelevant to California's rental housing community because the Golden state already had more stringent protections in place.

We are concerned about calls for a new Federal Interagency Council on Tenants' Rights, a body that will add further oversight, but this is just an idea proposed by progressive lawmakers that is far-flung in the future.

We can discard, for now, any federal proposals to regulate landlord-tenant relationships because California and/or local governments will double down on them if they haven't already.

Rest assured, Bornstein Law will keep you abreast of developments as they take shape.