Daniel's chat to rental housing providers and the professionals who serve them

As we rang in the New Year, the sky did not fall with the arrival of statewide rent caps and eviction controls. To the contrary, AB-1482 has tempered the urges of local municipalities to impose their own draconian measures.

In San Francisco, there is an ominous proposal to further regulate buyout agreements and in Oakland, some are looking to make it harder for landlords to convert apartments to condos. Other crackpot ideas that would be detrimental to owners are constantly floated around, of course.

For the most part, though, our industry has reached a state of equilibrium in terms of both state law and local ordinances, with relatively little uncertainty remaining.

That is not to say there will not be dustups along the way and we do not have concerns.

Vacant property owners have been increasingly assigned inordinate blame for the affordable housing dearth, not only subjected to punitive vacancy taxes, but targeted by a rising squatters’ rights movement that advocates for the occupation of empty homes. Worse yet, their cause is gaining empathy.

We went to bat with you in the San Francisco Chronicle and further stake your case in our recent blog.

Although it seems that much of our practice is devoted to enforcing the covenants of a lease and spelling out what tenants cannot do, it is refreshing to report newfound protections they can enjoy.

In this legal update, we discuss a newly minted state law that ensures a tenant’s right to display religious items.

When Airbnb took root on our home soil of San Francisco, we always predicted that the law would catch up with technology, and it now outpaces it. Bornstein Law has seen a spike in the delivery of warning letters to short-term rental hosts, and we share an example of what you might receive from the letter carrier if you do not follow the rules to the letter.

However well-settled AB-1482 is at this late date, there are many lingering questions about statewide rent control and just cause evictions. We will resolve the quandaries in our January 22nd webinar and if you haven’t already registered to join us, we invite you to register and get the log-in credentials here.

Dedicated to the success of your real estate business,