No less than 43 counties in California have emergency-related rent caps because of Mother Nature.

In earlier venues, we were a bit critical of emergency declarations because they had no impact on rental housing. A heat wave, a drought, an oil spill in the Pacific Ocean, or an infection of a citrus tree, for example, have no bearing on housing demand.

This time, the emergency is consequential to landlords and tenants.

It is prudent in ordinary times to consult an attorney whenever a rent increase is contemplated, but especially so when there are emergency declarations that trigger price-gouging bans on existing tenancies and also to rent hikes at unit turnover.

It is worth mentioning that rent cannot be demanded in the event of a government-required evacuation, since the unit is deemed to be uninhabitable.

As a sidebar, there are many tenants complaining about water intrusion and we will have to remediate the problem and handle these complaints. Many renters are asking for concessions, some of them unreasonable, but we will have to deal with them in a compassionate manner.