Would You Rent to Susan Again?

More than half of Los Angeles residents are renters (probably considering of the high cost of homeownership)—at 64 percent, it's the fourth-highest percentage of any major U.S. metro area, according to Zillow.

But how many of those renters are familiar with their bones rights equally tenants?

There are online repositories of of import tenant info, of course. In that location's the comprehensive (sometimes overwhelmingly so) website for the city'southward Housing and Community Investment Section, for instance, as well as websites for off-white housing and tenant advancement groups, such as the Coalition for Economic Survival, Housing Rights Center, and the Los Angeles Tenants Wedlock. Nosotros spoke to the experts at these groups to put together a quick primer on a few central rights all tenants should know.

1.

All tenants have a correct to clean, habitable housing, and landlords are required to maintain livable units—ones in which doors and windows are not broken; the roof and walls continue out h2o; plumbing works and dispenses hot and cold h2o; and in that location are no vermin running free in the edifice and unit. There are more legal qualifications, merely this is the gist. "Basically, tenants accept a right not to alive in slum housing," a rep for the Housing Rights Center says.

two.

If a unit is not habitable, the landlord is supposed to remedy it immediately, and technically the landlord is not supposed to collect rent for that unit until information technology is habitable once more. Only a lingering problem doesn't mean that tenants should decide to end paying rent.

"People are hearing almost rent strikes, and we've had an increment in tenants who recollect, 'Well, there's a problem in my unit, and then I can stop paying rent,'" says Susan Hunter, a caseworker in the Hollywood chapter of the Los Angeles Tenants Union. That's definitely non the case.

Hunter says it's important to know that even in a rent strike, participating tenants are still paying their rent—their money just goes into an escrow account instead of to their landlord.

"You're helping the landlord in the long run if yous don't get through the [correct] process," because past not paying rent, tenants put themselves at chance of eviction for non-payment.

Continuing to pay rent allows the tenant to accept the upper hand in the state of affairs: They can always point to the fact that in the landlord-tenant compact, they're property upwards their end of the bargain.

3.

Got a problem with your apartment, and your landlord is non doing annihilation about it? Experts recommend that yous offset tell your landlord verbally. If the problem persists, graduate to a dated letter detailing the result, taking timestamped pictures of the problem and other documentation that could afterwards be used, if needed, to show that your landlord was aware of the outcome. If that doesn't work, the Housing and Customs Investment Department (HCID) has some information here nearly how to initiate the city inspection process. Information technology'll consequence the landlord a letter of the alphabet telling them to fix the issues fast.

"People sit down on complaints, because they think if they brand a complaint, they'll get evicted," says Hunter. But in that location are state laws and provisions of the city'due south rent-stabilization ordinance that protect tenants who file complaints from retaliation. "Allow [the landlord] know that there'southward a problem. If they don't ready it in ii weeks, call the housing section or the health department," Hunter says.

iv.

Only allow's say the problem doesn't get stock-still, even after a 60-twenty-four hours find is issued to your landlord by the city. Unfortunately, both HCID and the Housing Rights Center seem to hold that the all-time thing you lot tin probably exercise is sue your landlord for the rent yous paid while you were living in a gross place.

5.

In Los Angeles, in that location are lot of places that have been converted into living spaces without the proper residential permits—a garage that's been turned into a i-bedroom, for example.

If you lot are living in one of those illegal apartments, you take the same protections that a tenant in a permitted apartment would have. If the unit is in a hire-controlled building, you take additional rights and protections. (Don't know if your building is under rent control? Hither'southward a guide to finding that information.)

The Housing Rights Center advises that renters e'er write checks for their rent, put a note in the memo along the lines of "rent for (address)," and get a receipt every time. That mode, at that place's a paper trail that can institute tenancy downward the line, if needed.

6.

When can your landlord come into your unit? Unless it'southward an emergency—in which case, the landlord tin enter without any notice at all—your landlord has to give yous 24 hours discover, whether it's to give potential new tenants a tour, to come in to make repairs or improvements, or to let in the workers who are making those improvements. And even with proper discover, they're just supposed to enter during normal business hours.

vii.

How often can a landlord raise your hire, legally?

Rent-controlled housing can only have hire increases once a yr, and the rent can only go upwardly by a certain percent, equally decided by the city. That rate is 4 percent in Los Angeles until June 2020, just the rates vary for other cities. (There are also sure fees a landlord tin pass on to their rent-controlled tenants, outlined on the housing department's website.)

If you live in a not-rent-controlled unit that is 15 years old or older, a new land constabulary comes into play. The law, which went into effect on January 1 says that landlords tin't enhance the rent more twice in a year, and they can't raise the hire past more than a full of 5 percent, plus the Consumer Toll Index rate for your metro surface area (it's 3.3 percent for LA and Long Beach). There are several exceptions, listed on this helpful one-sheet from the Legal Aid Foundation of LA, only in a nutshell, the police force provides more protections than were previously in place for tenants whose units are not rent-stabilized.

That said, information technology's unclear how robust enforcement will be, since in that location isn't an establishment at the state level to crack down. Experts and lawmakers say that if a landlord is violating these rules, the renter's best and but recourse at the moment is taking that landlord to court.

eight.

Some other big advantage of living in an apartment that is rent-controlled is your protection against no-error evictions—situations in which you, the tenant, didn't practice anything wrong.

If you live in a rent-controlled flat, in that location are a limited number of reasons, establish here, for which you lot may exist evicted. Rent-controlled tenants are too entitled to mandated relocation fourth dimension and bounty if they are evicted via the Ellis Human activity, and the amount increases according to how long a tenant has lived in the building. Caput's up: some landlords try to get tenants out quicker by offer them cash to exit voluntarily, without going through the Ellis Deed process. (More about that below.)

If you do not live in a rent-controlled apartment, there are fewer restrictions on evictions than in that location are on rent-controlled units, however the state's new rent-cap law says that a landlord must now evidence just cause to evict you. Once again, though, if your landlord is violating this rule, your only recourse correct now is taking that landlord to court.

nine.

If you live in a rent-stabilized building and get a find that says you're being evicted through the Ellis Human action, call the housing section and verify that your landlord has actually filed the correct paperwork for evictions through the Ellis Act.

If they have not, Hunter says, information technology is possible that what is happening to your unit of measurement and likely your whole building is a practice called "greenbacks for keys." That's when edifice owners pay rent-stabilized tenants coin to exit the apartment voluntarily as a fashion to avoid going through the expensive and long Ellis Act process.

If the eviction notice is not actually an Ellis Act eviction, "All you have to do is say 'no,'" Hunter says. In this instance, tenants are non obligated to sign anything or do annihilation or take money just considering it'south offered. In fact, if your landlord gives you a phony Ellis Act eviction notice, you can report him to HCID, says Hunter.

In many cases, the coin offered with "greenbacks for keys" might seem like a lot, just it's really ordinarily less than what tenants are entitled to under the Ellis Act. The calculation for relocation assist under the Ellis Act takes into account the time tenants have lived on the belongings, their age, their income, and whether they accept a disability.

10.

Starting this year, information technology's illegal for LA landlords to discriminate confronting tenants who use Section 8 vouchers.

That means rental ads that say "No Section 8" are no longer allowed, and a landlord can't refuse to rent to tenants only because they pay their rent with the help of the federal plan for depression-income renters.

The law doesn't hateful that a landlord must rent to a Department eight tenant. At that place are plenty of legal reasons they tin deny someone an apartment, including a depression credit score or a history of evictions. Just housing advocates have said that the police goes a long way toward ensuring that the vouchers get used to help depression-income people find housing, and helping keep people out of homelessness.

Prior to passing the constabulary, Los Angeles had programs to entice landlords to accept the vouchers, only landlords have said that the rental rates that the vouchers cover haven't kept up with the rise rents in the city and have cited loads of red tape that comes with the voucher program.

11.

Lesser line: If something seems off well-nigh your rented living situation, don't ignore it. If you've gotten weird notices telling you you need to move out, or the rules of your edifice have suddenly go strict under new ownership, seek input from a tenants' rights organization or the housing section.

"We constantly see that tenants are confronted with situations, not knowing their rights, and end up losing their homes," says Larry Gross of the Coalition for Economic Survival. "In many situations, if tenants knew their rights, they'd withal accept a roof over their heads."

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Source: https://la.curbed.com/2017/4/19/15360412/renters-rights-los-angeles-california-eviction

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