Los Angeles Evictions, Moratoriums, and Rent Collections

Nov 21, 2024

Attorney Edrin Shamtob from SNS Law Group recently joined a discussion with the Apartment Owners Association to talk about Los Angeles evictions, moratoriums, and rent collections in a post-COVID world, so landlords can stay up to date on these issues.

Transcript:

Apartment Owners Association

Hi, my name is Jeff Fowler, I’m the president of the Apartment Owners Association and it’s again such a joy to have you with us today. And man, they’ve made it so complicated to understand L.A. County, L.A. City, how all this works together with renter protections, and evictions, and when you can do a rent increase, when you can collect the rent, and so that is our topic today.

If you are wanting closed captions you can go to our Facebook page and there’s closed captions there for you if you’re watching live. And of course AOA is the largest individually organized group of apartment owners here in the state of California. And what we’re trying to do, our biggest goal, is for you to be successful and we’re trying to give you the content that you need the education that you need to avoid the landmines and to also find systems, create systems, that will help make property management easier for you.

One thing I want to highlight today is that we do have a contractors and vendors search engine. So, check that out if you go to aoausa.com and if you go to, there’s a contractors and vendors tab so you could go there and type in a specific field. Maybe roofing is a good one for today with all the rain that we’ve had and so you could go there and it will give you a list of the roofers based on the proximity to you.

If you haven’t joined AOA, I want you to know that there’s a free money back guarantee if it’s within your first year. And also it’s a flat fee. It’s $97 a year and that’s a flat fee, there’s no per unit surcharge for you. Isn’t that a wonderful thing not to have to do that.

We have, on March 7th, coming up in San Diego a property rights roundtable. We would love to have you there. Space is limited, so please register for that event as soon as you can.

We have the trade show coming up, if you can believe it. We’re less than two months away. That’s going to be on April 19th at the L.A. Convention Center and that event you’ll walk away with a lot of questions answered, I believe, and some good ideas to help you make and/or keep more money than ever before with your real estate investments.

And then next week on the live stream we do have the legal Q&A for the Bay Area. So if you’re in the Bay Area that’s really the time to tune in. This one here is really for L.A. County.

And then some things you may have missed, actually earlier today. We had the common California building code violations. That was part three in a three-part series and it was just rich and I think we all have different lenses to view things through because of that video. If you haven’t seen it you gotta go see it quick because we will take that down and make it so that it’s only available to members; and along with the other two parts, along with Michael Brennan’s habitability video. And so, that three-part series plus the habitability, it’s just super important.

And again, because our goal is to have the most successful group of apartment owners in the state of California, that’s specific information that we want to reserve for you. And so, you’ll be able to get that, I believe by tomorrow it all should be loaded in the member portal.

Guest Speaker: SNS Law Group

Just want to give a big shout out and thanks to SNS Law Group that made this video possible today. And they covered landlord tenant issues, business, corporate, and real estate law. And they cover, you know, I’ll let our speaker today share more about their business. But they do cover, not just L.A. County, but Orange County and Ventura County. And so you’ll want to check them out as well.

And so our speaker today, he’s been practicing law for 10 years and he graduated both from UCLA and USC. And he’s able to walk the tightrope on that one. He got a Juris Doctorate from the Gould School of Law at USC. And he covers a lot of different things: breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, partnership of shareholder litigation, unfair business practices, and misappropriation of trade secrets. And he has a strong legal and financial background that gives him expertise to successfully litigate complex real estate, financial, and business disputes, and the knowledge to counsel clients on multi-faceted business transactions.

And so, it’s my pleasure to introduce to you today, Edrin Shamtob.

Edrin Shamtob, Esq.

Thank you so much. I just wanted to thank you for the opportunity to be here with you and your wonderful audience.

As a little bit of a background—and today I’m going to be speaking about a wide range of issues impacting both landlords and tenants, focusing mainly in Los Angeles County and the City of Los Angeles.

But before I get into that, let me just do a very short introduction. My firm is SNS Law Group. I’ve been a practicing attorney now—I’ve had the good fortune and the privilege of being a practicing attorney here in California for about the last decade. My practice focuses on eviction actions, unlawful detainer actions, real estate litigation, and business litigation.

We’re trial lawyers here in my firm. We file actions, we aggressively pursue those actions, and we try to promote the best interests of our clients and get them the end results that they’re all looking for. So, just to provide an overview, I’m just going to have a pretty short discussion here on a few different topics that’s probably top of mind for AOA members and a lot of residents here in Los Angeles, both on the landlord and the tenant side.

Landlord-Tenant Discussion

The topics are going to be the RSO requirements, in general. And we’re talking about rent stabilized properties in the City of Los Angeles and the County of Los Angeles. The various moratoria that have been in effect, some of which continue to be in effect. Probably one of the most important issues for listeners here today is recovery of rental debt. The back rent that has accumulated over the past three years since the onset of COVID. And then some specifics on when landlords can increase rents and alter other terms of tenancies. And then finally, I’ll have a brief discussion on some of the more creative solutions, or options, my office employs to try to get out those pesky tenants so we can return these properties to landlords and they could put it to good beneficial monetary use.

Now the most important thing, the first thing, whenever I get a call from a client—and I’ve had hundreds, hundreds of landlord clients just in the past couple of years because of the owner’s restrictions that have been imposed since COVID took place—the first question I always ask is jurisdiction questions. Because depending on the location of the property, there’s going to be varying sets of rules. And they’re a complex web of rules that have been imposed. So, we have to take a look at city rules, we have to take a look at county rules, and we also have to take a look at statewide rules and regulations that may impact the tenancy and what landlords are able to do or not to do.

Today, I’ll mainly be covering the County of Los Angeles and the City of Los Angeles, because that’s probably where the primary number of our guests here today are from.

Los Angeles RSO (LARSO)

So first, before I get into the COVID issues—which again, I think are top of mind for a lot of people—I’d like to discuss the City of Los Angeles Rent Stabilization Ordinance (RSO). So, the RSO generally applies to multi-family units, so any property that has more than two units within the parcel. And properties that were constructed prior to 1978. And that’s a vast, vast, vast majority of properties here.

It’s very important that—whenever I get a client they say, “Hey, can you evict my tenant,” the first thing I ask them is, “Are you in compliance with the RSO?” And the RSO has a laundry list of things that landlords and property owners have to do to be in compliance. And if you’re not in compliance with those rules, you’re not permitted to evict a tenant.

So, I make sure that my clients, when they come in through the doors, that they’ve checked off all of these prerequisites in order for my office to take over and get these pesky tenants out of the properties

Registration of Rental Properties

The first thing that I’m sure you know—most, if not all, of our guests today know—that the properties have to be registered with the Housing Department. Okay, that’s number one.

Posting Registration Certificates

Number two, once you register and you pay the registration fee, you must post the registration certificate in a conspicuous place within the building. Typically that’s near the mailbox or near an entrance door of the property.

And I can’t tell you how many clients come through my door who have not fulfilled these requirements. And unfortunately, the city council, when they enacted the RSO, they imposed very stiff penalties for landlords’ failure to comply with those requirements.

Penalties for Failure to Comply with LARSO Requirements

First, as I mentioned earlier, you’re unable to evict. The statute provides an affirmative defense for any eviction action where the landlord hasn’t complied with these requirements.

Second, you’re not allowed to collect rent. You’re technically not allowed to collect rent.

Third, and this is maybe one of the biggest penalties that are imposed. You expose yourself to treble damages. The tenant can literally file a lawsuit for a violation of the RSO if you have not registered the property, you have not posted a registration certificate, and they can seek to claw back not only all of the rent that the landlord’s collected, over the term of the tenancy, but also treble damages which is three times the amount that has been collected.

And I’ve actually litigated cases on behalf of tenants before where I’ve clawed back a ton of money where landlords have not complied with these requirements.

And lastly, there’s a unilateral, there’s a one-way attorney’s fees provision. If a lawsuit is filed to claw back that rent when a landlord has not fulfilled the requirements, the tenant additionally gets to recover every penny of attorney’s fees expended in that action.

And we know why they’ve imposed these requirements. They want to make sure the landlords register their properties, they pay their fees, and they post a registration certificate. It’s really important that landlords adhere to these requirements, because there’s some stiff penalties if they fail to do that.

So that’s just a general overview of the City of Los Angeles RSO.

COVID

Now, everyone knows that we’ve been in this COVID mess since March 2020. It’s been three years that it’s been going on. And since COVID hit, both the City of Los Angeles and the County of Los Angeles, they’ve imposed very strict requirements on a number of different things: failure to pay rent, unauthorized occupants, unauthorized pets, there’s a whole laundry list of things that have been restricted.  So, I wanted just to have a brief discussion on those and then also discuss what the status of the current law is now.

County of Los Angeles Moratorium

Now, the County of Los Angeles moratorium—this was memorialized in the Tenant Protection Resolution. That’s the title, the fancy title that they have. But really what it was, it was a moratorium against evictions. What it did bar, like I said, it barred evictions due to failure to pay rent. It barred evictions for unauthorized pets and occupants. So tenants could literally move in an entire family, their cousins, their uncles, their nephews. And there’s restrictions on evicting them even though the lease agreement prohibits it.

Now, my clients they call me and they tell me, “There’s a moratorium, there’s a moratorium, I can’t get this person out,” and I tell them to slow down because you really have to take a look at the text of the resolution in order to do a particularized analysis and determine whether or not the privileges apply, the protections apply.

Declaration of Financial Distress

And there’s specific qualifications that have to be met. Not all tenants under the sun are entitled to the protections provided by the resolution. Under the county moratorium, the tenant has to provide a tenant declaration of financial distress where they state under penalty of perjury that “I’ve been impacted financially by COVID.” That declaration has to be provided within seven days of the rent due date. If a tenant does not provide that declaration, technically they’re not entitled to the protections.

That’s one of the first things we ask when we get a new client and we’re assessing the situation.

Income Limitation

The second requirement is that there’s an income limitation. If you have a very wealthy tenant who’s paying 20 grand a month, who’s making a million dollars a year, the protections do not apply to them. It’s actually a very small subset of tenants to whom the protection is applied.

They have to earn approximately less than $68,000 a year for one member household. If your tenant earns more than that, they are not entitled to the protections for the resolution. They have to actually incur COVID-related financial distress. In other words, they have to actually be impacted by COVID.

Drop in Income of at Least 10 Percent

Lastly, they have to have a drop in income of at least 10 percent from pre-pandemic levels. If they can’t—and this is something that happened kind of recently back in December. The county was sued based off of a contention that the moratorium was unconstitutional. And the Board of Supervisors came back and said, “Okay, now we’re gonna force the tenants to actually prove that they’ve been impacted by COVID.”

So, it is an affirmative defense. The burden and obligation is on the tenant now to come in and say, “I meet the income requirements. I’ve suffered a loss of income.”

So what we do when we file a lawsuit, the burden is on the tenant to come in and prove that. And as we know there’s a lot of fraud going on. Many, many, many tenants have have sought protections but they just can’t prove it at the end of the day.

It doesn’t apply to everyone. That’s really the message I’m trying to get across here.

When Does the Moratorium End?

And lastly, everyone wants to know when is this thing going to end. They’ve had a sunset provision, the expiration date, for the moratorium many times. It was supposed to expire last June and then they pushed it off to December. It was supposed to expire in December, they pushed it off to January. We have a current end date of March 31st, just at the end of this month where we’re all hoping that this resolution finally comes to an end.

I can’t make a guarantee of that, because they have, you know, it’s been a moving goal post this entire time. But we’re hoping that it does finally come to an end in just a few short weeks.

That covers the county—and by the way—it applies to the entirety of the county, not just the unincorporated region. So, to apply to the City of Los Angeles as well.

Strangely enough, although the county moratorium applied to the City of Los Angeles, the City of Los Angeles also—oh, I apologize, before I get into the City of Los Angeles I just want to give your viewers insights into what things will look like right after the expiration of the county moratorium, because they’ve imposed a few new requirements. Even when the moratorium expires, what the resolution states is that if you’re seeking to recover back rent that accumulated between July 2022 and March 2023, you are no longer allowed to issue or serve a three-day notice.

Since time immemorial, especially since I’ve been a practicing lawyer, it’s always been a three-day notice. Short period of time. Now what we’re required to do is issue a 30-day notice, which will give tenants a tremendous amount of time to comply with the demand and pay the money.

So, they’ve altered it from a three-day notice to a 30-day notice and that 30-day notice also applies if you’re seeking to evict a tenant for unauthorized occupants and unauthorized pets. Both of those previously required only a three-day notice, now a 30-day notice has been implemented.

So, that’s really important to know because if you’re trying to evict someone in April, you got to make sure you comply with the notice requirements.

City of Los Angeles, even though the county had a moratorium that applied to the city, the city had its own moratorium that was actually much more onerous. And I don’t need to necessarily get into the specifics of the city, because I have great news. The city moratorium came to an end February 1st 2023, just last month.

So, on the city level, the tenants are no longer protected under the moratorium but the county protection is still there until the end of this month.

New Landlord Requirements in the City of Los Angeles

However, when the city terminated their moratorium, they imposed new requirements as well. And this applies to all properties in the City of Los Angeles, not just rent stabilized properties, not just RSO properties.

Tenant Protection Fact Sheet

Any tenancy that commences from January 27, 2023, onwards, or any renewal of tenancies, landlords are required to provide a tenant protection fact sheet that literally conveys to the tenants all of the new protections that have been imposed on all real property in the City of Los Angeles, both RSO properties and non-rso properties.

Just Cause Evictions in Non-RSO Properties

And the biggest item of that—see the difference between RSO properties and non-RSO properties was that you were required for RSO properties to have just cause, you have to have a basis, some sort of violation of the lease agreement in order to evict. That did not apply to non-RSO properties. Well, now it does.

All properties in the City of Los Angeles are now subject to just cause eviction requirements, which means that you cannot voluntarily terminate a lease unilaterally anymore. You have to have some sort of violation of the lease, either the failure to pay rent, unauthorized pets, unauthorized occupants, modifications to the property, so on and so forth. You have to have a reason.

File Notices with the City of Los Angeles

And now, the city has kind of usurped the role of Big Brother. Now they’ve also imposed a requirement that any time a notice is served upon a tenant to terminate a tenancy—a three-day, a 30-day, a 60-day, a 90 day, whatever it is—the notice must be filed with the city. So they’re made aware of the landlord’s efforts and intent to evict the tenant.

If you do not send that notice to the city, you’re barred from proceeding with an eviction action. These eviction actions have become highly technical and we make sure to check off every single box under the sun to make sure that we’re firing off on all cylinders and we can get the job done.

Recovering Unpaid Rent

Now the biggest question in everyone’s mind. Let’s call a spade a spade, here. When can I get my money back?

I’ve had some clients, they come into my office literally crying because they have mortgage payments to make and they haven’t received a penny in rent in over three years. They’re literally on the brink of foreclosure or bankruptcy. They’ve still had to pay their insurance, they still have to pay their own mortgages, electricity bills, and so on, maintenance costs. All of this, they just haven’t received their money. So they want to know, “When can I get my money,” at the end of the day.

Well, just like last month, new requirements were imposed. They’re not as stringent as I expected, they’re a little bit more favorable to landlords, which shocked me, in light of everything else the city and the county has done.

But for rent that accumulated between March 2020 and September 2021, the tenant is obligated to repay those funds by August 1st of this year. If the tenant does not repay those funds by August 1st, you can evict them for the failure to repay the back rent.

For rent that accumulated between October 2021 and March 2023, you have to wait basically a year from now, about 11 months, to February of 2024. Okay.

Now, what’s important to note is the repayment period only applies if the tenant qualifies for the underlying protection. That’s what I talked about earlier. The income limitations, the drop in income, and the requirement for them to provide the declaration of financial distress. If they don’t qualify, their rent is due now. We do not have to wait until August, we do not have to wait until February of next year.

And one strategy that my office has been employing—everyone’s focused on evictions, but if you really want your money, we’ve been filing breach of contract actions. That doesn’t necessarily have to do with regaining possession of the property, but it has to do with collection of the back rent that’s owed. And a lot of the times, that’s enough to force the tenant to come to the table where we reach a mediated, or a resolution with the tenant. A settlement agreement with the tenant for payment of the back rent. And for them to vacate the premises.

Rental Increases

Rental increases also has to do with money. And this has also been a moving target over the last three years. And it’s caused a tremendous amount of confusion for a lot of people, but we know this stuff inside and out.

For RSO properties, City of Los Angeles RSO properties, in normal conditions—not COVID conditions, not moratorium conditions—you’re typically restricted to about a three percent increase, or 80 percent of the local CPI, okay. However, no rent increases for RSO properties right now are allowed, and they won’t be allowed until February 2024, unfortunately. Even though there has not been a single rent increase for the past three years.

Now, I don’t have a slide for the county, but for the county—and I’m talking about unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County—so long as the property is not subject to the L.A. County RSO, rent increases are permitted for those properties, okay. So a lot of people think that’s just a blanket prohibition, but it’s not a blanket prohibition, it really depends on the jurisdiction and the location of the property.

Eviction Solutions

And lastly I just want to discuss some some creative solutions that my office has been pursuing in the context of all of these restrictions and requirements that the city and the county have imposed over the last three years.

Unauthorized Pets and Occupants

Unauthorized pets and occupants. Although the resolution and the moratoriums—they provide that a landlord is not allowed to evict for unauthorized pets and occupants, there’s a qualification for that. The unauthorized pet or the occupants, their presence has to be, quote, necessitated by COVID. And I filed lawsuits, I have filed many eviction actions and the tenant has never been able to prove that my uncle had to move in here because of COVID. COVID ended a long time ago, so we’ve effectively evicted tenants for unauthorized occupants and pets for the last three years.

Other Lease Violations

The second thing I ask my clients is, “Hey, can we find another lease violation? Have they modified, have they broken a wall, have they put up a wall, are they improperly parking their vehicle, have they damaged the property?” We try to identify other lease violations that could serve as a sufficient and lawful basis for an eviction. And we’re quite good at identifying those basis.

Government Orders

The third a bullet point on this PowerPoint is something that just came up this past month when the City of Los Angeles moratorium went away. For properties that have received, or I should say, for landlords and property owners who have received government orders for violations of the building and safety code—in other words, a garage was converted without a permit, or there’s some other violation in the property—during COVID time you were not allowed to evict the tenant to comply with that government order.

Well, that is back on the table now and it’s actually very effective, because you have a government order that tells you you need to put this property back in its previous condition and now you’re allowed to issue a 60-day notice to the tenant asking them to vacate. And if they don’t vacate, you can file an eviction action to get rid of them in order to comply with the government order.

The catch to that, which in many instances is not a big deal, relocation fees do have to be paid through the tenant—those range from anywhere from about $9,000 to $22,000—but what I found is, I have clients who are elated to pay 10 grand to get these tenants out because they’re losing a lot more on the back end not being able to recover their rent timely. So we’ve had quite a number of cases coming through the door in the last month on these government compliance orders.

Security Deposit Violations

And lastly, security deposit violations. You have a right to amend the lease agreement. This is for non-RSO properties, I want to be clear about this. You have a right to amend the lease agreement in order to set the security deposit amount at two times the amount of the rent. If your tenant has not paid two times the amount of the rent, or doesn’t do so based off of the notice we would provide them, that would constitute at lease violation that would give us lawful grounds to evict the tenant.

So all of these strategies we’ve used up and down and they’ve been quite effective. And we’ve been able to restore possession of properties back to landlords so they can get it back on the rental market and start earning income, badly needed income.

SNS Law Group, LLP – Thank You

And with that, that basically concludes the presentation today. I want to thank you for an opportunity to speak with you today and kind of shed light on these issues.

Question and Answer

Jeff Faller

I think we have some questions.

Evict for Too Many People Not on the Lease

Q:

It’s L.A. County. Will we be able to start evicting for too many people, people not on the lease, pets, etc. starting April 1st?

You just answered the question didn’t you?

A:

Edrin Shamtob

Yeah, I sort of… and I want to be very clear about this, okay. There’s two requirements. First, the resolution states that you’re not allowed to evict for unauthorized occupants and pets, but that’s so long as their presence is necessitated by COVID. I had a case the other day where a female tenant moved in her new husband.  The guy ended up being a sex offender. And I tried to evict her. I did evict her and she said, “No, COVID, COVID, COVID. You can’t do it.”

I said his presence has nothing to do with COVID. The reason, and you admitted this, the reason he’s in there is because you just married him. And I was able to effectively do it. So the answer is, yes, but we have to assess the situation. And remember, you’re now required to provide a 30-day notice, not a three-day notice, in order to get that done

60-Day Notice to Sell Property?

Q:

I have a single family residence in the city of Santa Clarita. I want to sell this property. Can I give 60 days notice to my tenant and have no fault eviction without paying any expense on April 1st 2023?

A:

Edrin Shamtob

I have to check. Santa Clarita is part of L.A. County if I’m not mistaken. If it is part of L.A. County, not City of Los Angeles, okay, yes, you’re allowed to, in April, single family property, L.A. County, not subject to other rent stabilization ordinance, and assuming that the moratorium goes away, you should be able to issue that 60-day notice in April.

And I’m also going to assume that that the statewide rent control act does not apply. That’s a tenant protection act. Like I said, there’s various layers—city, county, state—I’m going to assume that the state rent rent control act, AB1482, doesn’t apply either, which also imposes just cause eviction requirements. If none of those apply, then yes, you can issue a 60-day notice and terminate the tenancy voluntarily.

Jeff Faller

And with all of this, these are general things and you’re not being paid to give legal advice at the moment. There always can be some little thing, but that’s a great answer, I think.

Edrin Shamtob

As a lawyer, my favorite answer is, “maybe,” because there’s a lot of facts that I need to know to assess the situation to give a more precise answer. And that’s why I qualify my responses with, “I need to know more information about the property and ownership,” and all of that.

Rent Increase in Unincorporated L.A. County?

Q:

I have a 12-unit building in unincorporated L.A. County. Is the rent freeze over on March 31st 2023? If so, can I serve a 30-day notice now for a rent increase?

A:

Edrin Shamtob

It depends. I need to know whether or not the unit is subject to the L.A. County RSO. And the L.A. County RSO is actually different, a little bit different than the City of Los Angeles RSO, because it has fully covered properties and it has partially covered properties. Because there’s two things that the county RSO does. It does a rent cap and then it has a just cause eviction requirement.

If the property is not fully covered—in other words, it’s not RSO or it’s partially covered, where it’s not both rent control and just cause—you’re allowed to increase rent now.

If you go above 10 percent on your rent increase, you have to give a 90-day notice. If you go below 10 it’s a 30-day notice.

How to Correct a Lease Agreement Mistake

Q:

I made a mistake on the rental agreement. I marked the two boxes on the AB1482 portion

Jeff Faller

So one of those boxes, this is the AOA lease agreement. One of them is it’s exempt the other one it’s not. So what should he do?

A:

Edrin Shamtob

I’m hoping that it’s exempt.  So if it’s exempt, just issue a notice of exemption. And a withdrawal of that previous notice that you sent. I mean, you’re not stuck in that position just because you accidentally checked off the box. The law is not that onerous.

So you just do a notice of withdrawal and then you do another notice of exemption issued with the proper box checked off.

Does Ending a Section 8 Tenancy for Renovations Require a Relocation Fee?

Q:

In the City of Burbank, if we terminate a Section 8 tenancy for renovation reasons after April 1st, do we have to pay tenants the relocation fee?

A:

Edrin Shamtob

I need to know a lot more information to answer that question. I’d have to see the Section 8 agreement because Section 8 has a, literally an agreement by itself. I have a lot of landlord clients who do Section 8. Sometimes there’s a requirement that you’re not allowed to unilaterally terminate it. Sometimes there’s a requirement that you have to pay relocation fees.

Assuming that none of those things apply, and assuming further that this is not subject to any RSO, and assuming further that it’s not subject to the statewide rent control act, you should be able to voluntarily issue that notice, yes.

I wish I could provide more precise answers, there’s just so much that… and I don’t want to misinform people because I just need a little bit more information on some of these questions.

Calling SNS Law Group for Assistance with Real Estate Law and Landlord-Tenant Law

Jeff Faller

If someone calls your office, what can they expect? Can they expect to talk to somebody immediately or is it going to be more like within 24 hours? What could they expect?

Edrin Shamtob

Any new client or existing clients come directly to me. I try to give personalized attention and services to my clients as much as possible. I know a lot of other firms who have 10, 12 lawyers that are just out of law school that landlords are passed off to when they come through the door.

When you come to our firm, you come directly to me. So I’m going to be controlling the cases myself and they’ll be able to reach me immediately.

Register a Single Family Home?

Q:

If I have a single house in Tarzana, do I need to register my property?

A:

Edrin Shamtob

The answer is no. I’m actually from the Valley. I used to live in Encino, I’m very familiar with Tarzana. Based off of the facts provided to me the answer is no. A single family property is not, does not have to… again, I would ask whether or not there’s an ADU on the property. That’s going to change the equation a little bit because then there’s two dwellings. That might make it subject to the RSO. But if it’s just one single property, one house, one home, it should not be subject to any RSO and therefore there would be no requirement for registration.

Declaration of Financial Distress

Q:

How do we know if the tenant has filed a declaration of financial stress?

A:

Edrin Shamtob

You would know because they have to hand it to you. They don’t file it with the court, they don’t send it to the city, they have to give it to you. They have to mail it to you, email it to you, hand it to you personally.

L.A. County Self-Certification Form and Eviction

Q:

City of L.A. The tenant submitted an old L.A. City self-certification form in February. If she does not submit the L.A. County self-certification this month, can I move forward with an eviction?

A:

Edrin Shamtob

The answer is probably yes. There’s a requirement to provide that. Because the city moratorium is gone, all right. So now, the county comes into the fold and the county requires a declaration to be delivered to the landlord within seven days of the rent due date.

Now, the wonderful members of the County Board of Supervisors what they’ve done is they have a little blurb in that resolution that says if the tenant fails to provide the declaration and that failure was due to, quote, extenuating circumstances—whatever the hell that means, nobody knows what it means—the tenant may be able to come later on down the road and give the declaration to cure the previous failure. I’ve seen that happen a little bit but we’ve had we have fired off lawsuits successfully when the tenants have not timely delivered those declarations.

Jeff Faller

One of the extenuating circumstances that I could think of is they were hospitalized for over a week and it just happened. So there are very, very few.

Edrin Shamtob

There are. They have a statutory requiring to provide that timely, and yes, hospitalization, something along those [lines], car crash, whatever it is, that would prevent him from doing so.

Four-plex in El Monte and Rent Increases

Q:

I have a four-plex in El Monte. The city has no rent control, so I wonder if Los Angeles County has any restrictions on rent increases besides the state restrictions.

A:

Edrin Shamtob

Assuming that the property is not subject to the L.A. County RSO, okay, then the statewide rent control act—because this is a multi-family property, it’s a fourplex—the statewide, the tenant protection act, would apply and that is capped at the greater of 10 percent, or 5 percent plus the change in CPI. Okay, so this is typically around 10 percent and that’s the ceiling that’s going to be imposed.

Cities in L.A. County

Q:

Does Inglewood, Hawthorne, and Long Beach fall under L.A. County?

A:

Edrin Shamtob

Yeah, I think so. I think all three of them. Because Long Beach is right before Orange County. Yeah, I think all three of them fall under L.A. County.

Which is kind of terrible because when you go out to Orange County, no restrictions, none of this stuff. And if you go out to Ventura County, also none of this stuff. Neither side has really imposed anything since the onset of the pandemic. Which is great for property owners there but terrible for property owners here in L.A.

Raise the Rent on Single Family Home

Q:

Property is a single family home built in 1950 in the city of L.A. Not RSO. If so, can I raise the rent? How much and when?

A:

Edrin Shamtob

It’s a single family property. Non-RSO. Yeah, she can increase the rent. It’s L.A. City but the L.A. City only applies to RSO properties. So long as it’s not an RSO property, you can—but my question to you would be, is the property subject to the Tenant Protection Act? Now, you’re telling me it’s a single family and there is an exemption in the Tenant Protection Act, but that only applies under two conditions. One, the property is owned by a natural person. In other words, not a corporation, okay. And two, you’ve provided a notice of exemption to the tenant.

If you check off both of those boxes, then the statewide rent cap doesn’t apply. The city rent cap doesn’t apply. The county rent cap doesn’t apply, and you’re good to go.

Jeff Faller

But if you haven’t submitted that form, definitely, no matter what, whether you’re needing to evict or not, just get that form submitted to your tenants if you’re exempt.

Tenant Self-Certified Financial Hardship Due to COVID

Q:

My tenant self-certified hardship due to COVID every month, but no proof of it.

A:

Edrin Shamtob

We need to know where the properties are located. I need to know whether it’s the City of Los Angeles or the County of Los Angeles. And I need to know what time frame we’re talking about. If we’re talking about after February 1st 2023, the city moratorium is gone.

And by the way, the city moratorium never required the tenants to prove that they incurred financial distress, it’s the county one. The city moratorium was much more onerous. That’s gone now.

The county requires the city—it is the burden—it requires the tenant, it is the burden of the tenant to prove the financial distress. It is an affirmative defense and the burden is on the tenant to come into court and say, “I make less than $68,000, I’ve suffered more than a ten percent drop in income from pre-pandemic levels.”

Jeff Faller

We sued L.A. County with AAGLA. We had that lawsuit and we’re actually cranking it back up because they extended it this other time and we thought. “Oh we’ll just kind of let it be,” but we actually are gonna… we’re preparing papers to file for summary judgment, I don’t know if you knew that or not.

Edrin Shamtob

I was unaware of that.

Jeff Faller

And then also, to hold them in contempt, because they didn’t really comply with the judge’s orders, in our opinion.

Edrin Shamtob

They didn’t. And thanks to the AOA and AAGLA for getting that federal judge to deem the resolution unconstitutionally vague. Only because of your efforts did the county come back and finally define what financial distress meant.

Before, everyone was guessing, is a one percent drop enough? Now they’ve said you need at least a 10 percent drop in income and it has to be proven by the tenant.

Jeff Faller

So that’s coming up and that does take cash. Attorneys don’t work for free unfortunately so, aoausa.com/pac if you’d like to contribute to the cause there. And there’s a lot of other stuff that comes up that we’ll be able to fight. It’s lawsuits and it’s also just getting the word out on different propositions and things that are going on. And we do not lobby, in the sense of paying somebody or paying officials, but we do spend it on lawsuits and on just getting the word out there on how destructive certain bills might be and getting people to vote in a way that will protect the housing industry, protect true affordability.

And then also, I just want to mention that we made a correction. A little while ago we had the wrong, maybe we had a different email address up, but the correct email address for SNS Law Group, it’s info@snslawgroup.com and that’s probably on the the lower third there where you could—at the bottom of the screen you should be able to see that.

Airbnb Guest Stays Over 30 Nights

Q:

What should we do when an Airbnb guest overstays 30 nights and claims tenant rights?

Edrin Shamtob

Well, I actually have dealt with that quite a bit as well. There’s a distinction in the law between tenants and lodgers. All of these protections that I—the past hour I’ve been speaking to—they only apply to tenants. So, the whole set of other requirements—that are far less onerous, far less restrictive than tenants rights—for the short-term rentals. So, you do have a good shot, a very good shot at getting rid of these people. Especially if they came through the Airbnb app and there’s no separate agreement between you and them.

Evict Unknown Adults

Q:

Single family home with tenants and unknown adults. No rent paid, three days served with tenants and all those in possession, in quotes. How are unknowns served with summons if inaccessible? Seems impossible requirement to evict.

Edrin Shamtob

The legislature, a very long time ago, addressed this issue. And this is a fantastic question, and as landlord attorneys we have a very powerful tool in our toolbox. When we file complaints, we don’t know—imagine an entire family is brought in. You don’t know the identities of those individuals, you can’t specifically name those individuals in the summons and a complaint.

What CCP—and this is California Code of Civil Procedure 415.46 if I’m not mistaken—it allows a landlord, or a landlord’s attorney, to serve what’s called a pre-judgment claim of right to possession. It’s a form that gets served on the tenant, the named tenant at the time the lawsuit is served, and what that does, it puts the onus on those unnamed occupants to appear in court within 10 days of service of that pre-judgment claim of right to possession in order to assert their rights to possession.

If they don’t come into the action within 10 days, my office defaults those unnamed occupants and they are captured within whatever judgment comes down the pipeline. So when we get a judgment, that prejudgment claim of right to possession was served, the default was entered. When the sheriff goes out there, they’ll kick everyone out. Doesn’t matter if they’re named in the complaint or not.

Evict Tenant with a Tenancy of Less Than a Year

Q:

Can I still evict a tenant with a tenancy of less than a year using a 30-day notice, even with the L.A. County COVID protections in place?

A:

Edrin Shamtob

I need to know what type of property it is and where it’s located. When we talk about the state level… the state level only kicks in once the tenants been there… once they have a one-year lease or they’ve been there longer than 12 months.

Under typical circumstances, the answer is yes. I don’t know exactly where the property is or what type of property it is, but you should, I want to say, you should be able to, depending on those other factors that I’m unaware of right now.

Jeff Faller

So, give them a call.

Edrin Shamtob

It’s difficult to answer and I don’t want to, again, I don’t want to misinform people without knowing some additional facts.

Evictions for Unauthorized Occupants

Q:

In L.A., evictions for unauthorized occupants: does fire safety civil code an affirmative defense for eviction? I.e., 10 people in a two-bedroom unit.

A:

Edrin Shamtob

This goes back to my other point about government compliance orders. Assuming that a government compliance order was issued in order to comply, saying you know this is a fire hazard, or whatever it is, you’re able to evict a tenant now, starting back in February. That’s opened up again. You just have to go through the proper channels, you got to file the declaration of intent to evict. To comply with the government order you’ve got to give out the 60-day notice and then pay the relocation fees.

Evict Based on Nuisance

Q:

Can I evict based on nuisance?

Jeff Faller

He’s not telling us where he’s at but it’s an additional tenant, which you’ve addressed, so we won’t talk about that one. How about just this part, the parking in front of the lawn, putting stuff in the carport, so there’s lease violations. Can they evict for that?

A:

Edrin Shamtob

Oh yeah, absolutely. And those are the things that we try to do to get creative in order to evict these tenants. We try to identify exactly those types of issues that are not protected. See, when we talk about nuisance, improperly parking your vehicle is… it doesn’t fall under a nuisance, it’s a lease violation. That’s what it is. Storing a bunch of items in an improper location that may create a fire hazard, or prevent ingress and egress, exit and entrance to the property, those are lease violations that would give you sufficient grounds to evict.

Jeff Faller

Common code violations, California building code violations, and we talked about that. You need to have a three foot path to exit the building and get through, so great point.

Can You Evict from an Unpermitted Unit

Q:

L.A. City and County: if someone has been living in an unpermitted unit, which I haven’t taken rent for, and they made a hole in two places in my property, damaging my property, is that grounds to evict?

A:

Edrin Shamtob

Excellent question. And the answer is no. Now, I want to be clear about this. When we’re talking about making holes, or damaging the property, under normal conditions, if you have a lease agreement, everything’s permitted, there’s a certificate of occupancy, you can absolutely evict.

Unfortunately, when there’s no certificate of occupancy, or the place was built without permits, the L.A. Municipal Code, what it states is that the tenants are granted an affirmative defense to any eviction when the landlord has not procured a certificate of occupancy. So you’re not going to be able to evict because of the damage to the property, but you will be able to evict to comply with the government order. Because the Building and Safety department is going to get on you and say you’re allowing people to live, there there’s no permits, there’s no certificate of occupancy, you need to convert the structure, the guest house back into its prior condition, and to do so, the tenants need to go.

And we’ve helped a lot of clients, by the way, in the last month, and they’ve been elated. Although they have to pay the relocation fees, they finally have an avenue to get rid of these people.

Jeff Faller

That’s a tough one. But man, it’s nice to be a little bit more free.

Edrin Shamtob

Yeah.

Declaration of COVID Hardship

Q:

If a tenant has not provided a declaration of COVID hardship within seven days, can they just make that attestation at court as an affirmative defense?

A:

Edrin Shamtob

Like I said, it depends. They’re technically required to provide it within seven days. The exception to that is if there’s extenuating circumstances that resulted in their failure to timely provide that declaration. So, the answer is maybe. I know that’s not a satisfying answer but it is an answer nonetheless. The answer is maybe and it depends on their excuse.

Some judges will look at it and say, “You know, getting drunk on your couch is not an extenuating circumstance,” all right. So, it depends.

Renter Protection Exemptions

Q:

Which renter protection lists are exempt for four units or less?

Jeff Faller

Is four units the cut off for AB1482?

Edrin Shamtob

No, it’s any multi-family. It’s never a four-unit, it’s always a two-unit.

Selling a Property with Tenants

Q:

Single family resident, City of L.A. with occupants over 62, over five years in the property, can I sell without paying relocation?

A:

You can always sell. You have an absolute right to sell the property anytime you want. The tenants have a right to stay, even though there’s a transfer of title to a prospective buyer. The better question is, are you able to evict because of a potential sale, and the answer to that is no.  You still need a sufficient lawful basis to evict the tenant and selling the property is not a sufficient lawful basis.

Charging Fees for Additional Tenants

Q:

I have a 22 unit building in the City of L.A., we have a $200 fee for adding a person to a tenant’s unit. When can I charge this fee?

A:

Edrin Shamtob

You should be able to start charging the fee in April, once the county moratorium goes away. Because the county moratorium prevents the assessment of any fees in addition to any rent increases. I don’t know what it’s going to look like post-April 1st. I don’t know if they’re going to continue prohibiting that. The language of any subsequent ordinance or resolution hasn’t been issued yet. But for now, you should be able to start in April, once the L.A. County moratorium goes away.

Jeff Faller

And that’s assuming she’s not under RSO.

Edrin Shamtob

That’s assuming she’s not under RSO, as well, yes.

3-Day Notice vs. 30-Day Notice for Unpaid Rent

Q:

Can we serve a three-day to any tenant who has met the threshold and did not pay for February and March rent, or does it need to be a 30-day notice to pay or quit?

A:

Edrin Shamtob

Fantastic question. The 30-day requirement only arises after expiration of the moratorium and arises in April. So you can, right now, today, we’re not in April yet—you can issue a three-day notice, even for the backrent that accumulated during the COVID-related back rent. Once April 1st comes around that shifts to a 30-day notice.

Eviction due to Non-Payment and Minimum Thresholds

Q:

My six-unit building is in L.A. City and is under RSO. Rent for a two-bedroom unit is $2,150. The tenant has never formally notified me of COVID, but did verbally mention it on 6/2022. No payments since September of 2021. Can I evict?

A:

Edrin Shamtob

The city moratorium went away February 1st. The city moratorium never imposed a requirement of a tenant providing a declaration. That was always under the county requirements. So, if you want to try to go back and get your rent, or evict for rent that arose prior to February, not a good idea, because that’s protected by the L.A. City moratorium.

If you want to look at February rent, which only falls within the auspices of L.A County, they’re required to give you the declaration, they didn’t give you a declaration, you have sufficient grounds to evict them.

Jeff Faller

In that two-bedroom, and the rent’s $2,150, the minimum threshold is $2,222, they still haven’t paid and we’re in March. So now they owe over that threshold of $2,222 and that’s why you’re saying it. Not just because it’s the $2,150.

Edrin Shamtob

Correct, correct, yeah, it has to… because the other ordinance that the city passed, which has put together this absurd, artificial number. Yeah, once you count both months, February and March together, then it surpasses that amount.

Long Beach Rent Control

Q:

I have three units in the city of Long Beach. Is it under rent control?

A:

Edrin Shamtob

There’s a very easy way for us to figure that out. And that’s going on a website called ZIMAS. That has a full directory of all City of Los Angeles rent control properties. County of Los Angeles does not have an online database, you have to contact the Business and Consumer Affairs office.

Late Payments for Rent

Q:

When can we ask for late payments? I have one tenant who always pays at the end of the month in San Pedro.

A:

Edrin Shamtob

You’re not allowed to impose late payments. It’s not even a question of collection, you weren’t allowed to impose late payments during the pendency of the L.A. County Tenant Protection Resolution.

So, assuming that it goes away April 1st, and they’re late again for April, then perhaps you can impose it for April.

Jeff Faller

And that’s if we understand your question correctly. We may or may not be getting your question. I’m not 100 percent sure that we are.

Eviction for Unauthorized Pets

Q:

Can I evict a tenant for having unauthorized pets when the pets are vomiting on my other tenants front door and scratching the top of their cars? Tenants for over 10 years, over 62, in LARSO

A:

Edrin Shamtob

I think you should be able to, yes. My question to you would partially be when do those pets first come in? Does the lease allow for pets? But even if the lease allows for pets, it doesn’t allow the pets to cause damage. And if you’ve notified the tenant of the issues and it keeps happening over and over and over again, I think you have sufficient basis to get it done.

Back Unit and No Certificate of Occupancy

Q:

I have a single family residence in the city of L.A. with a separate back unit. The front house and the back unit are rented separately to two different tenants. I tried registering the units with RSO but could not as I don’t have a separate certificate of occupancy for the back unit. I need to evict the tenant in the back unit, how can I proceed?

A:

Edrin Shamtob

This is one of those problematic cases that I was talking about earlier. What I would want to know is whether or not the Building and Safety department has pursued him for constructing that separate unit, that ADU, constructing it without permits and not having the certificate of occupancy.

If you do want to evict them—and this is going to sound very strange—what I would do is I would self-report. I would self-report it to the Building and Safety department and say. “Hey, this place was built without permits, issue a compliance order to me.” Have one of your—and I know this sounds counter-intuitive but it’s the best way to do this—issue a compliance order ordering me to convert the place back to a garage or whatever it was, if your main intent is to get rid of the tenants.

Now, you have to understand that if you get rid of the tenants and you want to re-rent the place you got to go through the entire Building and Safety process to do everything through permits, exposed walls, so on and so forth. So, it’s a cost benefit analysis in terms of what the best option is for you. But that’s probably the best avenue, is to get some sort of compliance order issued from from Building and Safety.

Jeff Faller

And this goes back to the last the live stream that we just did where you try to save a dime, and not getting it permitted, doing it yourself, and it just comes back to bite you like this. So, whatever you’re doing, even if it’s a little job, get the permit for it, do it right, and just avoid the headaches.

Again, if you’re an AOA member, we have, it’s exclusive—the man who set up the L.A. code enforcement system is only speaking to AOA, only presenting on AOA, it’s exclusive to AOA—we’re going to have all three parts of that series in the member portal, I believe by tomorrow. And then, along with Michael Brennan’s habitability.

You’re going to want to see those three. He goes through so many of the different issues that come up, so I just want to plug that one again.

Raising Parking Fees

Q:

Can I raise the parking fee? It’s on a separate lease in the city of L.A. RSO.

A:

Edrin Shamtob

So, she has a separate parking lease… and I’m sorry, you said it’s an RSO?

Jeff Faller

Yeah, City of L.A. and it’s an RSO unit.

Edrin Shamtob

Maybe we can make an argument… look, I hope the viewers recognize this, okay. The County Board of Supervisors, City Hall Los Angeles, you know they’ve been doing this on the fly, and when they do these things on the fly, the ordinances that they issue are not a model for clarity. They’re literally doing it overnight.

So, many of these little nuance issues, perhaps they didn’t think about, “Hey, do the tenancy rights apply to a parking agreement when we’re prohibiting rental increases?” I would have to take a look at the parking lease and know a little bit more to be able to answer that. So, it depends on whether or not that creates a tenancy, or whether or not it’s pegged to a tenancy.

Returning Payments After the Eviction Process Starts

Q:

I know that when the eviction process starts, the landlord cannot receive any payments. What if the tenant sent one dollar payment through Zelle?

A:

Jeff Faller

Just send it right back.

Edrin Shamtob

You put a letter together. What we do is we put letters together saying, “Your tenancy has been terminated, we will not accept any further payments, here’s a refund.” Immediately because you don’t want to give them any argument that you waived the notice or the lawsuit that you filed.

Evict a Tenant in Downey for Non-Payment of Rent

Q:

Can I evict a tenant in Downey city? He owes me two months of rent.

A:

Edrin Shamtab

I’d have to know more about the type of property. When the rent accumulated, what period of time, to be able to answer that.

Rental Agreements and Roommates

Q:

What if the city requires one rental agreement and not individual rental agreements between roommates? One roommate is refusing to sign. Is this enough to evict tenant?

A:

Edrin Shamtob

So, the landlord is renting it out to two roommates and only one of them is willing to sign a lease renewal? Well, that provides just cause. That’s actually enumerated in the municipal code.

If the landlord goes to a tenant and says, “You’re on a month a month, I want you to sign a new lease agreement”—by the way, the terms have to be the same as the last one—and the tenant refuses to execute a lease renewal, that would give you just cause to evict them.

Jeff Faller

And hopefully she’s not saying that she got different lease agreements for each one of them. You just put everybody on one lease, you don’t have multiple lease agreements going on. Because then you have to have multiple evictions going on.

Closing Remarks

Jeff Faller

Thank you so much. It was just a pleasure to have you speak. We really enjoyed it. Everybody’s so thankful, so give him a thumbs up for all the time that he spent with us and the excellent presentation that he put together. And make note of his email address and his phone number. Give him a call and I’m sure he’ll be able to help you out.

Edrin Shamtob

I just wanted to thank you for giving me an opportunity to present today again. We do eviction actions, we do a lot more than eviction, actually, as we do business litigation cases, real estate litigation cases, anything that has to do with business or real estate. We have under one roof here and we provide effective representation and would be happy to help anybody that’ll call in. Thank you so much.

Jeff Faller

Excellent. See you, everybody.