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Can My Landlord Search My Apartment For Pot?

Can My Landlord Search My Apartment For Pot?

Can My Landlord Search My Apartment For Pot?

So, I just got this letter in the mail from the real estate company who owns the apartment building I’ve live in (about 15 units), and it just seems weird to me:

INSPECTION OF PREMISES – for Unsanitary Living Conditions, Hoarding, Alterations, Pets, and growing, cultivation, sale or use in any form of marijuana.

The owners and management company will notify and issue a 24-hour notice to inspect the units and building for Unsanitary Living Conditions, Hoarding, Alterations, Pets, and growing, cultivation, sale or use in any form of marijuana to protect and secure ALL tenants in the building.

IMPORTANT NOTE
Refusal to allow access is just cause ground for eviction Please do not lock the bedrooms, our owners; contractor and insurance representative would like to see the condition of each room.

Your advance cooperation is greatly appreciated by the Owners and [redacted].

Do no hesitate to contact this office if you have any questions or comments.

(All whacky punctuation is theirs.)

So, first, the obvious: Marijuana growing or any kind of use?? Are they going to check all the ashtrays and garbage cans for roaches and seeds? How much are they allowed to search? And ARE they allowed to search for something like a half smoked joint somewhere on the premises? I realize pot is illegal, and that counts as illegal activity, but do I really have to toss my stash? (Just kidding. Of COURSE I don’t have a stash!)

Second, does 24-hour notice have to come in the form of a phone call? Or can they mail a letter that I might not get until the day of or after the inspection and have that count as 24-hour notice? And do I really not have the right to insist on a different day if I prefer?

Lastly, who decides what counts as “hoarding” anyway? Could they evict a tenant for having too many magazines stacked next to the bed because they deem that as hoarding? I mean seriously, WTF? And even if they were to claim something like that as hoarding, can they evict you then and there, or does a tenant have a legal right to rectify the situation and keep their apartment?

From what I understand of the code about landlord entry and from your earlier column, they can only come in the case on an emergency, to make repairs etc. that we’ve agreed upon, or to show the unit to potential buyers or tenants. I guess the real question is, are they allowed come in for the reasons they are listing?

If they aren’t, then they can’t really evict me for refusing, right? And, if they aren’t allowed to come in for this “inspection,” and were to do it anyway, essentially illegally, then how could they use anything they find as a legal means of eviction?

But seriously. Looking for POT? And hoarding? WTF?!

WTF?! I have always said that successful real estate brokers and sales people are proof that the United States is not a meritocracy. Imagine my disdain for those involved in property management–real estate “industry” groupies who will do anything to rub up against the big money. I’m guessing that the recent real estate conference, “It May Not Be As Easy To Steal, But Sure As Shoot You Can Still Lie!” had a seminar called, “Evict ‘Em Now Before It Becomes Legal.”

This notice comes straight from the CitiApartments playbook.You probably heard the story about how their goon squad illegally entered an apartment, videoed a bong and then threatened the tenant with eviction for illegal drug use. An entry based on this notice or a subsequent notice with a date and time would be just as illegal from my reading of California Civil Code §1954. Reread “Sorry, CitiApartments, Routine Inspections Are Illegal.” Remember any such notice must be in writing, no phone calls.

We live in a cynical era where politicians and demagogues advance their own petty agendas by justifying them in the name of security. We all know that the Fourth Amendment, indeed the entire Constitution, has taken a beating for the last 30 years. It’s not surprising that I have seen an uptick in landlord demands for passports and greencards of visitors and relatives or inspections like this. My take on this (and I may be too idealistic) is that one still has to get a warrant to search for marijuana in this manner. The key exception is emergency or “exigent circumstances” when the court will allow a warrantless search. But this applies to the police.

Landlords still can’t deputize themselves, declare an emergency and demand entry. I hope I’m not being naïve. Because we don’t live in Arizona, I find it hard to believe that the police would act on an emergency call from the management company based on any of the allegations above. That’s not to say the landlord won’t make something else up, however, they would not be able to conduct the inspection in the manner they wish if the cops are searching for roaches and seeds. If you find yourself in the unfortunate position of asking a cop to see the warrant, show him the notices and suggest (as delicately as possible) that he has been duped by the landlord, wasting valuable public resources.

Real hoarding and cluttering, not a stack of magazines next to the bed, is often the symptom of a disability–depression, elderly dementia, obsessive/compulsive disorder. In my experience at the Homeless Advocacy Project where I more or less specialized in the issue, you know hoarding and cluttering when you see it or smell it. There is a real nuisance or fire hazard.

I’ve seen three-bedroom apartments stacked to the ceilings with newspapers, magazines, clothes and trash. I had a client who, literally, picked up every cigarette butt and every shiny object or piece of metal he found on the street and took it home to supply and construct his spaceship.

Often landlords learn of the problem because other tenants report cockroach and mice infestations or unrepaired leaks from above. If a person is threatened with eviction for creating a nuisance by hoarding, they can often request a reasonable accommodation for their disability to get the time and resources to clean up the mess. If you know anyone in your building who may be hoarding and vulnerable to eviction, refer them to the San Francisco Mental Health Association or the Homeless Advocacy Project.

Your final question is the most difficult one because it presents the universal tenant conundrum. How can you enforce your rights if the landlord tries to evict you illegally based on this idiotic notice? Lawyers are expensive. While many tenant lawyers, ourselves included, will take an occasional case to make a point, it doesn’t happen that often. That’s why many advocacy groups may suggest that you allow entry so you won’t jeopardize your tenancy.

It’s a shitty deal. It’s the reason to contact your legislators, the courts and anyone else involved in the program to find out how you can voice your issues to help implement the new law in California guaranteeing low income tenants the right to representation at an unlawful detainer. Call Tenants Together and ask how you can get involved.

In the meantime, put down that joint, hide your stash, toss the magazines and inform the management Nazis, in writing, that you feel secure enough in your building and that their pre-notice is illegal pursuant to Civil Code §1954.

If you receive another notice, try to take it to the San Francisco Tenants Union or a tenant lawyer to develop a strategy for your next response.

Call the Tenant Lawyers now for a free consultation.
(415) 552-9060

Why An Absentee Master Tenant Is A Bad Idea

Why An Absentee Master Tenant Is A Bad Idea

Why An Absentee Master Tenant Is A Bad Idea

Our issue is this: we have a ‘new’ housemate that just is not working out well. She’s constantly being a nuisance despite many verbal and written requests to change her behavior and has a habit of damaging other housemates property as well as the unit itself. We would like to have her out but don’t know if it is legal for us to ask her to move or do we ask the master tenant to evict her?

She’s been living here 8 months and there has been some issue each month that causes us utter consternation at her lack of respect of property and forgetfulness as to the written house rules (despite the verbal and written reminders). If nothing else, due that I cannot keep my property from being damaged (I’m not talking normal wear and tear), I have to now keep furniture/appliances/etc… in my room and have lost space in the house–would this constitute a loss in services and may I reasonably ask for a rent reduction because of it?

When I received this question, my first inclination was not to answer it at all. Why? Because you are asking me a question, in your capacity as a landlord, for advice on how to evict a tenant. I don’t give eviction advice to landlords, period. But, as you can see, I think your issues need to be addressed because they are, after all, very common.

What you have here is a personality conflict. The San Francisco Rent Ordinance does not articulate a just cause to evict someone because of a personality conflict. Your facts, as you state them, do not indicate that your roommate is at all a nuisance in the legal sense. So, based on your question, I don’t believe it would be legal for either the household or the master tenant to attempt to evict your roommate. In fact, you could be liable for any damages she suffers from any “wrongful endeavor” or “harassment” to evict her.

Work out your problems with your roommate. If you need help to resolve your differences, you should try mediating the dispute with Community Boards. I don’t have any direct experience with them, but I have heard, from many sources, that they provide effective, professional and successful meditations for disputes like these.

With respect to a claim for decrease in services, I don’t see that moving your stuff into your room constitutes a substantial decrease in services. Besides, who would you name in your petition? The landlord? The so-called master tenant?

This brings me to real tenant issue implied in your question. The master tenant doesn’t live in the unit and he may not have permission to sublet.

With every complaint to the landlord you run the risk that he will begin an “inquiry” into subletting in the unit. He could claim that, despite any prior permission he gave the master tenant to sublet, he never gave permission to sublet to the current set of tenants. This happens all the time. The landlord was fine with the situation as long as there was no trouble. If he has to deal with trouble anyway, why not just get rid of all the tenants and raise the rent? The fact that the landlord lives in the same building and probably knows you and your roommates is a good thing, but that doesn’t mean that you won’t be spared a long and costly legal battle to save your tenancy.

Every complaint to the “master tenant” increases his desire to evict you. As I pointed out in, “Tenant Troubles: What Rules Govern Master Tenants?” many master tenants like to throw their weight around.

Let’s say the “master tenant” is a great person who isn’t profiting on his control of the unit and won’t try to evict you. (An unlikely scenario, as I point out in my blog post, “Bad Master Tenant.”) What if the landlord sells the building or dies? Do you honestly believe that your tenancy wouldn’t be jeopardized?

Tenants, it’s always a bad idea to rent a room in an apartment with an absentee master tenant. Too many things can go wrong.

Your problem, simply put, is that you have too many landlords. You’re a landlord wannabe. The master tenant is an absentee landlord. To top it off, the real landlord lives in the building. I see a shit storm in your future.

Call the Tenant Lawyers now for a free consultation.
(415) 552-9060

Landlord Crybabies Forced To Ellis Because Landlording Became So Unpleasant

Landlord Crybabies Forced To Ellis Because Landlording Became So Unpleasant

Landlord Crybabies Forced To Ellis Because Landlording Became So Unpleasant

Landlord crybabies.

Last month the San Francisco Business Times published a reprehensible editorial, “Tenant activists exacerbate rental housing crisis.” They were reacting to the  occupation of an empty building in the Mission by Homes Not Jails on April 4.

This is what riled me up: “Aided by reliable mouthpieces on the board of supervisors, they’ve helped make it so unpleasant over the years to be a landlord in San Francisco that owners of several hundred rental units each year invoke a nuclear option known as the Ellis Act and detonate their rental business by evicting all their tenants.”

I’m sorry, landlord crybabies, but if being a landlord is so unpleasant, why don’t you just sell your building without evicting the tenants?

Essentially that was the question the California Supreme Court posed in Nash v. City of Santa Monica in 1984. “Nash was a 17-year-old student when, approximately a year before the rent and demolition controls were enacted, his mother obtained on his behalf a $260,000 apartment building in Santa Monica. He soon became disenchanted, however, with operating rental housing: ‘There is only one thing I want to do, and that is to evict the group of ingrates inhabiting my units, tear down the building, and hold on to the land until I can sell it at a price which will not mean a ruinous loss on my investment.'” The Court ruled that there was nothing unconstitutional about rent control or demolition control that protected tenants. They reasoned that Nash was getting a fair return on his “investment” and that he could sell the building if he wanted to get out of the landlord business.

That’s when the landlord lobby really started to scream. In 1985 they persuaded their friends in the legislature to pass the so-called Ellis Act to supersede the ruling in Nash to allow landlords to evict all their tenants before they exited the landlord business. The rest is history.

As we all know now, for the last decade, the Ellis Act has been used by speculators who enter the landlord business for five minutes to evict long-term tenants, seniors and the disabled in order to sell units as TICs (tenancies in common.) We also know that those speculators were fueled by a flood of monopoly money from banking geniuses who were later bailed out by taxpayers.

Now the bubble has burst and (big surprise) Ellis evictions dropped 78% in the last year in San Francisco. The Business Times editorial noted this, “But in whatever number, they [Ellis evictions] are a symptom of the dysfunction in the San Francisco rental market and not a cause. Basically, there’s little incentive to remain a landlord in San Francisco — and every incentive to try to get yourself out.” Of course most of the landlords who used Ellis evictions were never in the landlord business and those who were didn’t get out until they saw an opportunity for obscene profit.

If the Business Times cannot recognize that vacant buildings are not a cause of dysfunction in the rental market, what can they see? Not much. The editorial also excuses scofflaw landlords because, “[Rent control] contribute[s] to blight by discouraging landlords from maintaining and upgrading their units.” They misstate the law claiming, “That the owner of the property would in fact be breaking the law by offering it again for rent was apparently lost on the protesters.” In fact, the landlord can re-rent but he would be required to offer the unit to the original renter at the rent-controlled price.

That’s the point. Landlords start to cry like babies when they can’t get exactly what they want, when they want it. “Unpleasant” translates to “I can’t get as rich as I want to as fast as I want to” and “I don’t want to spend the money to maintain my building.” Sob, sob. They also clinch their fists and threaten, “But given that the owner of property ultimately controls whether it remains on the rental market at all, learning at the least to live with them [landlords with their power to Ellis evict at will] would be in everyone’s interests — including, most notably, their [tenant activists] own.”

Unfortunately that threat will remain bone-chilling real until the Ellis Act is either repealed or amended to require that landlords actually be in the business for five or so years until they can get out. And occupying vacant buildings is a laudable method to remind us that, like Jerome Nash, landlords will go to any extreme, including refusing to re-rent units in vacant buildings, to force tenants to bend to their will.

Call the Tenant Lawyers now for a free consultation.
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Tenant in San Francisco: What’s Wrong with Working in a Bookstore?

Tenant in San Francisco: What’s Wrong with Working in a Bookstore?

Tenant in San Francisco: What’s Wrong with Working in a Bookstore?

Several years ago I was speaking to a young woman at a party who had recently graduated from college. She moved back to San Francisco, her home town, and got a job in a bookstore. She was living with her parents but wanted to strike out on her own. She simply could not find an apartment she could afford. “What’s wrong with working in a bookstore?” she asked me. It’s a question that still haunts me when I speak to tenants.

Last week the SF Appeal reported that rents are dropping according to the San Francisco Controller’s Monthly Economic Barometer. The article also reported that San Francisco unemployment had risen to 10.3%. It still begs the question, even if rents are dropping, is housing becoming more affordable for those who make your cappuccino at Starbucks? Or teachers?  Or police officers? Or people who work in bookstores? The answer still seems to be no.

I recently happened on a post from the blog, LAist, which makes this quite clear, “Renter’s Market? LA Ranks as Pricier Than NYC.” The post relied on a study from the Center for Housing Policy for the fourth quarter of 2009, announced March 23, 2010.  When I clicked the link I already knew that San Francisco’s rents are higher than Los Angeles and, sure enough, even with rent control, we’re number one…again.

The more interesting aspect of the study poses this conundrum: “Who are among the ranks of America’s workers struggling to afford housing? In some high-priced communities, people who provide the bulk of vital services – teachers, firefighters, police officers, retail sales workers and restaurant workers – cannot afford to live in the communities they serve.” The Center for Housing Policy’s page, Paycheck to Paycheck, provides an interactive database that, among other things, allows you to compare how workers are faring in housing markets of 210 metropolitan areas of the United States.

For San Francisco, the study uses “2009 Fair Market Rent” of $1,406/month for a one-bedroom apartment and $1,760 for a two-bedroom apartment. Then it compares the hourly wage required to afford an apartment assuming that a maximum 30% of pretax income should be devoted to rent.

I checked the three categories for teachers, preschool ($30.21/hour), elementary ($30.15/hour) and secondary ($31.44/hour). None could individually afford a two-bedroom; all could afford a one-bedroom. A registered nurse ($37.27/hour) can afford both. While an LPN ($23.71/hour) or a nurse’s aid ($15.74/hour) can afford neither. A police officer ($29.80/hour) can afford one-bedroom, but not two. A carpenter ($26.21/hour) can forget it. If you work in a bookstore (retail sales, $13.24/hour), you’re screwed. If you work in a bookstore (and you are willing to commute) you still can’t afford a one-bedroom in Fresno.

Obviously, families with multiple incomes may fare better. Single renters deal with adversity creatively. They live with roommates or have three jobs. (A “uniquely American” attribute, as George W. Bush put it.)

Rents may be dropping in San Francisco, but that isn’t really the point. If the price of a Maserati drops by $50,000.00, does that mean I’m going to be able to buy one? San Francisco is fast becoming a city in the clouds, like Stratos, in the 1969 episode of Star Trek, “The Cloud Minders.” The city is held aloft in the sky by “sustained anti-gravity elevation.” Its inhabitants are devoted solely to the creation of art while the miners on the planet below, the “troglites” who create the city’s fungible wealth, are prohibited from living among or partaking in the intellectual pursuits of their masters. While the message  is still apt, the naivete of the episode is exposed because it assumes that the elite will be comprised of artists and intellectuals, rather than con-artists—bankers, stock brokers and real estate traders whose attempts at sustained anti-gravity elevation are limited to credit default swaps.

We all know that that the inflated real estate market of the recent past drove many artists, teachers, nurses and carpenters from San Francisco. Will they return because the rents have dropped a bit? Unlikely. Do we honestly believe that the Starbucks baristas will happily commute from Modesto to serve us our skinny cinnamon dolce lattes?

What’s wrong with working in a bookstore in San Francisco? Nothing, as long as you work in three of them.

Call the Tenant Lawyers now for a free consultation.
(415) 552-9060

Hey, Landlord, Show Me Your Credit Report

Hey, Landlord, Show Me Your Credit Report

Hey, Landlord, Show Me Your Credit Report

I can vividly recall an afternoon in the late 1980s when I was apartment hunting. I went to an open house for a fairly nice one-bedroom in the Inner Richmond, large with a garage, $750 per month (not cheap then). I particularly liked the big working fireplace.  There were a few other people looking at the place, so I was ready. I told the landlord I’d like to fill out an application.

I was just about to dig the wad of C-notes out of my wallet to seal the deal. In those days showing up with enough cash for first, last and deposit usually got you to the head of the line.  I was shocked when the guy asked me for thirty bucks so he could run a credit report. “Are you fucking nuts?” I asked. “Do you actually expect me to pay you to get on your fucking list?” The other folks were getting nervous. When he replied that he did, I walked out and without much trouble found another place, just as nice. Those days are long gone.

Last week, my column, Tenant Troubles in the SF Appeal was entitled, “My Landlord Says He’s Bankrupt, So How Do I Get My Deposit Back?” I couldn’t contain my contempt for the landlord because he seemed to be joyously bankrupt, taunting the tenant, “Neener, neener, neener, you can’t get your security deposit!” It’s the taunt of a greedy landlord, no longer able to play with monopoly money and on his way down from Boardwalk to Mediterranean Avenue.

Since the mortgage meltdown, I hear from more and more tenants who find that their buildings are in foreclosure or close to foreclosure. The landlords are scrambling to squeeze every last dime before the buildings slip from their hands. They continue to collect rent, even after the building is owned by the bank. They refuse to refund security deposits. Even the banks claim (illegally) that they do not have to refund security deposits. Last week I pointed out that a subsequent owner is usually on the hook for security deposits. I have already proposed reforms to current California law to penalize owners who arbitrarily refuse to refund them.

There is another troubling and increasingly common scenariotenants who have recently rented from a landlord only to find that he’s in foreclosure. That got me thinking.

You show me your credit report and I’ll show you mine.

California Civil Code § 1950.6 specifically allows landlords to check tenants’ credit information and references. It also allows them to charge a tenant up to $30 with CPI adjustments from 1998. I think the typical charges are about $35 these days. Of course the rationale for landlords is that they want to be sure that tenants can and will pay the rent.

I never understood the logic because I know that in real life most tenants understand that you pay your rent before you pay the Macy’s bill. However, there are a growing number of landlords who collect rent and don’t use it to pay the mortgage! The law has no provision allowing tenants to find out if the landlord is a deadbeat!

Given the current financial crisis, it’s time to revise Civil Code § 1950.6 to allow tenants to get landlords’ credit reports. The law should require reciprocity. In other words, a landlord should not be able to get a tenant’s credit report unless he provides one for himself.

These days, tenants need to know if the landlord is qualified to rent his overpriced dump to them.

Call the Tenant Lawyers now for a free consultation.
(415) 552-9060

My Landlord Says He’s Bankrupt, So How Do I Get My Deposit Back?

My Landlord Says He’s Bankrupt, So How Do I Get My Deposit Back?

My Landlord Says He’s Bankrupt, So How Do I Get My Deposit Back?

Bankrupt landlord.

I vacated my San Francisco, CA apartment over a year ago (I know!) when I was laid off, and never received my deposit. I completed my lease term and left the apartment in excellent condition. Upon moving out, I received an invoice from the landlord stating that I was owed my deposit plus interest. Well, it never came. I sent over a demand letter asking for my deposit to be mailed by a certain date, and just yesterday I received an email from the landlord stating that the property in which I rented a unit has been given to a receiver. I’m assuming this means that the property is now in foreclosure, yes? Anyway, the landlord went on to say that many others that were living in the building have already sued him for their deposits; they’ve all won, but weren’t able to collect because the property no longer makes any money for him. He personally has filed for bankruptcy.

What am I to do at this point? I think the amount in question is too small to take to an attorney’s office (it’s just over $2K), but I don’t think the San Francisco Tenants Union or even small claims can help me out with this one.

I have read various answers online – folks have said, “No, you cannot sue, that’s out of the question!” and someone else said, “The person or company that owns your building must return your security deposit to you. The law is quite clear on this point. On sale of the building, whether an ordinary sale or a foreclosure sale, your security deposit must either be transferred to the new owner or returned to you. And it’s the responsibility of the new owner to collect the security deposit from your former landlord. If the lender didn’t get the security deposit you paid, it’s not your problem. The lender still has to return it to you. If it’s not returned to you within three weeks after you move, you can sue the lender in Small Claims Court, just as you would any landlord, to recover the money.” (This was taken from Tenants and Foreclosure in California). Yet another said, “Sue him anyway in small claims, and try to put a lien on his property. There are other ways to collect!”

That guilty “I know” means you’ve been reading my columns. Once again, dear readers, if you don’t get your security deposit back twenty-one days after you move out and you can prove you deserve it, you gotta sue. Case in point, if this smug sleazeball wasn’t bankrupt a year ago, you’d have a judgment against him. Maybe you could have collected it, maybe not. At the very least you might be on his list of creditors for $6,000.00 rather than in limbo with a smaller chance of collecting $2,000.00!

But all is not lost. First, you need to figure out if the landlord is in foreclosure, if he filed for bankruptcy, or more interesting, if the bank now owns the property. Or even more interesting, is the landlord simply a lying sack of shit? What? You didn’t consider that possibility? Well, dear readers, that’s lesson two for today. Why would you believe anything that comes out of the landlord’s mouth (or ip address) without checking it out?

Get the block and lot numbers for the building. Check out the SF Assessor-Recorder’s website. for the San Francisco Assessor-Recorder’s office. Check the disclaimer and fill in the address. Remember that if your building has a series of addresses use the first one. As I was checking the viability of the link, once again I realized that this is one of the squirreliest websites run by the City. Everyone should write a letter to Phil Ting and tell him to fix it.

When and if you find the block and lot number, go to the Recorded Document Search By Year Menu, also part of the Assessor-Recorder’s site. Use the block and lot search rather than the address search. I’ve found that to be more precise. You won’t be able to see the documents but you should be able to tell if the building is in foreclosure. Check for Notice of Default, or look and the grantor/grantee in the latest deed. If you want to see the documents, you have to go to City Hall.

Next you have to know if the landlord declared bankruptcy. You will have to either visit the U.S. Bankruptcy Court or for online information subscribe to the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) service. You will have to pay small fees for either means of access.

In a nutshell, if the landlord has filed for bankruptcy, there may be a stay on any lawsuits, meaning you can’t file one against him. You should, whatever the status of the case, contact the trustee and demand to be included in the list of creditors. Civil Code 1950.5(d) is clear, “Any security shall be held by the landlord for the tenant who is party to the lease or agreement. The claim of a tenant to the security shall be prior to the claim of any creditor of the landlord.” Here is where you have the, not ironic, luck of the Irish. The landlord admitted, in writing, to owing you the money.

If the landlord is in foreclosure and still owns the property, but not in bankruptcy, SUE HIM NOW.

If the building has been sold at a Trustee Sale, SUE THE NEW OWNER NOW! Civil Code 1950.5(h) provides for the transfer of security deposits to a new owner and refund to the tenant, if applicable. Civil Code 1950.5(j) states in part, “In the event of noncompliance with subdivision (h), the landlord’s successors in interest shall be jointly and severally liable with the landlord for repayment of the security […]“

Today is the day to think green, that is, about getting your money back. You don’t need a leprechaun for this. You may need a few shots of Jameson. But what you really need are the guts and persistence to stand up for your rights.

Call the Tenant Lawyers now for a free consultation.
(415) 552-9060

Sorry, CitiApartments, “Routine Inspections” Are Illegal

Sorry, CitiApartments, “Routine Inspections” Are Illegal

Sorry, CitiApartments, “Routine Inspections” Are Illegal

I’ve rented the same apartment from Citi Properties for 6 years. Up until about 6 months ago, they kept the building tidy, had an on-site manager, and did monthly bug inspections. Now they’re trying to sell the building and they have gotten rid of all that stuff. The only thing they do now is “inspect” each unit once a month. Here’s what they post on my door once a month:

Citi Properties, LLC 2099 Market Street S.F., CA 94114 January 22nd, 2010

24 Hour Notice of Entry

(Civil Code Section 1954)

To: all occupants

There will be a building inspection of all units and the common area’s on Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 at 11:00AM. If you have any questions, please contact Jorge Castillo at 415-308-0908.

Thank you for your cooperation.

First, they only did this every year or two, now they’re doing it once a month. Second, what are they inspecting for? And more importantly: do they really have a right to come into my home once a month? It’s always during the day of a weekday, so I can’t be home to see what’s going on. But one time my toilet seat was left up. It didn’t bother me, but it did peak my interest. Whenever I call the number listed I get vague answers and a promise to call back, which doesn’t happen. Any insight would be gladly appreciated.

Good question. What are they inspecting for? First, I hope you understand who you’re dealing with. A Citi by any other name just stinks. These guys ought to know better by now. They probably do but, as we all know, they just don’t give a rat’s ass about the law. The reason they are inspecting your unit is simple–they’re looking for a reason to evict you because, in their eyes, you’ve lived there too long and your rent is too low. They’re looking for your bong!

California Civil Code 1954 states that a landlord can only enter your unit:
(1) In case of emergency.
(2) To make necessary or agreed repairs, decorations, alterations or improvements, supply necessary or agreed services, or exhibit the dwelling unit to prospective or actual purchasers, mortgagees, tenants, workers, or contractors or to make a tenant requested move-out inspection.
(3) When the tenant has abandoned or surrendered the premises.
(4) Pursuant to court order.

Except in the case of an emergency or abandonment, the landlord must give you a 24-hour written notice that includes the date, approximate time, and purpose of the entry. As you can see, the example notice you provided is defective because it does not in include the purpose of the entry. Routine inspections violate California law.

You should read, The Unnecessary Conflict in Landlord Entries, by J. Wallace Oman, a respected tenant attorney here in San Francisco. In the article he points out that landlords have no inherent right to inspection:

“Under old common-law doctrines, when the parties enter into a rental agreement, the landlord grants a right of “exclusive possession” to the tenant against everyone, including the property owner. The landlord additionally promises the tenant “quiet enjoyment”; the term guarantees that the landlord will not permit or do anything that interferes with the tenant’s peace and quiet in the rental unit.”

He also proposes effective methods to deal with entries during the sale of a building.

For a lighter (more outraged?) take on the subject, check out my blog entry from last year, Even Dracula Had to Have an Invite Before He Could Enter.

You and all of the tenants in the building should write a letter to the management citing the law and letting them know that you’re not going to put up with monthly entries any longer. You should also remind them that California Civil Code 1940.2(a)(4)states that it is unlawful for a landlord to commit a significant and intentional violation of section1954 for the purpose of influencing a tenant to vacate a dwelling. And that it provides for civil penalties of up to $2,000.00 per violation.

You and all of the tenants should also contact CitiStop the tenacious tenants’ organizers who helped bring down the Lembi empire.

While you’re at it, point out to the geniuses at Citi…whatever that you don’t need an apostrophe to pluralize a word.

Call the Tenant Lawyers now for a free consultation.
(415) 552-9060