Oakland now regulates agreements between landlords and tenants to pay consideration to voluntarily vacate rental units (commonly known as a “buyout agreement”). Oakland joins Los Angeles, Berkeley, Santa Monica and San Francisco in enacting these regulations.
As with other jurisdictions, registration is a two-step process, where the landlord provides a pre-move out disclosure to the tenant and then executes a “negotiation disclosure” to file with the Rent Adjustment Program prior to commencing negotiations.
Tenants have a right to rescind for 25 days after execution (which may be as short as 15 days, if agreed to by the parties), and they must receive notification of the context of these negotiations and agreements, like the fact that they would receive relocation assistance payments for non-fault evictions, that rent on the open market is generally higher, and that buyout payments may be taxable.
