Curbed SF Asks “Would a San Franciscan Worker Save Money by Commuting from Vegas?”

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In what is hopefully just a satirical thought experiment, Curbed SF explores the financial benefit for San Francisco workers of living in Las Vegas and commuting to work in San Francisco. The short answer is the hypothetical working class hero saves $1,344 per month and lives in a larger apartment.

While the idea of living somewhere else to be able to work in San Francisco somewhat misses the point of contemporary urban planning, regarding humans as something other than labor-producing commodities, and the City of San Francisco itself (we work here because we like living here!), point taken: San Francisco is really, really expensive.

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Curbed Tracks Generational Trends Responsible for Millennials’ Lack of Confidence in Future Home-Ownership

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Curbed SF digests a recent Urban Land Institute report noting the lack of confidence that Millennials have in future home ownership, with only 24% “very confident” that they will be able to buy the home they want within the next five years. The report identifies a low rate of new home construction and the trend of Baby Boomers retaining their current homes instead of downsizing over time.

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SFGate Echoes Paragon Report in Touting San Francisco Real Estate Investment Prospects

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SFGate discusses some of the factors cited in the recent Paragon Real Estate Group Q3 report on residential real estate investments in San Francisco. As a result of scarcity, the boutique market with uncommonly older and smaller buildings, historically low financing rates, and high rents, San Francisco housing inventory continues to be a good investment, despite the limitations imposed by the Rent Ordinance.

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Ellis Eviction from the Landlords’ Perspective

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The SF Chronicle explores the story of a Duboce Triangle family trying to recover possession of the second unit in their home from a decades’ old, long-term tenant, with the Ellis Act.

The tenant is paying $365 per month for the two-bedroom unit, and while the landlords have offered a six-figure payment to get the place back, the Ellis Act currently requires a payment of only about $5,500, following the recent, successful challenge to San Francisco’s second attempt to increase the relocation payment amount, earlier this month.

While the Chronicle notes the “irresistible narrative” of one of the owners – a curator at the De Young – evicting an artist, Zacks & Freedman’s Andrew Zacks was skeptical that the tenant added to the “artistic fiber” of the City, challenging sympathizers to “try to find him on the Internet”.

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San Francisco Legislative Update (2015): The Jane Kim Amendment i.e., “Eviction Protections 2.0”

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This September, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed Ordinance 171-15. Also known as the “Jane Kim Amendment” or “Eviction Protections 2.0”, the new legislation proposed by Supervisor Kim amends the San Francisco Rent Ordinance in an effort to heighten protections for tenants against evictions.

Among other mechanisms, the revised Rent Ordinance language now requires breaches of lease covenants to be “substantial” and for the commission of nuisance behavior to be “severe, continuing or recurring in nature” for an eviction notice to be viable. (It is yet to be seen whether these subjective terms actually change existing standards.) It significantly erodes the ability of landlords to enforce provisions governing occupancy limits and prior approval for subletting, and it imposes new “prerequisites” for serving eviction notices for such breaches. It also requires a landlord to “plead and prove” a proper “dominant motive” for terminating a tenancy.

As for non-fault evictions and voluntary terminations of tenancies, the Rent Ordinance now requires notices containing the existing rental rate to be filed with the Rent Board, and it imposes “vacancy control” at that rate for five years following termination of the tenancy.

Ordinance 171-15 was returned unsigned by the Mayor on October 9, 2015 and will be effective November 8, 2015.

You can find the legislative language of Ordinance 171-15 here, and a draft of the proposed Rent Board amendments to their Rules and Regulations to implement Ordinance 171-15 here.

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SF Business Times on Peskin-Christensen Race and Supply of Rent-Controlled Housing in the City

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The San Francisco Business Times reports on the bid of former Supervisor Aaron Peskin in his bid for the District 3 seat, currently held by Mayor Lee appointee Julie Christensen. Among other issues he has discussed during his campaign, he would like to expand rent control to apartments built after 1979 – the effective date of the San Francisco Rent Ordinance. These units, as “new construction”, are exempted from rent control.

This kind of change would require an amendment, at the state level, to The Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, which currently grandfathers the exemption from rent control of units that were decontrolled when Costa-Hawkins was enacted. Peskin notes that San Francisco cannot do this alone, but says that he would “like to at least start that conversation”.

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Doll v. Ghaffari and the Duality of the Unlawful Detainer Judgment and a Leasehold Estate in the Context of the Litigation Privilege

In an unpublished decision, the Second Appellate District explores the litigation privilege in the context of an unusual appellate reversal of an unlawful detainer judgment.

An unlawful detainer judgment has two parts – possession of the property and incidental monetary damages. Generally, the service of a termination notice, the filing of an unlawful detainer action an even the enforcement of the judgment and other post-judgment activities are all protected by the litigation privilege (Cal. Civ., §47) from being the subject of subsequent lawsuits. (You generally cannot sue someone for suing you.)

One basis for terminating a tenancy under California law is that the tenant is engaging in illegal activity. However, the illegal activity must have some connection to the use of the property. (For instance, a tenant probably cannot be evicted for embezzling or robbing a liquor store, but they could be evicted for selling illegal drugs or discharging a firearm from within an apartment.)

In Doll v. Ghaffari, the tenant was subletting her apartment at a profit, in violation of a Santa Monica rent ordinance provision concerning maximum allowable rent for subtenants. However, to terminate a tenancy for illegal use, the Santa Monica rent ordinance adds an additional requirement that a tenant must actually be criminally convicted of the violation before a landlord can bring an unlawful detainer action. (While it is generally understood that cities can monitor the bases for evictions, the court suggested that the “conviction requirement” may be an impermissible prerequisite to an unlawful detainer in violation of Birkenfeld v. City of Berkeley (1976) 17 Cal.3d 129.)

The landlord, Ghaffari, prosecuted an unlawful detainer based on illegal short-term rental use and won at the trial level. Ghaffari thereafter enforced the unlawful detainer judgment and recovered possession, eventually auctioning Doll’s personal property that was left behind. Doll appealed and the judgment was reversed, but she was not restored to possession under Cal. Code Civ. Proc., §908, upon a finding of unclean hands.

Doll then sued for, among other things, breach of contract, wrongful eviction/trespass and elder abuse for the selling of her property, prevailing on her claims for breach of contract, wrongful eviction, elder abuse, etc.

On appeal, the court found that the landlord’s activities in terminating the tenancy, recovering possession of the apartment and even in selling the property, post-judgment, were all covered by the litigation privilege, citing to Feldman v. 1100 Park Lane Associates (2008) 160 Cal.App.4th 1467, Action Apartment Assn. v. City of Santa Monica (2007) 41 Cal.4th 1232 and Rusheen v. Cohen (2006) 37 Cal.4th 1048. It therefore reversed the verdict as to the claims based on dispossession and the selling of her personal property.

Doll asserted that the case Chacon v. Litke (2010) 181 Cal.App.4th 1234 stood for the proposition that post-trial enforcement activities are not protected. However, the Court of Appeals noted that Chacon merely stood for the proposition that an unlawful detainer judgment did not forfeit a tenant’s right to reoccupy following a non-fault eviction, where a local rent ordinance reserved a right to reoccupancy.

However, in affirming her contract claims, the court relied on Munoz v. MacMillan (2011) 195 Cal.App.4th 648 to conclude that a tenant may sue on contract claims for a terminated lease agreement, where the unlawful detainer action that terminated the lease is later reversed on appeal. (It noted, however, that Munoz did not reference the litigation privilege or Action Apartments.)

Doll v. Ghaffari provides an interesting review of the duality of the unlawful detainer judgment – as consisting of a right to possession and for incidental money damages – and the duality of a leasehold estate – as consisting of a contractual right and an interest in land – while navigating the litigation privilege. Here, the tenant prevailed on the money damage issue in the underlying unlawful detainer action, while asserting her contract rights under the leasehold, but lost on the issue of her interest in land and being restored to possession. That said, this case is currently unpublished, and, as the court noted, Munoz did not address the litigation privilege (relying, instead, on a case from 1917). So California courts may come to a different conclusion the next time it reviews a similar series of lawsuits.

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San Francisco Landlords Prevail in Challenge to Enhanced Relocation Payments in Ellis Act Evictions – Coyne, et al. v. CCSF

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San Francisco landlords prevailed in their lawsuit against San Francisco’s recent Ordinance 68-15, an amendment to the Rent Ordinance that significantly increased the amount of relocation assistance payments owed to tenants displaced by Ellis Act evictions.

Ordinance 68-15, “Campos II”, was a “sequel” to last year’s Ordinance 54-14 (“Campos I”) – an amendment that also increased relocation assistance payments and which was overturned at the state level in the decision Jacoby v. CCSF. In determining that the Campos II relocation payments were “unreasonable”, Housing Court Judge Ronald Evans Quidachay interpreted a case 2006 appellate decision, Pieri v. CCSF, which first determined that a requirement that landlords pay “reasonable” relocation assistance to displaced tenants (regardless of the tenants’ income level) was not preempted by the Ellis Act. The City is expected to appeal the decision.

Read more about Judge Quidachay’s ruling at The Chronicle and The Examiner

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