We don’t need to tell you these are tumultuous times for rental property owners and operators.
As Oakland looks to advance the ambitious agenda of tenants’ advocates, sweeping new protections blanket all of Alameda County. Meanwhile, the Contra Costa Board of Supervisors passes their own iteration of an eviction moratorium, and San Francisco bans rent hikes. And more.
As we began 2020, the headline was statewide rent caps and eviction controls and we said the amount of information the rental housing industry had to digest was voluminous. Now, you can put a multiple on it. 

In our latest article , we dissect Alameda County’s recent amendments to its temporary eviction moratorium. It has quite a bit of teeth.

In order to avoid a wave of evictions once emergency orders are lifted, municipalities elsewhere have given some breathing room to tenants who must pay back rent accrued during the COVID-19 crisis, yet Alameda County tenants have no less than 12 months for this “IOU,” and cannot ever be displaced because of a failure to pay this debt. Owners and operators, then, are unwittingly cast into the role of debt collectors. 

The County’s sweeping actions served to temper the optimism of Oakland rental property owners who, ironically, learned on the same day that the City postponed its own agenda of protections. We give you an update on Oakland’s itinerary here .

Contra Costa County, meanwhile, has instituted its own version of an eviction ban. We touch on it here .

Pivoting to San Francisco, the Board of Supervisors needed only minutes of deliberation to prohibit rent increases during the pandemic. Owners are reminded that they can raise the rent after the state of emergency is lifted, but cannot charge extra back rent for months that hikes were suspended.

Finally, we were asked by two media outlets to give our takes on important topics top of mind to owners in the midst of the pandemic, and the links are shared below.

These are uncertain times, but informed counsel can reduce the guesswork and anxiety.
RECENT UPDATES AND INSIGHTS

Tuesday the 21st was an eventful day in the East Bay legal terrain.  In our last update , we applauded a temporary reprieve for rental property owners after the City of Oakland postponed making wide-ranging changes to its Tenant Protection Ordinance, Just Cause for Eviction Ordinance, and Rent Ordinance under the guise of an emergency COVID-19 response.

But then came Act Two: The Alameda County Board of Supervisors got together to revisit its March 24 temporary moratorium on evictions.

Through May 31, 2020, landlords cannot terminate a tenancy for failure to pay rent, so long as the tenant demonstrates the failure to pay rent is "directly related to a loss of income or out-of-pocket medical expenses associated with the CODIV-19 pandemic or any local, state, or federal government response to the pandemic."
BORNSTEIN LAW IN THE MEDIA

Daniel tells San Francisco KPIX 5 what he would like to see done to protect owners who are dependent on rental income to pay their bills and sustain life.

Why is a landlord in a better position to bear a burden than others? That's a question posed by Daniel in this Curbed article. He offers his take on public policies and submits there should be a means-test for tenants who assert a COVID-19-related hardship.


Stay in the know.

This is a very fluid situation. Follow us for real-time updates for news and insights germane to rental housing providers and the professionals who serve them.