How long does it take to count to three in San Francisco? It may take longer than you think.

There has been an abundance of tenant protections during COVID and this has given San Franciso lawmakers the momentum and the platform to advance an agenda that, among other things, gives more time for tenants to correct lease violations.

This is part of a larger movement to use COVID as a guise and a springboard to advance more permanent safeguards to tenants.

From the desk of Daniel Bornstein

Tis' the season for celebration and reflection, but astute landlords, investors, property managers, and real estate professionals are always looking forward.

As are we.

_{With rising housing costs and being emboldened by the success of nationwide eviction bans, the movement to expand rent and eviction controls is finding the tides turning in its favor.}

_{Many things don't feel feasible until they are, and for militant tenants' advocates, rent controls feel feasible now.}

_{It's like a law in physics - a moving body will not come to rest unless something stops it. Call it inertia. When COVID first reared its ugly proteins, the first impulse of lawmakers was to stabilize housing and avoid a "tsunami" of evictions that never came.} 

_{With the omicron variant, we can't say that we are in a post-COVID world. But what we have now is a laboratory of new tenant protections that are wholly unrelated to the pandemic.}

_{The engine of tenant protections that first steamed forward at the outset of COVID hasn't stalled - it keeps plowing along}

_{Take, for instance, San Francisco. After a proposal to unionize tenants gained traction - a topic we covered here - there is now a proposal that would require landlords to first issue a warning to tenants before the saber-rattling of an official 3-day notice demanding rent payments or the cessation of nuisances or lease violations.} 

_{While giving financially strapped tenants more breathing room to pay rent is one thing, the measure would allow a bracket of problematic tenants to continue a rampage of nuisances and blatant lease violations. We make our case here.}

_.

_{Pivoting to the East Bay}

_{There are calls to blanket unincorporated areas of Alameda County with added tenant protections and we share the framework here.}

_{It used to be that San Francisco was the undisputed champion of draconian and unmanageable rent and eviction controls, but Alameda County is now uncrowning San Francisco by enacting stricter rules and exporting them elsewhere.} 

_{On the bright side, proposing crackpot rules is a sign that we are getting back to normal.}

_{Although we are largely over the hump and we have access to the courts, the regulatory regime we operate in will always be in flux. You can count on our stamina to make sense of it all.} 

_{To our valued clients, colleagues, referral partners, those of you who share our goal of educating our community and many of our other friends, we wish you a blessed holiday season}

_{Along with you, Bornstein Law will enjoy some time to exhale, but we won't rest on our laurels.}

_{There are many challenges ahead in seeking a mountain of rent debt, recovering possession of rental units that have languished, and getting cash flowing again. We stand ready to assist.}

_{Season’s greetings and wishing you a prosperous New Year,}