Landlords: Caps may force them to raise rents more

LOS ANGELES — Prominent landlord attorney Dennis Block stood before a crowd of more than 200 at an apartment owners trade show in Pasadena and, to laughs, boasted of having evicted “more tenants than anybody else on the planet Earth.”

Block said he was proud to enforce what he said America was built on: property rights. He then talked about the “scourge of this new statewide rent control that is coming up” and offered some ways that landlords could evade rules that as of Jan. 1 would cap annual increases for tenants at 5% plus inflation and require “just cause” to evict.

His advice? Quickly hand out no-fault eviction notices to tenants who pay low rent or make frivolous requests.

“You don’t have to feel bad about this,” he said Wednesday at the trade show for the Apartment Assn. of Greater Los Angeles, which represents landlords. “It’s not your fault, it’s the state legislators’ fault.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to sign Assembly Bill 1482 into law this month. And while supporters celebrate its potential to stanch the flow of people who are priced out of their communities or onto the streets, landlords are grappling with what it means for them.

The rent-cap law covers only buildings older than 15 years and applies to singlefamily homes only if they are owned by corporations or other institutional investors. It expires in 2030 and won’t override stricter rent control ordinances in places such as Los Angeles and San Francisco.

How property owners react will go a long way to determining how effective the bill is in providing greater protection to tenants in California’s unaffordable housing markets.

“Merely making a passive investment in rental property has become a huge burden and risk, so owners tend to gravitate to what people like Dennis have to say in hopes that there may be some relief out there,” said Daniel Yukelson, executive director of the apartment association.