College students stuck with brutal, unneeded leases
With classes online, they prefer to live at home, but landlords remain stubborn
Before the pandemic, San Jose State University student Betty Lee signed a lease at 27 North, a modern downtown apartment tower close to campus, for her senior year.
As the school shut down and transitioned to online classes, Lee lost her part-time jobs and moved home to Brentwood.
With money tight, she asked to renegotiate her lease.
But Lee said property managers at the private, off-campus complex gave her few options: Either find another roommate to take her lease, or pay roughly $1,400 a month for an empty room and parking space through the next academic year.
The property managers and owners declined to comment.
Lee’s father was recently laid off but has offered to help.
“I feel very guilty putting that toward my rent payments,” she said. “I know I’m not the only one.”
Bay Area college students, already disrupted by the pandemic, also are struggling to renegotiate tightly drawn leases signed before the crisis.
Lawyers and renter advocates say students at universities in San Jose, San Francisco and Berkeley — expensive markets where high demand often forces students into making quick and early decisions on apartments — are being squeezed to pay rent for rooms
“It’s an enormous, underground issue across the state. This is a state law problem.” — Joseph Tobener, a tenant rights attorney in San Francisco
they may never set foot in.
“It’s an enormous, underground issue across the state,” said Joseph Tobener, a tenant rights attorney in San Francisco. His offices are fielding 10 to 15 calls a week from harried students and parents. He doesn’t blame landlords or tenants. “This is a state law problem.”
Bay Area Legal Aid attorney Lara Verwer said students are generally new to the landlord-tenant relationship and can easily be enticed to sign ironclad leases with stiff penalties. “It’s almost trapping students,” she said.
Joshua Howard of the California Apartment Association said the group has been encouraging members to be flexible “and come up with solutions that can work with the renter and the landlord.”
While some property owners have worked with tenants, others have drawn a hard line. Students and parents complain about standoffish or unresponsive property managers and being forced to advertise apartments on Facebook and Craigslist to find renters to assume their leases. But the students are competing with their landlords advertising rent discounts at the same properties.
Tenant protections enacted during the pandemic have postponed evictions and give struggling residents months to pay back rent. But the temporary orders have done little for the private agreements made between students and corporate landlords before the crisis struck.
Officials at the California State University system, which encompasses nearly a half-million students on 23 campuses, announced the schools will conduct most classes online for the fall term. Most Bay Area community and city colleges are planning for virtual classrooms, according to a survey by the Chronicle of Higher Education. UC Berkeley also has announced that fall classes will be online.
San Jose State, Stanford and Santa Clara University are proposing hybrid models, but officials say that could change with health restrictions.
Berkeley students also have been caught in limbo, despite a city ordinance aimed at protecting them from penalties for breaking leases.
Graduate student Peter Chen secured his two-bedroom apartment in April, before the announcement of virtual classes. The Trump administration’s threat to strip visas for foreign students if they were not taking in-person classes further complicated the issue.
One of Chen’s roommates decided to stay in China rather than risk coming to the U.S. and getting caught in immigration limbo. The Trump administration has since backed off the order.
Chen, studying electrical engineering, sought to break his lease and pay a penalty of two months’ rent — roughly $8,000 — as the agreement called for. But the landlords at the Sterling Allston, a 20-year-old apartment complex steps from campus, cited a recent Berkeley City Council emergency action to deny the request.
The City Council passed an ordinance stating landlords could not charge renters certain penalties during the health emergency. The landlords argued that the local law prohibited the two-month payment clause in the lease. Chen said they demanded he and his roommates either find another tenant or pay the full amount of their lease.
Officials for the property owner, The Dinerstein Companies of Houston, did not respond to a request for comment.
The two sides eventually negotiated a settlement, and Chen paid a little more than two months’ rent to move out. He’s since found a cheaper space with one of his roommates and hopes for fewer disruptions this year.
For now, he’s staying with a friend until his new lease comes up. “It’s not a perfect ending,” he said.
San Jose State students have had mixed experiences. The university offered students in on-campus housing rebates for early move-outs during the pandemic.
But residents at two private, off-campus complexes in downtown San Jose — 27 North and The Grad — say they’ve struggled to negotiate or even connect with property management. Most locked in leases well before the pandemic, taking advantage of rent discounts for early renewals and ensuring a reserved apartment with their friends for fall.
Sarah Ansari, 21, just finished her junior year at San Jose State taking online business classes from her family home in San Ramon. Ansari left 27 North during the pandemic, paying rent on her empty room through July. In August, she starts a new lease at The Grad. She’s tried unsuccessfully to get relief from her old landlord and her future landlord.
“I’m essentially paying for an expensive storage unit,” she said.
Randy Schrock signed a lease for his son, Roman, at The Grad on March 7, about 10 days before shelter-inplace orders were issued for Santa Clara County. The lease, guaranteed by the father, is scheduled to run from Aug. 15 to July 31, 2021.
Schrock contacted the property manager after the university announced it was going to online classes. He said he told them his son would be living at home in Orange County while taking remote classes but would like to move into the unit when restrictions are lifted. He asked for a reduction in rent. No dice, he said the property manager told him. Schrock would be liable for the full amount — $16,600 over the term of the lease — and the property owner would “use all remedies available to collect those monies,” Schrock said.
He is still upset. During a health emergency, Schrock said, companies should think about more than their bottom line.
Property management company Asset Living did not respond to questions about The Grad.
Tobener, the tenant rights attorney, said students should examine their leases carefully to see if there are clauses allowing them to break the contract without penalty. But generally, he said, landlords “are taking a hard line.”
Lee texted friends and reached out to other groups living at 27 North. They launched an online petition to get relief, and about two dozen residents are active on a group chat to pressure the property owners to negotiate.
Next month, she expects to be at home, taking classes toward her business major, and hopes to be free from her lease.