APB Archives

JUST-CAUSE EVICTION (Oct 23, 03)

THE APARTMENT ASSOCIATION'S VIEW (Oct 23, 03)

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The San Diego County Apartment Association (CAA) has begun a campaign to defeat any effort by San Diego to enact a just-cause eviction law. Without being too detailed, a just-cause eviction law requires landlords to state why an eviction is being done, and it restricts the list of causes that are considered "just". A few cities have just-cause eviction laws.
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Just-cause eviction laws came up in the deliberations of the Affordable Housing Task Force in early to mid-2003. The two sides are predictable; renter groups who want such a law and landlord groups who don't. Nothing new there. Renter groups argue that such laws prevent capricious evictions. Nothing new there. Landlord groups argue that the laws infringe on their rights to own and manage their properties. Nothing new there either.
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The CAA mailed an appeal directly to renters whose landlords are members of
the association. Their appeal lists all the reasons why renters should oppose just-cause eviction laws, and asks renters to sign and mail in a postcard stating their opposition. You might have received one of these in the mail recently.
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The City Council has generally been cool to just-cause eviction laws. There
might not be five votes to enact the law, so for the moment, the old rules
apply. The landlord can evict you on 30-day notice, without telling you why.
The landlord can evict you on three-day notice for failure to pay rent or for
material breach of any provision of the rental agreement you signed. Of course, you can move out too, with 30-day notice. Nothing new in any of this,
is there?
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