The Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles (AAGLA) has filed a lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles seeking to nullify and enjoin the city from enforcing a pandemic-era ordinance prohibiting rental housing providers from increasing rent.
According to AAGLA, the city’s Rent Freeze Ordinance prohibits residential rental property owners from increasing rent on properties subject to the Rent Stabilization Ordinance (RSO) for a period of one-year following the end of the declared “Local Emergency.” The city declared an end to the local pandemic-era emergency as of Feb. 1, 2023 – but the Rent Freeze Ordinance will continue until Feb. 1, 2024, or approximately four years after the city’s local emergency declaration was made in March 2020.
AAGLA argued the city’s rent freeze violated the California and U.S. Constitutions by depriving its members of due process by preventing annual rent increases. The lawsuit, which was filed in the Superior Court of the State of California, seeks to overturn the city’s ordinance that blocked rent increases.
“This ordinance, which has frozen all rent increases for more than three years under a period of extreme inflationary pressures, has been a tremendous financial strain on the city’s rental housing providers,” said Cheryl Turner, president of the AAGLA Board of Directors and a Los Angeles based attorney. “As a result, many housing providers in Los Angeles have been forced to exit the rental business, liquidate retirement savings to keep up with rapidly rising costs, or in extreme instances, are facing foreclosure proceedings. No other type of business or entity, not food suppliers, medical professionals, nor the government itself, have been burdened by what will ultimately be a four-year mandated ‘freeze’ on income from which housing providers will never be able to make-up.”
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It seems the goal of real estate is complete gentrification due to pure unadulterated greed. I hope these same people enjoy self-serve everything as there will be no one left in many of these towns/cities to handle their service needs. Enjoy cleaning your own pool and mowing your own yards, etc. There will be no one else to do it!
How would you like it if the government restricted you from any pay increases for four years? Yet your mortgage is still due, your car payment is due. How about no Social Security benefit increases for four years. By restricting how much a landlord can charge it reduces the amount of resources for improvements, maintenance and repairs.
I totally support the lawsuit and always thought it was unfair for local municipalities to freeze rent increases and prevent housing property providers an ability to maintain market rents.
Do what the founding fathers told us, TAX PROPERTY…NEVER LABOR…Then the monopoly will stop and those who own too much will gradually sell and produce the proper equlibrium.
Anyone that owns more than 25 apartment units should have their rents frozen until they sell off their excess inventory.
How did you come up with that arbitrary 25 number? Maybe it should be 10 units or 5 units or zero units. All rental units shall be confiscated by the government and rented out for zero dollars, would that be better?
Take a course in Business 101 and I know that you will quickly realize the fallacy of your statement!
The founding fathers did no such thing. Tarrifs were the main source of taxes in the early years of the Republic. And note that it took a “progressive” administration (Wilson) to bring us the income tax, sold as a tax on the wealthy. Sound familiar? A better solution? Repeal all taxes and replace them with a national sales tax. Poor people pay less tax because they don’t buy much. Rich people pay more taxes because they buy more stuff. (And that system could be made more “progressive” by not taxing things like food, a commodity that takes a larger share of the poor’s budget.)
Why do people assume that landlords have endlessly deep pockets? Owning income-generating property is a business which, like any other business, has costs. Rental income must be sufficient to cover the costs of maintenance, taxes, mortgage payments, property management fees, etc. and still provide income to the landlord. When the cost of doing business increases, so must the income generated from the business, in this case income from rents. Many landlords would fall into a “small business” category so it becomes a sort of unwarranted penalty when they are expected to absorb the whole burden of inflationary cost increases.
I totally support this lawsuit. Unfair & unreasonable tenant protections laws chase investors out of California. Unlimited maintenance responsibilities, mortgages, taxes & under the government restrictions, the property owners carry the burden by themselves, NO MERCY. These government restrictions literarily wipe out mom & pop property owners.
I support the lawsuit! If you can’t afford the rent increases then move to somewhere in the country that has cheaper cost of living benefits. Or, get a 2nd or 3rd job. I worked 2 full-time jobs for 36 years to be able to live in the San Francisco Bay Area. Entitlement, should never exist! If you can’t make it where you’re at? You are living beyond your means. It would be equivalent of me moving to Dubai and having to struggle.
I totally agree with you Richard. I have a similar story about my successful survival in the Bay area. We have legislatures comprised of Rich people from rich families who have started out from wealthy families paying for their education and using political and social influence to place those unqualified and inexperienced brats in power. .. It’s hard not to score when you are born on 3rd base. I don’t expect any understanding from them. Their motivation is to remain in power by buying votes from knuckleheads. The SBF case and HB are noteworthy of support. I rest my case.