
S.F. Tenant Forced Out by 315 Percent Rent Hike Wins $400,000 Settlement - happy-go-lucky
https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2017/01/17/s-f-tenant-hit-with-315-percent-rent-increase-wins-400000-settlement/
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afinlayson
If you don't understand the rental laws don't be a landlord. There's too much
of a belief that landowners can do whatever they want.

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crimsonalucard
The landlord definitely had no right to raise rents to such an absurd price,
but a 400k penalty is equally absurd. I have no respect for both people in
this case.

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jibalt
I have no respect for you, since it was an agreed upon settlement that
reflected the penalty that the landlord would have faced had he gone to trial,
and that penalty wasn't set by the tenant.

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crimsonalucard
There is no need to get personal here. I am stating my opinion of these two
people as a bystander, you are making a personal remark to me.

There are limits to an agreement. In terms of respect, I respect people who
value logic, reason and morality over terms of an agreement. Your point taken
to the logical conclusion means that agreements can override everything
including human rights.

400,000 is unreasonable. Although the tenant didn't set the penalty she was
rewarded not compensated for her troubles. Sure the word of the law is final,
but did the tenant deserve 400K? No. The tenant does not deserve 400k as much
as the tenant does not deserve to have rent prices used to kick her out.

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jibalt
"In terms of respect, I respect people who value logic, reason and morality
over terms of an agreement"

Then you, like me, have no respect for you. Again, you are blaming the tenant
for the amount of the settlement when that amount is due to factors that the
tenant did not create ... if you bother to read the article, you will see
mention of the triple damages that could have been awarded -- that was set by
society, not by the tenant. If you don't want personal comments, then don't be
so cavalier about making public proclamations of disrespect for others ...
especially when they are victims of atrocious behavior. The landlord willfully
violated the law for their own benefit and at the expense of the tenant. They
are lucky that it's only a civil penalty that they can afford, rather than
being thrown in the hoosegow.

"did the tenant deserve 400K?"

See how you change the subject, from whether the tenant deserves respect as a
human being, to whether they deserve a 400K payment? That sort of thing is why
I have no respect for you.

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crimsonalucard
I am not blaming the tenant for the amount. I am saying I do not respect the
tenant. The tenant does not deserve 400k which can be about half way to buying
a house in certain parts of the bay area. I cannot respect someone who accepts
a penalty fee he or she does not deserve. IMO The tenant deserves at most 30k
for her troubles. 400k is immoral, illogical and unreasonable.

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jibalt
And I do not respect you for your heartlessness, illogic, intellectual
dishonesty, and immorality ... what, you expect her to turn down a settlement
offered by the landlord? No, you don't really, and you wouldn't yourself. The
woman suffered through breast cancer while couch surfing during her eviction,
for God's sake. Bad people disrespecting good people is the new world order.
I'm done with you and will now bathe.

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dmitrygr
This is insane. An owner of a property not subject to rent control should be
free to raise rent to any amount. The argument that "Look, you can increase
the rent to market rate, but you can’t raise it way above market rate" is
completely insane. If I want to charge you $900,000 per second to rent my
house, I am free to, and you are free to not rent it then.

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rsj_hn
Actually, no. Charging existing tenants more than the market rate in order to
evict them and so avoid your obligations under the OMI regulations is not
something that you are allowed to do. If you want to do an OMI, then do the
OMI. File the paperwork, compensate the tenant, wait the required period, and
do the owner move in properly.

Nothing forces you to be a landlord -- in this case the owner inherited a
house with tenants. They can always sell the asset to someone who is familiar
with the laws and is able to comply with them. Given the high prices in SF,
this should be easy to do.

But owning property with an existing tenant makes you a landlord -- you are
choosing to be in this highly regulated line of work. It used to be case that
landlords could do whatever they wanted to tenants, but the law has since
changed. Now being a landlord requires that you maintain the property, that
you give proper notice for things like rent increases, that you file paperwork
when you want to do the OMI, and that you compensate the tenant for evicting
them due to no fault of their own (such as what happens with an OMI). So
please do your homework instead of arguing that you should be able to do
whatever you want to your tenants.

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jimmywanger
I don't think that's what happened in this case.

They removed an illegal (that's the key word) in-law unit, making the unit a
single family home.

That single family home was no longer under the rent control laws, enabling
the owner to jack up the rent.

If they had gone by the book, they would have just had to pay the tenant 9.5k
to go away, which is what (in retrospect) the owner should have done.

400k seems egregiously high, and designed to pander to populist opinion rather
than any reasonable interpretation of the law.

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dragonwriter
> That single family home was no longer under the rent control laws, enabling
> the owner to jack up the rent

Unreasonable rent increases to circumvent OMI rules are generally prohibited
in such rules (since they are the most obvious way to effect an eviction
pretextually), which are independent of rent control rules. The legal issue
here was the OMI rules, not rent control, so the illegality of the other unit
or the change in rent control status is irrelevant.

> 400k seems egregiously high, and designed to pander to populist opinion
> rather than any reasonable interpretation of the law.

It's not a 400k award, it's a 400k settlement, which means that the owner
clearly thinks that the actual award that survived all appeals plus the cost
of litigation (including the cost in the owners time) would be at least that
much.

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jimmywanger
> It's not a 400k award, it's a 400k settlement, which means that the owner
> clearly thinks that the actual award that survived all appeals plus the cost
> of litigation (including the cost in the owners time) would be at least that
> much.

Why did you nitpick a point instead of addressing the egregiously high seeming
cost? Your point merely buttresses my point, which is that 400k is far more
than can and should be reasonably expected.

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jibalt
Why did you dishonestly call it a nitpick, rather than the essential point
that it is?

> Your point merely buttresses my point

Um, no. That's a ridiculous dishonest claim.

> which is that 400k is far more than can and should be reasonably expected.

No, the whole point of the "nitpick" is that this is false. The landlord quite
reasonably expected to pay more if he were to go to court. There's a good
reason for this expectation: because the landlord intentionally violated the
law for their own gain at the expense of the interests of the tenant. The
landlord is a bad bad person who did a bad bad thing, and should be treated
accordingly.

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jimmywanger
I guess this is you missing the point.

> Why did you dishonestly call it a nitpick, rather than the essential point
> that it is?

You should understand the point being discussed before accusing people of
dishonesty. The point buttresses my point, if read using any definition of
basic reading comprehension you'd chose to use.

> The landlord quite reasonably expected to pay more if he were to go to
> court.

And my point is that the unlawful eviction of somebody, even with punitive
damages, shouldn't rise to even the same order of magnitude of 400k, let alone
a huge amount higher. That's enough to buy a new house in much of the rest of
the country.

The punitive damages should be something to do with the total lawyer fees in
the case, as well as the expenses to move, as well as a deterrent amount.

NOT the ability to buy an entire new house, or an amount which might
reasonably requiring the person being sued to sell the house. Now is the point
clear to you?

~~~
dragonwriter
> And my point is that the unlawful eviction of somebody, even with punitive
> damages, shouldn't rise to even the same order of magnitude of 400k

Why not?

> That's enough to buy a new house in much of the rest of the country.

So what? What does the rest of the country have to do with it? The rest of the
country isn't where the wrongful deprivation occurred.

> The punitive damages should be something to do with the total lawyer fees in
> the case

Lawyers fees and court costs are often awarded _in addition to_ any actual
and/or punitive damages awards, and are, like actual damages, compensatory
rather than punitive.

> as well as the expenses to move

Again, that's compensatory rather than punitive damages, and it's what's
required when landlords _comply_ with the notice and other restrictions
applicable to OMI evictions.

> as well as a deterrent amount.

Actually, that's the only part that is punitive in nature.

You've basically identified the relocation payment they would have had to make
if they complied with OMI rules, punitive damages, and fees and costs, but not
any compensation for harms due to the failure to observe the procedural
(notice/timing) requirements of Omi rules or for not paying when due.

Now on top of what all that would have been in the case of a trial, add in the
value to the _defendant_ of not admitting wrongdoing, and avoiding the costs
(including time costs and stress) of litigation, and you've got a reasonable
upper bound on a settlement.

> NOT the ability to buy an entire new house, or an amount which might
> reasonably requiring the person being sued to sell the house.

Well, it's clearly not enough to buy an entire new house in the area in
question, so that's irrelevant. And I hardly see how the latter standard is
justified, since that's dependent wholly on the defendants financial state.
You certainly haven't established that the actual number here doesn't fit even
your initial description of the elements that would make a reasonable amount.

