They're at it again. In the waning days of the legislative session, the California Assembly passed Assembly Bill 1169 (Torrico), which had already passed in the Senate, a bill generally requiring residential landlords to give sixty-day notice before terminating a month-to-month or other periodic tenancy.
AB 1169 is pretty much a reinstatement of SB 1403 (Kuehl), a bill that passed in 2002 and that was allowed to expire at the end of 2005. That bill required that a sixty-day notice be given if a tenant had been in the premises for more than one year. An exception is allowed in cases where (1) the dwelling unit is legally separable from any other dwelling unit (e.g. a condominium unit), (2) the property is in a bona fide escrow, (3) the escrow has been open for less than four months, (4) the tenant hadn't previously been given notice, and (5) the purchaser intends to reside in the unit for at least one year.
The arguments in support and in opposition to the legislation have not changed much since 2002. Supporters point to an extremely low vacancy factor in much of California. According to the Western Center on Law and Poverty, a supporter of the bill, "Los Angeles County, Orange County, and San Diego County are all projected to be at 3.2 percent this year, tied for the lowest in the nation. (A 5 percent vacancy rate is considered a normal, fully-rented market.) … While rates are currently slightly better in the Bay Area (San Francisco is at 5.6 percent and San Jose is at 5.5 percent), those markets are so costly that the vacancy rate(s) for affordable units are much lower."
Proponents argued that it is both hard to find replacement dwellings and it is difficult to save the money needed to secure a new unit. They said present conditions are particularly burdensome on the poor and the elderly who have difficulty finding the means to look for new living space.
Among other things, opponents of the bill argued that an extended notice period creates a burden on good tenants who have to put up with the continued presence of less-desirable tenants who have been given notice. They point out that giving notice is a preferable and commonly-used method of getting rid of bad and disruptive tenants. They also argued that it is a "given" that once a sixty-day notice is given, rent payment stops, even though the tenant may have only paid one month of "last month's rent."
Supporters of the bill, who pretty clearly have never participated in an eviction process, maintained that any problems with unruly or nonpaying tenants can be dealt with -- in their words -- through the "expedited process" of unlawful detainer (eviction).
As before, the new legislation provides that tenants are only required to give thirty-days notice of termination of tenancy. Moreover, the thirty-day notice may be given within the sixty-day period. Suppose a landlord gave sixty-day notice on September first. If the tenant secured a replacement within the first week, he could then give notice that he would be moving out in early October.
Unlike the previous bill, AB 1169 provides that a sixty-day notice is required only if all the tenants and/or residents have been in the property for at least a year. If any of the residents has been there for less than a year, only a thirty-day notice is required.
Politics makes for interesting bedfellows. In addition to the California Association of Realtors® and a variety of apartment and property owner associations, the California Department of Consumer Affairs registered opposition to the bill. Supporters included the Skid Row Housing Trust of Los Angeles, California AFL-CIO, Supportive Parents Information Network, Women's Empowerment of Sacramento, Vietnam Veterans of California, Father Joe's Villages, and the Gray Panthers.
The bill is on its way to the Governor's desk. Interested Californians should let his office know what they think about it.
