Tenants could soon be able to sue landlords who have created dangerous living situations by improperly maintaining units, under new legislation proposed by Supervisor Myrna Melgar. In cases involving children, the elderly, or disabled people, plaintiffs could earn up to triple damages.
The legislation, introduced Nov. 28, allows San Francisco tenants to circumvent a state law requiring plaintiffs to obtain a city notice of violation from the Department of Building Inspection before suing for life-endangering conditions. Under state law, a tenant can sue a landlord and gain attorney’s fees only if the landlord hasn’t cured an official notice of violation complaint in 35 days, and still accepts rent.
Melgar, however, argued that the current law has too many hoops for tenants to jump through, and ultimately deters tenant lawyers from accepting potential cases. For example, tenants may have filed internal work orders, instead of city notices of violation. Some landlords will use band-aid repairs to “cure” the problem within 35 days and squash any legal action, Melgar added. “Say you’ve been complaining that you haven’t had heat for five years, and [after getting reported to DBI] finally the landlord puts a heater on your wall. That’s it,” she said.
Even if a repair is adequate, the department’s code-enforcement division only enforces repairs; the city does not compensate the tenant for individual mental or physical damages. “You have doctor’s bills, you’ve been getting colds, and there’s nothing that addresses that,” said Melgar, who served on both the Building Inspection Commission and Planning Commission before being elected District 7 supervisor in 2020. “You get it resolved, but there’s not really any repercussions for bad actors.”
Some cases can take an inordinate amount of time to be resolved by the city. In an extreme case, the Department of Building Inspection didn’t close a 2018 complaint for lack of heat until 2021, documents show. A landlord in subsidized housing in Bayview took five months to fix a destroyed kitchen — and threatened to evict the tenant, Mission Local reported in 2021, despite inspectors’ notices to repair it sooner. The tenant had mental health effects as a result.
Details of substandard conditions in recent Single Room Occupancy hotel cases have jarred the supervisor and her staff. Despite reporting violations to the Department of Building Inspection, and orders to abate, landlords ignored them, and violations have persisted since 2018. If the City Attorney wins the damages in the lawsuit, the damages would go to the city, not the affected individuals.
“Tenants should have full recourse to the judicial system if they experience harm due to substandard conditions,” under Melgar’s legislation.
A tenant must notify the City Attorney 60 days before suing, and can sue only for life-endangering conditions. The city may still choose to pursue action through code enforcement separately, and it does not preclude a tenant from suing.
“This legislation just creates a more expeditious process for tenants to sue for damages and is unrelated to our well-honed processes,” stated Patrick Hannan, a spokesperson for the Department of Building Inspection, in an email.
Additionally, Melgar’s legislation allows for attorney fees, modeled after a similar habitability ordinance in San Jose. Joseph Tobener, a San Francisco tenants attorney, said lawyers generally do not handle habitability cases in San Francisco because the city doesn’t guarantee attorney fee compensation.
Tobener said the San Jose law enables his firm to take 10 to 15 more cases a month in San Jose than he would in San Francisco. “I’d say, ‘I can’t take the case, unless there’s a fee provision.’ If you had [landlord issues] in San Francisco, I’d say ‘no.’ But in San Jose, I’d really be interested in your case,” Tobener said.
It’s unclear how many cases would be generated if the proposal passes.
The provision for extra damages for children was fueled by research demonstrating that poor housing conditions lead to negative health outcomes, Melgar said.
The legislation has raised concern from the San Francisco Apartment Association.
If a landlord doesn’t expediently repair the condition quickly, “it deputizes the tenant to file a lawsuit, instead of working through an objective process,” said Charley Goss, the government and community affairs manager of the apartment association. The association believes the existing code-enforcement provisions sufficiently motivate landlords to act, and there shouldn’t be an option to cut it out of the process.
The legislation will proceed to the Board of Supervisors Land Use Committee, which Melgar chairs, next year.
This is purely punitive. Tenants already are incentivized to sue, whether the owner is a bad actor or not. The supervisors never lose an opportunity to villainize anyone who owns property. Tenants get taxpayer funded attorneys, support from the rent board, and behind the scenes cheerleading from Comrades Preston, Ronen, and Melgar, to name a few.
The supervisors can blame themselves when small owners have had enough and get out of the business. The city eventually will have the corporate landlords that it has earned by its unending contempt for the majority of law-abiding owners who keep up their properties with rent increases limited to 60% of the CPI.
I don’t believe this legislation is targeting non-corp landlords. Many families with children and the disabled are living in substandard housing by corporate landlords due to below market rates. In my unit, I have been living with cockroaches for 4 months while my landlord refuses to hire a pest control vendor who offers alternatives to toxic pesticides. I live on Social Security and can’t afford anything other than subsidized housing. San Francisco is a pro-landlord city where the courts already favor landlords over tenants. Despite being a rent control city, those protections haven’t been enforced for 30 years. It’s time we got back to the idea of “fair housing”.
“The provision for extra damages for children was fueled by research demonstrating poor housing conditions lead to negative health outcomes, Melgar said.”
Another negative outcome: This would lead to landlord hesitancy to rent to families, the elderly and disabled persons who would also be slated for 3x damages.
In other words, if landlords are held accountable for violations of housing law, they’ll instead start violating housing law?
” do not handle habitability cases in San Francisco because the city (law) doesn’t guarantee attorney fee compensation.”
If the intent is not to punish, but to maximize sheltering, perhaps housing law ought to “guarantee landlord profit … and the swift resolution of conflict” to maximize the housing of families, seniors and the disabled, instead of blaming “bad business decisions” and overlooking all manner of bad behavior from occupants
WTF
elderly and minor but not LGTBQ+/-
Starting to feel like 1950’s Alabama
Racist
Comrade Lenin says that he does not want to kill off landlords, only nickle and dime them to death. Things and events change, Comrade Harry Britt said that it was time for landlords to go.
Can you imagine being insane enough to rent out your property in San Francisco? And when prices spike as supply of rentals drops, the progressives will scratch their heads with wonder, before proposing even more stringent rent control. The stupidity of the left never ceases to amaze.
Ease and improve the process of getting permits to do work first. It shouldn’t be so difficult to do even the most basic renovations in SF.
Yes there is a good chance that buildings such as PARKWEST which has been overrun by rodents since March 2023 will be flagged since there is no regular maintenance staff around to stop infestation until DEPT OF BUILDING INSPECTION holds a directors hearing and tenants come forward with horrific stories including children ‘s cribs with droppins, disabled M.D.’s coming down with a virus and overall ill will towards rent controlled tenants .
Tenants don’t give breaks to tenants more cause the laws keep demonizing landlords, giving tenants more rights over the apt than the owner *ex: master tenant can evict roommates with 30 days, owner: no such right!. and tenants get free legal help which the owner doesn’t get. No wonder 10s of 1000s of apts sit empty. And no wonder apts become tics and rental houses never sold except for owner occupants
Tenants do not always inform the property manager (PM) that something is broken. Receiving a formal Notice of Violation (NOV) from a housing inspector, validating that the complaint is real, allows the PM to fix the problem in a timely manner. Melgar is wrong to circumvent the NOV process and allow tenant attorneys to sue immediately, even if the PM has not been notified of a potential problem.
This is America. Tenants do not own the property so they have the freedom to move. Why is some silly Supervisor in San Francisco trying to get involved in this? To help a bunch of slimy tenant lawyers?
Campers,
I think Supervisor Melgar is a good person but it really surprised and hurt me to hear that she is evicting a hundred or so Motorhome dwellers in her district who have been there for years.
I wonder if they voted ?
If you are referring to the camper vans on Lake Merit Blvd… “Evicted”? It’s a roadway, but that aside – they just moved over a few yards. You can find them lined up on Vidal Drive in case you’re looking to make friends. Go drop off some cookies for the holidays. /s