Landlords can’t circumvent cities’ tenant protections, court says

A California law that allows landlords to reduce tenants’ protections against eviction doesn’t apply in San Francisco, where the city Rent Board can enforce its own safeguards, a state appeals court has ruled.

Tuesday’s decision by the First District Court of Appeal also makes it harder for landlords to circumvent local rent control restrictions by evicting tenants to raise rents on the next occupants.

The changes included requiring tenants to provide for their own garbage collection, prohibiting them from storing property on the premises outside their units or washing clothes on the premises, and banning pets.

Under the city’s rules, a landlord can’t use new rules to evict a tenant unless the changes are specifically authorized by the rent control ordinance, required by state or federal law, or accepted in writing by the tenant or tenants acting without the threat of eviction.

Under state Supreme Court rulings from 1976 onward, “a municipality has the authority to limit the substantive grounds for eviction,” Justice Maria Rivera said in the 3-0 decision, which upheld a Superior Court judge’s ruling.

A rental agreement, Rivera said, “does not include a unilaterally imposed obligation to give up housing services associated with a rental unit, which include parking, laundry facilities, trash service, garden privileges, and storage spaces.”

Britton’s lawyer, Karen Uchiyama, said the court had allowed the Rent Board to bypass the legislative process and create new exceptions to the legal grounds for eviction.