How Can the California Civil Rights Department Help Protect Tenants from Landlord Discrimination and Harassment?
How Can the California Civil Rights Department Help Protect Tenants from Landlord Discrimination and Harassment? Tenant Law Group has brought discrimination and harassment claims under the Fair Employment and Housing Act in many of our cases against landlords and property managers across the state. A lawsuit is not the only way to use this law […]
How Does California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act Help Renters Fight Housing Discrimination?
How Does California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act Help Renters Fight Housing Discrimination? By Aser G. Tolentino, Esq. Introduction When most people think about the height of the Civil Rights Movement, they tend to think of the 1960s and 1970s, when protests, civil unrest, and some of the most iconic progressive voices in American history […]
Preventing Unwanted Charges and Deductions from your Security Deposit
Preventing Unwanted Charges and Deductions from Your Security Deposit Moving into a new apartment or rental home is exciting as it is stressful. Oftentimes, renters are too preoccupied with moving out of their old home to pay close attention to the condition of their new one. If you fail to document your home’s condition […]
Pushed to the Edge? Know Your Tenancy Rights Against Constructive Eviction
Pushed to the Edge? Know Your Tenancy Rights Against Constructive Eviction One of the first questions tenant rights attorneys often need to answer for a potential client is whether someone is in fact a tenant, and whether certain circumstances alter their rights. Previous newsletter and blog articles have discussed issues like citizenship status and membership […]
Housing Insecurity Solutions: How Los Angeles Transforms Pandemic Challenges into Tenant Protections
Housing Insecurity Solutions: How Los Angeles Transforms Pandemic Challenges into Tenant Protections As the last of the eviction moratoriums ticks down to its final days, it can be difficult to remember just how profound the housing crisis created by COVID-19 really was. With the devastating impact of the pandemic came a diverse set of tenant […]
Tenant Law and Housing Equality: Life Isn’t Fair, But Housing Should Be
Tenant Law and Housing Equality: Life Isn’t Fair, But Housing Should Be It has been three generations since state and federal laws were passed prohibiting housing discrimination. Unfortunately, the practice remains all too common. The question is, what is it? And what can you do about it? Fair Housing Act The Fair Housing Act (42 […]
How California’s Tenant Protection Act Statewide Rent Control Law Could be Improved
The 2019 Tenant Protection Act (TPA) went into effect on January 1, 2020—just over three years ago. By bringing rent control and just cause for eviction requirements to millions of Californians, the TPA safeguarded California renters by limiting the power landlords had to upend tenants’ lives through massive rent hikes or termination notices on as […]
Understanding the Implied Covenant of Quiet Enjoyment
Understanding the Implied Covenant of Quiet Enjoyment Under California law, every residential lease contains two implied promises (or “covenants”) that apply regardless of whether they explicitly appear in a rental agreement. One is the warranty of habitability, which provides that rented properties must meet certain minimum standards of liveability, as set forth in California Civil […]
Will I Be Evicted If My Apartment Building Is Sold?
Will I Be Evicted If My Apartment Building Is Sold? In San Francisco, Oakland, or any other jurisdiction, the sale of a building is not just cause to evict tenants. This is because these buildings are sold subject to the rent-controlled tenancies. However, there may be a risk of other no-fault evictions, such as Landlord-Move-In […]
Three Circumstances Where Small Claims Court May Be a Tenant’s Best Option
Circumstances Where Small Claims Court is a Tenant’s Best Option While it’s not unusual for a dispute to arise between a landlord and tenant, most disagreements can be resolved by an email, phone call, or in person conversation. In certain extreme cases of egregious landlord conduct, however, a tenant’s only hope for a resolution […]