Tenant Rights in El Cerrto Single Family Home: Help!
Our family recently moved into a beautiful single family home rental in El Cerrito after two years of trying, with no success, to purchase our own home. We have lived in Oakland for fifteen years as renters but had grown out of our previous rental apartment. We were thrilled to find this house. We signed on for 6 months so that we wouldn't be "locked in" should we actually find something (our hopes have dimmed quite a bit since setting out, but not darkened completely). The lease rolls over to a month-to-month after that. The landlord dropped by yesterday and informed us that he will likely be raising the $3,000/month rent to $5,000/month after our 6-month term is up. The house could likely fetch the higher amount if they made a few repairs and cosmetic alterations, which he claims they are going to do, but we could never afford it at this price, nor could most of the people I know in the community. Do we have *any* protections whatsoever as single family home renters? It appears from my preliminary research that we do not. At all. Can others chime in? Is there anyone else out there who has faced a similar situation and managed to stay? We love this home, and my kids really need the stability after a couple of years of staying in short-term rentals and doing little else aside from viewing open houses that we never succeed in bidding on. We really want to stay put!
Parent Replies
I can't give you any advice on tenant's rights, since we bought a house two years ago when we were in the same situation--huge increase on a pleasant but run-down house.
However, it's the landlord's house and IMHO you'll keep running into this problem, given the pressures on the housing market. You are probably better off buying, even in an area you're not crazy about. We looked all over the East Bay and Marin using a different agent for each area (contact me if you want referrals, they were both great). You'll have more options looking in El Sobrante, Pinole, Hercules, parts of Richmond.
We wound up buying in northern Marin; the values were simply better for our purposes, and the schools are generally good There are some extremely nice condo complexes and even a fairly upscale mobile home park (!!) Contempo Marin. It's not the answer you wanted, I know., but that's the market. I do wish it was different.
Sadly, I do not think you have any recourse. Some cities, like Berkeley and Oakland, do have some tenant protections, but often even these cities only protect people in buildings with more units, not in single family homes. Some cities have no renter protections beyond what is in the lease agreement, and I think El Cerrito is one of these. It’s left entirely to the market and to the contract between the parties. They can drastically raise the rent, as in your case, and they can also abruptly kick you out if they want the unit for a friend, etc. The latter happened to us once in Albany. I’m sorry this is happening to you.
I'm so sorry to hear about your situation. Unfortunately, while short term leases 'free' you to get out of them as needed (like if you buy a house), the drawback, as you can see, is that you have no protection from rent increases. Does Albany have any form of rent control? Relocation fees? You could try to negotiate with your landlord, tell him you are actively looking to buy a house and ask for a 1 year lease at slightly more. I wish you the best of luck!!
Unfortunately there is no rent control for single family homes and you did agree to the shorter lease in case you wanted to move out sooner than a year. I would recommend going forward to just sign a year lease which allows you to break the lease early without incurring too much penalty. Landlords cannot keep your deposit if you find a replacement tenant in the timely matter when you break a year lease.
I am so sorry you are going through this. While I can't help you with your situation, I can provide some of the larger context in which this is happening. The increase is large - for most, it would be more of an eviction notice and it makes me wonder about the intentions behind it.
Much of the Bay Area is rent controlled but single family homes are exempt because of state law. Also exempt are "new construction" (at least since 1995) and vacancies (so if a renter moves out, the housing provider can raise the rent) More and more places are putting rent control on local ballots. Essentially, rent control means housing providers are not allowed to raise rents more than 2 or 3% per year. This rate does not work over the long term since it does not keep pace with the actual rises in the cost of housing - taxes, water, fees, carpenters etc. Housing providers end up depending on the rare vacancy to raise rents high enough to stay afloat in a hostile environment. Renters tend to stay put as rents rise around them faster than rent control allows for occupied units. This further exacerbates the supply and demand issue as there are fewer and fewer units to turn over. Why does this matter to you? There was a proposal in the state legislature to do away with all exemptions from rent control - single family homes, etc. It died last week in committee. It will certainly be on the statewide ballot in the fall. This will mean nothing to 97% of the state that doesn't have rent control, until they do; and then everyone could potentially be swept up including home owners who want to live elsewhere and rent their homes temporarily. If every possible unit becomes rent controlled then housing providers will have to sink or swim and that will depend largely on whether they were covering all costs, long and short term, and have a good cushion to boot. The victims of the unintended consequences of rent control include vulnerable renters, like yourself, small-time housing providers, like me, and any one who isn't a well established renter with a cheap apartment, like any newcomer or kid that grew up here and wants their own place.
I suspect that your landlord is trying to get ahead of the game. I wonder if the improvements they plan to make would not be possible with you living there? Do you have a relationship with them where you could talk to them about the next 6 months - maybe meet in the middle until they've done the work and the kids have finished out the school year?