In San Francisco, most residential renters are covered by the San Francisco Rent Ordinance which offers lease control and just cause for eviction. This indicates leas can only be raised by certain quantities annually and the occupant can only be forced out for "just causes." In addition, some rentals have restrictions on how much the proprietor can charge the brand-new tenant due to previous evictions. The Rent Ordinance is administered by the San Francisco Rent Board.

Effective January 1, 2020, there is state lease control and just cause required for expulsion for numerous property units not covered under the Rent Ordinance. If the unit does not fall under an exemption, then it is covered. For the units covered only under California rent control, annual lease increases are capped at 5 percent plus the cost of living increase or 10 percent, whichever is lower, for tenants who have inhabited the system for 12 months or more.

The Rent Board website has comprehensive info about the Rent Ordinance and you can download the San Francisco Rent Ordinance and Rent Board Rules and Regulations or pertain to our therapy center for more details about the Rent Ordinance or state law. Tenants who do not have rent control can have their rent increased by any quantity at any time with a proper written notification.

Major Components of the Rent Control Under the Rent Ordinance

- Landlords can just raise a tenant's rent by a set quantity each year (connected to inflation). Landlords can likewise petition for other boosts. Notably, capital improvements can be passed through to the occupant for a maximum boost of 10% or increased operating and upkeep expenses for an optimal boost of 7%, but these rent boosts need to be recorded and authorized by the Rent Board before they can be enforced. The tenant can request a difficulty exemption for the capital improvement and operating and maintenance passthroughs.
- Tenants can petition the Rent Board to decrease their rent if the landlord has actually failed to offer concurred upon or legally required services-e.g., the landlord removes storage space, parking, washer/dryer, etc or the property owner stops working to maintain the facilities as safe and habitable (e.g. the house has uncorrected housing code violations).
- Tenants can just be evicted for among 16 "simply causes" unless the tenant shares the rental with their landlord. The majority of these evictions handle allegations the tenant can dispute (e.g., renter is breaching the lease) but some are "no-fault" like owner move in or an Ellis Act eviction.

Rent Control Coverage Under the Rent Ordinance

If you reside in San Francisco, you are normally covered by rent control. The major exceptions are:

- You reside in a rental unit with a certificate of occupancy after June 13, 1979, with a couple of exceptions. This "brand-new construction exemption" is the biggest exemption in San Francisco. The Assessor's database, is where you can generally discover the date your structure was built which will provide the approximate date for the certificate of tenancy. Illegal systems do not have a certificate of tenancy, so are covered under the Rent Ordinance unless exempt for other reasons. Some "accessory units" frequently called in-law units are still covered under rent control despite having a certificate of occupancy issued after June 13, 1979. (SF Administrative Code Section 37.2( r)( 4 )( D)) Unauthorized systems that existed before June 13, 1979 and were brought up to code after that date are likewise still covered under lease control. However, reliable January 19, 2020, these more recent systems are no longer exempt from the rest of the Rent Ordinance due to their certificate of occupancy date.
- You reside in subsidized housing, such as HUD housing projects. Tenants with tenant-based support such as Section 8 coupons are still covered by the expulsion defense of the Rent Ordinance, and often covered by the rent control of the Rent Ordinance. Make a visit with the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco for assistance for subsidized housing.
- You reside in a property hotel and have less than 32 days of constant occupancy.
- You reside in a dormitory, health center, abbey, nunnery, and so on- You reside in a single family home (see below).

Single Family Homes Including Condos Have Limited Rent Control Coverage

You normally do not have full lease control security if you reside in a single family home (a single family home with a prohibited in-law unit counts as a 2-unit structure) or a condo and you (and your roommates) moved in on or after January 1, 1996. While these units do not generally have limitations on lease boosts, they do have "just cause" eviction protection (unless otherwise exempt for factors such as above), suggesting you can only be forced out for among the simply causes unless the tenant shares the rental system with their proprietor.

Exception: If you moved into a single family home which was vacant because the previous renter was evicted after a 60 or thirty days eviction notification (a no-fault expulsion), then you have full rent control protection. (You can find out if there was a previous eviction by going to the Rent Board website or looking for the proprietor's name on the California Superior Court's site.)

Exception: If you moved into a single family home or condominium which had housing code offenses that were cited and uncorrected for a minimum of 6 months before the job, then you have complete lease control. You can discover out the code violation status of your building at the Department of Building Inspection's website.

Exception: If you reside in a condo where the subdivider of the building still owns the apartments, you have full rent control defense, unless it is the last unsold system and the subdivider resided in the system for at least a year after subdivision.

Commercial Units Used as Residential with the Landlord's Knowledge Are Not Exempt from Rent Control

Commercial areas or live/work systems in which tenants continue to live in a nonresidential unit with the understanding of the property owner are covered by rent control unless exempt for other factors. Whether the proprietor actually understands that individuals live there and permits the occupants to live there is what counts.

Rent Increases Under the Rent Ordinance

Tenants with lease control can just be provided lease increases based on what the law allows. Each year, a proprietor can give occupants a yearly rent increase, which is based upon the Bay Area Consumer Price Index (i.e. inflation). Landlords can likewise pass on some costs to renters automatically (without having to petition the Rent Board), consisting of 50% of just recently adopted bond measures, increases in PG & E costs (when paid by the property manager), and a portion of the annual "Rent Board Fee" which funds the Rent Board. In addition, landlords can petition for "capital enhancement" rent boosts and "operating and maintenance" rent boosts. If renters believe they have gotten an illegal lease increase (now or in the past) you ought to be available in to the SFTU drop-in center for guidance on filing an Illegal Rent Increase petition at the Rent Board to get your lease overpayments refunded and your rent set properly.

Annual Rent Increases

The annual lease increase (file 571) can be imposed on or after the tenant's "anniversary date." The rent increase can not be given faster than 12 months from the last increase, the "anniversary date." It can be provided after, in which case that date becomes the new anniversary date. Annual boosts can be "banked" by the property owner and enforced in later years.

90 Day Notice Required For Rent Increases More Than 10%

State law (California Civil Code Section 827) requires a 90 day composed notice for any lease increases which, alone or cumulatively, raise a tenant's lease by more than 10% within a 12 month duration. Rent increases for 10% or less require a 1 month notice. This covers both rent regulated and non-rent controlled systems.

Capital Improvement Rent Increases

Among the more unjustified parts of lease control is the capital improvement passthrough. Capital enhancements are improvements for the structure, the proprietor's financial investment, which occupants mostly spend for through a passthrough. Not only can the landlord get the renters to spend for increasing the value of his or her financial investment, the proprietor can then compose the cost of the improvements off in their taxes. Capital enhancements are things fresh windows, a new roofing, painting of the exterior of the building, and other comparable enhancements to the residential or commercial property which add significantly to the life or value of the residential or commercial property instead of regular upkeep. Landlords should finish the work, petition the Rent Board and win approval of the rent boost before the cost can be passed on. Tenants can object to the boosts at the hearing on particular grounds, like that the work was never ever done, was not necessary, or was done to gentrify the building, however it is hard to stop such a passthrough in its entirety. However, the occupant might receive a challenge exemption.

Once the capital improvement has actually been paid for, then the occupant's rent goes back to what it was prior to the passthrough (plus any allowed increases in the interim); capital improvement rent boosts are not part of your "base lease," suggesting the yearly increase portion calculation does not include the capital improvement passthrough.

Capital Improvement passthrough lease increases vary based on the size of the structure:

Tenants in Buildings with 5 or Fewer Units
Tenants in these smaller sized structures will need to settle 100% of the expense of the capital enhancement with rent boosts of 5% per year until the entire quantity is settled. For example, if the brand-new roofing system expenses $5,000 in a 2 system building, each tenant needs to pay $2,500 and will have their lease increased 5% per year till their share ($ 2,500) has been paid.

Tenants in Buildings with 6 or More Units
Tenants in these larger structures (where most big capital improvements rent boosts happen) have a choice of either paying for half of the capital improvement (i.e. property manager pays 50%, renter pays 50%) and then getting annual lease increases of 10% till the capital improvement is settled or the renter can choose to pay for 100% of the capital improvement and get annual rent boosts of 5% per year, as much as maximum of 15% (or the equivalent of 3 years of rent boosts). The choice in these bigger structures can be made individually by each renter and which one is finest will depend upon elements such as the expense of the capital improvement, what the occupant's base rent is, and how long the renter prepares on living there.

Operating & Maintenance Rent Increases

Operating and upkeep lease boosts are for increases in the landlord's cost of running the residential or commercial property. For the property owner to be able to pass on one of these operating and maintenance lease increases, the increased proprietor costs must go beyond the yearly lease increases. Simply put, if the property owner's expenses increased 2% and the annual boost that year is 2.2%, then the landlord would not be qualified for this rent increase. In figuring out whether a proprietor can get an operating and maintenance rent boost, the expenses are aggregated, or took a look at in overall. In other words, an increase in one location (e.g. taxes) might be offset by a decline in another area (e.g. repairs). If when all is computed the proprietor can get the operating and upkeep lease increase, the rent increase is only the quantity over the annual increase. So if the annual boost is 2.2% and the property owner's costs increase 3.2%, the property owner might get a 1% operating and maintenance lease boost. The occupant's lease will not increase by more than an additional 7% beyond the annual allowed boost and the boost enters into the base lease. The tenant might get approved for a hardship exemption.

Effective July 15, 2018, modifications to the Rent Ordinance advocated by the Tenants Union limit proprietors from seeking lease boosts on existing renters due to increases in debt service and residential or commercial property tax that have actually resulted from a change in ownership, and forbid proprietors from seeking rent boosts due to increased management expenditures unless the costs are reasonable and necessary.

PG&E Passthroughs

Tenants who do not pay for PG & E can have their rent increased when PG & E costs go up. PG & E passthroughs should be part of the Operating and Maintenance Passthrough procedure but rather became a separate automatic passthrough when lease control was passed in 1979. These, too, are very unjust as tenants already spend for utility increases as part of the yearly lease boost, which is based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Generally, if the property owner is determining the increase based on the past 2 fiscal year, the property owner needs to submit a petition with the Rent Board before passing on the increase to tenants. If, however, the proprietor uses an earlier "base year" (as a lot of landlords do), they do not need to file a petition with the Rent Board however should file their computation worksheet with the Board (and attach a copy to the occupant's lease increase notification). The "base year" for calculating the boost is 2002 for any occupancies existing as of 12/31/2003 and the year preceding the move-in date for occupancies which started after December 31, 2003. Tenants can submit a petition challenging the increase and get a hearing if they disagree with the property manager's computations or request a difficulty exemption.

Hardship Exemption

The Tenant Financial Hardship Application (readily available from the Rent Board in multiple languages) can be submitted at any time after invoice of the notification of rent boost or the choice from the Rent Board is provided, whichever is previously, for petitions for capital improvement passthroughs, general bond passthroughs (reliable 12/6/19), water profits bond passthroughs, utility passthroughs, and operating and upkeep cost boosts. The renter need not pay the approved lease increase while the appeal is being processed and considered.
Each occupant in the system who is at least 18 years of ages, other than for subtenants, must send paperwork under charge of perjury that the authorized lease increase will make up a monetary hardship for one of the following factors:

1. Tenant is a recipient of means-tested public assistance. Or
2. (a) Gross home earnings (this would include all roommates) is less than 80% of the existing Unadjusted Area Median Income as published by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for the "Metro Fair Market Rent Area" that includes San Francisco (income limitations on the Rent Board kind). And
( b) Rent is greater than 33% of gross family earnings. And
( c) Assets, excluding pension and non-liquid possessions (such as cars, furniture, etc), do not exceed asset amounts permitted by the Mayor's Office of Housing when determining eligibility for below market rate own a home (possession limitations on Rent Board form). Or
3. Exceptional scenarios exist, such as extreme medical bills.

Rent Board Fee

The Rent Board is moneyed by an annual fee assessed on rentals covered by lease control. Landlords can hand down to occupants 50% of the cost. Just like the annual lease increase, the Rent Board Fee (document 573) can be banked. Landlords can subtract the Rent Board cost from down payment interest or costs occupants directly. Tenants can not be kicked out for nonpayment of the Rent Board fee.