The Housing Crisis Will Never End Until Our Elected Officials do Something About the High Cost of Evicting Tenants for Non-Payment of Rent
- Joshua Kamali
- Nov 11, 2024
- 3 min read
I am a mom-and-pop landlord, meaning I own a few units and do not make a living from these units. I also own a small property management company where I manage residential rentals for other property owners. Between these two worlds, I am intimately familiar with trends in the greater Los Angeles rental market and the struggles faced by both tenants and landlords. While the State, City, and County are making it harder to evict tenants through policies like free attorneys for tenants in these cases, and extending the amount of time a tenant has to respond to an eviction case, they are ensuring that the most vulnerable among us in Los Angeles will find it harder and harder to obtain housing.
While there are many reasons a landlord might try to evict a tenant, the issue of nonpayment of rent is unique. In the County of Los Angeles it takes approximately six months to remove a tenant from a property once they have stopped paying rent. Many are surprised to find out the process is as lengthy as it is. However, from the time a notice is served to the tenant, to the time the case is heard by a judge and then goes to a jury, and finally the Sherriff’s Department is engaged to lock the tenant, six months will have passed.
The cost of the eviction when you factor in six months of lost rent, attorney’s fees, and damage done to the unit when the tenant finally leaves, is anywhere from $20,000 to $50,000. I can quote these numbers because I’ve been involved in two evictions and these were the costs in both. The smaller figure could have been much larger had the tenant contested the eviction. In both cases the tenants stopped paying rent, and in both cases, there was no defense made by the tenants.
So why should our elected officials care about this? There are more voting tenants then landlords, and tenant’s rights are important to the Democratic party in California and Los Angeles. Our elected officials should care about the cost and length of time it takes to evict a tenant for nonpayment of rent because that astronomical figure is preventing many Angelenos from finding a home.
As a landlord, knowing that I am facing a $20,000 loss if I have to evict someone, the only way I can protect myself from this is by being meticulous in my screening process. The two main tools I have to try and do this are credit checks and income verification. While these are not perfect tools, they are the best indicators I have as to whether a tenant will pay rent. Unfortunately, this means people who have no credit or bad credit are finding it increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to rent an apartment in this current environment. This includes undocumented workers who have no social security number and therefore no credit, and those who are already struggling to keep up with their bills. Individuals who work in the cash economy are finding it equally difficult to find housing given this dynamic.
While one could shake their fist at the greedy landlords and try to find some way to force them to accept tenants regardless of their credit or ability to prove income, that will not solve the problem. As long as the stakes to remove a nonpaying tenant remain as high as they are ($20,000 - $50,000), landlords will have no choice but to protect themselves. This will mean a continuation of the extremely rigid criteria to rent an apartment. Speaking as a landlord and property manager, I can tell you the opposite holds true as well. If landlords were able to remove tenants for nonpayment of rent in a more expedited manor, they would be more willing to take a chance on potential tenants. If our elected officials in California and Los Angeles want to truly help vulnerable individuals (with bad or no credit, or unconventional work situations) obtain housing, they must do something about the high cost of removing a tenant for nonpayment of rent. While this may not be politically popular in this environment, there is no other way for landlords to take a chance on these tenants while the stakes to evict are this high.
Joshua Kamali is a landlord in Los Angeles and a member of the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles. He worked for almost 10 years in Democratic politics and policy in Washington, D.C. and in California before becoming a nonprofit fundraiser. He now works in property development and construction and owns twelve units in Los Angeles County.
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