The War on Landlords was in Full Display this Year, but What is the End Game, and Who will be Left Standing When it is Done

I am a small “Mom and Pop” landlord which means I don’t make my living from the rentals my wife and I own. This year I opened a boutique property management company catering to landlords like me, working professionals or retirees who happen to own a few units themselves.  Over the past five years the County and City have past numerous anti-landlord policies. My question is to what aim? What is the endgame? This year saw a slew of policies passed which are extreme and often times have nothing to do with preventing homelessness or addressing the housing crisis. If the City and County don’t stop their war on landlords, small landlords will continue to leave the City, and Los Angeles will be left with the very thing our elected officials say they do not want, corporate landlords and slum lords.

I was at a recent conference for Los Angeles apartment owners tabling to try and grow my business. The individuals walking by my booth were all small apartment owners. One out of every two individuals I spoke with stated they were selling their property in Los Angeles. Let’s take a look at just this year alone.

In this past year the L.A. County Board of Supervisors passed an ordinance to supply free attorneys to all Angelenos who are being evicted, claiming that landlords have attorneys, so should tenants. While it is true that landlords have attorneys in eviction cases, those attorneys cost landlords thousands of dollars. But the County has said that if you stop paying your rent, the taxpayers will pay for your attorney (unlike most other public assistance program that require a co-pay of some type).

L.A. City passed an anti-harassment ordinance in order to prevent landlords from “harassing” tenants. This ordinance even extends to how a landlord might look at a tenant. The City Council claimed there were 13,000 harassment claims filed against landlords that went nowhere the previous year. The City Council’s conclusion was that there wasn’t enough money for attorneys to bring these cases so they included attorney’s fees as part of the ordinance, instead of perhaps concluding these cases went nowhere because they were frivolous.

The County also passed a law requiring landlords to accept a pet with no additional pet rent or security deposit. The state last year limited security deposits to one month rent so now small landlords have no control over whether a tenant brings in a pet that might destroy their unit and cost thousands of dollars in damage.

Finally, the County is currently considering a proposal to force landlords to bring down the temperature in their units through air conditioning or other means, which they will undoubtedly pass, and the City is considering requiring all multi-family property owners (but not single family homeowners) to remove all electric appliances next year. Both of these policies will be done exclusively at the landlord’s expense.

So why should non-landlords care? It is easy to shake your fist at greedy landlords and say “good, they had it coming.” However, this trend in the City and County will have a disastrous impact on Angelenos. Every policy has intended and unintended consequences. If you are currently a renter trying to find a new apartment and your credit score is low, you undoubtedly have run into the unintended consequence of our eviction system, that is landlords no longer willing to rent to you because of the high cost of eviction. If landlords are required to accept pets that cause thousands of dollars of damage, spend thousands of dollars on lawyers to evict, new electric appliances, and air conditioning for their units, one of two things will happen, they will ignore these policies or they will sell their properties. The harder and more expensive it is to comply with law after law that is passed here in Los Angeles, the more mom and pop landlords will leave. Only corporations with attorneys on staff will be able to afford to own property in Los Angeles, and slum lords that don’t care about or follow those regulations. Unless the County and City put the brakes on their anti-landlord streak, we will be left with the exact type of landlord the City and County claim not to want.

Joshua Kamali

Joshua Kamali is a landlord in Los Angeles. He worked for almost 10 years in Democratic politics and policy in Washington, D.C. and California before becoming a nonprofit fundraiser. He now works in property development and construction, owns a boutique property management company, and owns eight units in Los Angeles County.

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