Updates
Here are summaries of important legal or procedural changes that affect the latest edition of this product.
If you want to check on the accuracy of any other information in the book, please follow the legal research
instructions in the book or in Nolo's research manual, Legal Research: How to Find and Understand the Law.
California Landlords Can't Ask About Immigration or Citizenship Status
Effective date:
Jan. 1, 2008
Landlords in most states are free to inquire as to their applicants’ and tenants’ immigration status and to reject applicants who are in the United States illegally. As long as landlords don’t use immigration status as a mask for illegal discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, or national origin, such a practice is not illegal. Notable exceptions include the federally subsidized “Section 8” program, which requires proof of legal residence before tenants may participate; and New York City, which has prohibited landlords from inquiring as to their tenants’ citizenship or immigration status for years (NYC Admin. Code § 8-107(5)(a)).
As of January 1, 2008, however, all California landlords are prohibited from inquiring as to their prospects’ and tenants’ immigration and citizenship status. (Calif. Civil Code § 1940.3.) The law also forbids any municipality from passing laws that direct landlords to make such inquiries. Landlords may still require documentation that will determine or verify the financial qualifications of an applicant, or to verify the identity of a prospective tenant.
Back to Top
Corrected Information on San Francisco's "Master Tenants" for The California Landlord's Law Book: Rights and Responsibilities
Effective date:
Mar. 1, 2007
The California Landlord's Law Book: Rights and Responsibilities, Chapter 10, “Cotenants, Subtenants, and Guests” includes a sidebar on the “master tenant” arrangement that’s possible under the San Francisco rent control ordinance. The sidebar explains that tenancies with master tenants, which are common in San Francisco, occur when an original group of cotenants loses members but at least one original tenant stays. That remaining tenant, known as a master tenant, often brings in a series of new roommates, who are subtenants. The sidebar concludes with the suggestion that landlords should make late-arriving subtenants full-fledged cotenants, to remove a layer of management and make every tenant equally answerable to the landlord.
The sidebar's concluding advice is correct for landlords who are not subject to San Francisco's rent control ordinance. But in San Francisco, due to a provision in the rent control ordinance that limits the situations in which landlords may raise the rent to market levels, this advice is not advantageous for those landlords whose properties are subject to the ordinance.
Under San Francisco's rent control ordinance, landlords are prohibited from raising the rent to market levels as long as an original tenant -- the master tenant -- still remains. If the landlord adds a new occupant as a cotenant, and the original master tenant leaves before that new tenant does, the landlord will not be able to raise the rent to market levels. For this reason, it’s to the landlord’s advantage to treat new occupants as subtenants, and not make them into cotenants. Then, if the master tenant leaves, the landlord can raise the rent for the remaining subtenants to market rates, because the later arriving tenant is a subtenant, not a cotenant.
San Francisco landlords who want to preserve their right to raise the rent to market levels when the master tenant leaves must explain this part of the rent control ordinance to subtenants shortly after they move in, by giving them a "6.14" notice (named after the ordinance section).
Back to Top
|
