Ridiculous Rent Increases Should Be Restricted
May 21st, 2007 posted by WillsMomWant to get a lot of negative press? Buy an apartment building. Jack up the rent 150%. And when everyone moves out, you don’t have to make notice or wait a year for permits and such, you can just go ahead and convert to a condo.
Residents of a Mission area low-rise apartment building are facing such a predicament. The building was recently sold and the new owners, a company, have increased the rent from $700 to $1900 without any advance warning to the residents.
A new law requires tenants a one-year notice when their apartments will be converted over to condominiums. However, there’s a loophole. If the majority of residents move out, you don’t have to notify an empty apartment of the changeover.
New legislation on house, Bill 34, doesn’t limit the increase to rents except to only allow one increase per year. However, it doesn’t matter how much the increase is.
In the case of the Mission area low rise, the new owners have gone as far as offering cash for people to move out - certainly an eyebrow raising offer. If they intend to keep it as an apartment building, why would they want to encourage, and even help, their renters to leave?
May 25th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
[…] Webb and Bradley Apps, both tenants at a building where the rent will skyrocket from $700 to $1900, heard the politicians telling residents to call the city with their housing […]