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but when the clock struck midnight and April was ushered in, those guardrails no longer existed. It’s been said that “if you don’t use it, you lose it.” There has been ample time to access the billions of dollars awaiting financially distressed renters, but that opportunity has reached its expiration date.
Another key provision of the bill: cities and counties are prohibited from enacting their own local moratoria, and this is a big deal that will make our lives much easier.
The days have passed when municipalities can craft their own patchwork of regulations for landlords to follow.
Lawmakers sent a clear message that “this is it.” While tenants who fell on tough economic times during a world that was largely shut down were able to enjoy protections to stay housed, times have changed. The pandemic seems to have become the endemic. People can dine out. Salons and bookstores are open for business. Schools are in session. There are no stay-at-home orders. Just about every orbit of our lives is allowed to go on.
AB 2179 recognizes this progress, and those eviction moratoriums should have a concrete end date as society returns to a state of normalcy.
GOOD NEWS FOR LANDLORDS WITH UNSCRUPULOUS TENANTS
AB 2179 does not afford protection to tenants who didn’t pay the rent either because they didn’t apply for rental assistance or earned too much income to qualify. This should be a big relief for those landlords renting to tenants who are “gaming the system,” the likes of which are large in number.
We are talking about a tech worker who has a plush job, hasn’t lost their employment due to COVID, and
goes to work every day. Sometimes, they come back home from work in a new Tesla.
THE BILL IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR SOME
Although AB 2179 sailed through the legislature before being signed by Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis (pinch-hitting for vacationing Governor Newsom), there were detractors.
State Senator Scott Wiener was the lone lawmaker in the Senate who gave the thumbs down, expressing an objection to the state’s preemption of additional protections at the local level. Others wanted to give tenants more time to apply for the dwindling supply of rental assistance dollars available.
OUR VIEWS, FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH
Throughout the long and dark winter of COVID, we have never in our professional careers been forced to study and make sense of so many ever- changing laws and government edicts, much less communicate the law to our clients and friends in an easily digestible fashion. It seems we were hopscotching from one rule to the next on a weekly or monthly basis. Sometimes, what we posted on Monday was obsolete by Friday.
So, our office welcomes a respite from the constantly changing developments and we are encouraged that there is now uniformity in the rules we must adhere to. Local governments, who milked the emergency powers granted to them during the pandemic for all it was worth, can no longer make the lives of our clients more difficult by coming up with new ordinances and regulations.
As for the sentiment that tenants should be given even more time to apply for rental assistance, we say that there has been more than enough opportunity
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