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A NEW REGULATORY REGIME FOR SAN
FRANCISCO RENTAL PROPERTY OWNERS
BEGINNING JULY 1, 2022
By Daniel Bornstein, Esq.
As part of San Francisco’s data mining campaign, landlords will be required to share reams of
Tinformation about their residential properties with the Rent Board. Only owners of buildings with 10 or more residential units need to report
Information provided is not independently verified by the Rent Board and while the data is public record, the mailing address used by the property owner for tax purposes is kept private and no tenant names are collected.
Reporting requirements apply to all residential units in San Francisco, including single-family homes and owner-occupied units, not only units that are tenant- occupied.
Landlords who are renting to tenants receiving rental assistance through a government agency (HOPWA or Section 8, for example) should be aware that participation is required even though such units may not be fully subject to the rent increase limitations of the Rent Ordinance.
You might be asking why this matters. More than simply a helpful tool for the Rent Board to gather information, a landlord who fails to participate in the Rent Board Housing Inventory will not receive a rent increase license and be deemed ineligible to impose
information at this juncture.
ime flies at warp speed. While it seems like it was ages ago, San Francisco lawmakers passed Ordinance No. 265, which became effective on January 18, 2021, and requires landlords to report certain information about their units to the Rent Board. Only now do we have to deal with it.
The stated purpose was to create and maintain a “housing inventory” of units in the city that are subject to the San Francisco Rent Ordinance. This is not dubbed a “rent registry” under the definition of California Civil Code Sections 1947.7 – 1947.8, but is instead called the “Rent Board Housing Inventory”.
CS-18 JULY 2022 - APARTMENT MANAGEMENT MAGAZINE
Please turn to page CS-23