Post by High Priestess on Dec 15, 2017 20:27:18 GMT
This board globalhosting.freeforums.net/board/189/evicted-refused-tenants-unlawful-detainer
gives stories of some of the renters who illegally squatted in the San Francisco Bay Area -- tenants who, after being given an eviction notice, refused to leave the premises, such that the landlord had to file an Unlawful Detainer lawsuit to extract them. It's true that there are some evictions that are illegal, but for the most part if a landlord is filing an Unlawful Detainer claiming rent has not been paid, or that they want to move into and live in their own property, it's reasonable to assume that this is the case.
There are thousands of such cases every year so it's not possible to post them all. My intention is to focus on:
(1) the more egregious cases which were particularly expensive and/or took an unusually long amount of time to finish, during which time ( in one case, 2 years!) the squatting tenant was paying no rent at all.
(2) the cases where the tenant received free legal aid, while the property owner did not receive any free legal assistance, revealing an appalling asymmetry in the "justice" system, particularly when the property owner is not wealthy and paying for a long legal action could not only be devastating, but could literally bankrupt them and/or cause them to lose their property in foreclosure -- which has happened to some property owners. It should be noted that while there are many legal aid groups that give free legal aid to low income tenants (or any tenants) in the San Francisco Bay Area, there is not a single organization that gives free legal aid to low income landlords-- except for fairly useless "aid" such as a one hour question and answer session at a public library. Tenants get free representation to carry them through months or years long cases-- property owners never get such help from nonprofit agencies.
(3) the cases where the owner wanted to move into and live in their own building, and the tenant refused to leave. The level of entitlement involves in such cases I find particularly disgusting, as the tenant is basically demonstrating that they believe they have more rights to live in someone else's property than that property owner themselves does. Yes, again it's true that some landlords evict tenants while falsely claiming they want to live in their own property, never really intending to do so. But this cannot be known at the outset, and particularly in cases where the property owner only owns that one property, it is very likely that they are acting in good faith and do want to live in their own house.
(4) the cases where the media and/or tenant organizations/activists engaged in public shaming of the property owner, such as referring to them as a "gentrifier", or "greedy landlord", or other negative appellation or insinuation, while at the same time depicting the squatting tenant as engaged in a righteous battle. When, without evidence supporting their claim, the media makes bad faith assumptions about the property owner's attempt to evict a tenant -- an action which too often, even when completely legal, results in public attacks and even protests. My preference is to focus on injustices to small property owners, those who own only one or two properties, not the large real estate corporations.
An interesting but not surprising anecdotal observation is that an absolutely enormous number of Unlawful Detainer cases in San Francisco were filed for apartment buildings located in the Tenderloin District (the poorest area of the city) as well as by the San Francisco Housing Authority, which runs public or government funded housing in San Francisco. This demonstrates what we'd all expect, that the most problematic tenants who most often fail to pay rent, are the poorest ones, often those who are receiving housing subsidies and so are not actually even paying full market rent for their apartment.
Looking on the San Francisco Superior Court website, I find that between the year 2000 and the present time (December 2017) there were 305 pages of listings of Unlawful Detainer suits filed by the San Francisco Housing Authority, which at about 10 listing per page, comes to about 3000 unlawful detainer suits in 17 years' time. THis amounts to 176 unlawful detainer cases each year. The total number of housing units was about 3500, as indicated in this article -- www.sfgate.com/politics/article/SF-s-public-housing-is-now-all-privately-run-10592245.php -- so that means that for each year the public housing was in existence, 176/3500 = 5% of all the tenants in all these units required unlawful detainer suits.
Also, San Francisco, like Berkeley, sold off all its public housing in 2016 --- very likely because it proved so expensive to run. Not only all the unlawful detainer suits that were required, but all the damages to the buildings. And keep in mind too that because low income tenants qualify for free legal representation (Whereas those with even moderate income do not) it is more costly in so many ways to rent to low income tenants.
www.sfgate.com/politics/article/SF-s-public-housing-is-now-all-privately-run-10592245.php
gives stories of some of the renters who illegally squatted in the San Francisco Bay Area -- tenants who, after being given an eviction notice, refused to leave the premises, such that the landlord had to file an Unlawful Detainer lawsuit to extract them. It's true that there are some evictions that are illegal, but for the most part if a landlord is filing an Unlawful Detainer claiming rent has not been paid, or that they want to move into and live in their own property, it's reasonable to assume that this is the case.
There are thousands of such cases every year so it's not possible to post them all. My intention is to focus on:
(1) the more egregious cases which were particularly expensive and/or took an unusually long amount of time to finish, during which time ( in one case, 2 years!) the squatting tenant was paying no rent at all.
(2) the cases where the tenant received free legal aid, while the property owner did not receive any free legal assistance, revealing an appalling asymmetry in the "justice" system, particularly when the property owner is not wealthy and paying for a long legal action could not only be devastating, but could literally bankrupt them and/or cause them to lose their property in foreclosure -- which has happened to some property owners. It should be noted that while there are many legal aid groups that give free legal aid to low income tenants (or any tenants) in the San Francisco Bay Area, there is not a single organization that gives free legal aid to low income landlords-- except for fairly useless "aid" such as a one hour question and answer session at a public library. Tenants get free representation to carry them through months or years long cases-- property owners never get such help from nonprofit agencies.
(3) the cases where the owner wanted to move into and live in their own building, and the tenant refused to leave. The level of entitlement involves in such cases I find particularly disgusting, as the tenant is basically demonstrating that they believe they have more rights to live in someone else's property than that property owner themselves does. Yes, again it's true that some landlords evict tenants while falsely claiming they want to live in their own property, never really intending to do so. But this cannot be known at the outset, and particularly in cases where the property owner only owns that one property, it is very likely that they are acting in good faith and do want to live in their own house.
(4) the cases where the media and/or tenant organizations/activists engaged in public shaming of the property owner, such as referring to them as a "gentrifier", or "greedy landlord", or other negative appellation or insinuation, while at the same time depicting the squatting tenant as engaged in a righteous battle. When, without evidence supporting their claim, the media makes bad faith assumptions about the property owner's attempt to evict a tenant -- an action which too often, even when completely legal, results in public attacks and even protests. My preference is to focus on injustices to small property owners, those who own only one or two properties, not the large real estate corporations.
An interesting but not surprising anecdotal observation is that an absolutely enormous number of Unlawful Detainer cases in San Francisco were filed for apartment buildings located in the Tenderloin District (the poorest area of the city) as well as by the San Francisco Housing Authority, which runs public or government funded housing in San Francisco. This demonstrates what we'd all expect, that the most problematic tenants who most often fail to pay rent, are the poorest ones, often those who are receiving housing subsidies and so are not actually even paying full market rent for their apartment.
Looking on the San Francisco Superior Court website, I find that between the year 2000 and the present time (December 2017) there were 305 pages of listings of Unlawful Detainer suits filed by the San Francisco Housing Authority, which at about 10 listing per page, comes to about 3000 unlawful detainer suits in 17 years' time. THis amounts to 176 unlawful detainer cases each year. The total number of housing units was about 3500, as indicated in this article -- www.sfgate.com/politics/article/SF-s-public-housing-is-now-all-privately-run-10592245.php -- so that means that for each year the public housing was in existence, 176/3500 = 5% of all the tenants in all these units required unlawful detainer suits.
Also, San Francisco, like Berkeley, sold off all its public housing in 2016 --- very likely because it proved so expensive to run. Not only all the unlawful detainer suits that were required, but all the damages to the buildings. And keep in mind too that because low income tenants qualify for free legal representation (Whereas those with even moderate income do not) it is more costly in so many ways to rent to low income tenants.
www.sfgate.com/politics/article/SF-s-public-housing-is-now-all-privately-run-10592245.php