ACTION Apartment Association - Santa Monica State Lawmaker Introduces Bill to Protect Tenants from Ellis Evictions

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Santa Monica State Lawmaker Introduces Bill to Protect Tenants from Ellis Evictions

Santa Monica State Lawmaker Introduces Bill to Protect Tenants from Ellis Evictions

02/20/2018 8:18 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

February 20, 2018 -- Santa Monica State Rep. Richard Bloom introduced a bill last week that would bar landlords who empty rent controlled buildings under the state Ellis Act to return the property "piecemeal" to the rental market.

Bloom’s Assembly Bill 2364 also would require landlords to give all tenants one year's notice that they are being evicted, rather than 120 days. Current law requires a one-year notice only for seniors and people with disabilities.

"Advocates from around the state are seeing instances of landlords evicting all tenants in a property and then returning those units in a piecemeal fashion to rental market, skirting the original purpose of the law," Bloom's office said in a statement.

The 1986 Ellis Act was originally passed to protect small-time landlords struggling to make ends meet under rent control a way to get out of the rental market.