“Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900” • Hacker News Board

Re: “Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”

#51

Post by mod » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 12:58 AM UTC

vertex-four wrote: post #36

cookiecaper wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Landlords have the right to change their mind when it comes time for lease renewal. You're arguing that landlords should be forced to always rent their property to the same tenant once they begin. That's how ownership, not rental, works. Rentals are for a limited time by definition.

> Rentals are for a limited time by definition. I know people (in fact, every branch of my family, along with many of my friends) who have rented their entire lives, because they can't own - they've never been able to amass enough capital or convince someone else to lend them it. Should they be uprooted every year (or more often) because someone wants to make a bit more money? Rentals are whatever the combination of…

> Should they be uprooted every year (or more often) because someone wants to make a bit more money?

No, they shouldn't be, but that's not really the issue. The issue is: should landlords be legally allowed to uproot them?

My answer is a decisive yes. For whatever the reason, they should be able to not renew a contract once it expires.

I don't see why laws should be in place to restrict how much someone makes. Nobody has to have that particular apartment, or live in that particular place, etc. There's always options.

Re: “Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”

#52

Post by alistairSH » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 12:58 AM UTC

charlesdm wrote: post #25

IgorPartola wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OTOH, how much can you restrict the property owner? What if the other unit needed to be knocked down for a reason other than to get rid of rent control? Would it be OK for the law to tell the owner to fix it some other way? What if both units were destroyed in a natural disaster and a new structure had to be built from nothing? Is that still rent-controlled? Also, is rent control even a good idea? In the short term,…

If you own the building, i'd say you should be free to do what you want. Just because you rented out a unit 5 years ago doesn't mean you want to rent it out forever. You own the building after all. Imagine a building with 20+ units, you'd never be able to clear it out. But, that doesn't make it a fun process to go through for a renter. It sucks. Couldn't the owner just ask the person who is renting the unit to move o…

> Couldn't the owner just ask the person who is renting the unit to move out in a reasonable amount of time?

Assuming the original $2145 is below market, the answer would be no, wouldn't it? Or, rather, they could ask, but the tenant would never willingly leave, as they are paying below market.

Re: “Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”

#53

Post by maxerickson » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 12:59 AM UTC

WalterSear wrote: post #26

I just don't see the news here. It's totally legal, and done all the time: it's why people lease houses rather than go month to month. It's not a reflection of the market in SF. This happens everywhere a landlord who isn't getting on with their month-to-month tenants and want them out, for whatever reason. It happened to me in 2005. It's not a necessarily a reflection of anything outside of the personal situation of…

They converted the other unit in the building to storage (after hassling that tenant out).

I don't think it's anything like 'isn't getting on', the landlord wants to convert the building to some other use and simply doesn't care about the tenants, which isn't the same as finding them disagreeable or whatever (one imagines they might want to do something like sell it as a private home).

Re: “Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”

#54

Post by balls187 » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 1:00 AM UTC

mud_dauber wrote: post #43

r0naa wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me too, I have yet to graduate from college but things like that make me feel that I should stay in Waterloo (Canada).

Re: “Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”

#55

Post by jsprogrammer » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 1:00 AM UTC

WalterSear wrote: post #26

I just don't see the news here. It's totally legal, and done all the time: it's why people lease houses rather than go month to month. It's not a reflection of the market in SF. This happens everywhere a landlord who isn't getting on with their month-to-month tenants and want them out, for whatever reason. It happened to me in 2005. It's not a necessarily a reflection of anything outside of the personal situation of…

Part of the outrage is that the owner is apparently being dishonest and provides no justification (and it's hard to imagine any reasonable justification) for suddenly demanding a 3x and security deposit increase.

What additional value has the owner provided the tenant to justify such a large increase?

If the owner wants the tenant out, the owner should say so, not hide behind some ridiculous attorney letter and extortionist rent increase.

Re: “Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”

#56

Post by cookiecaper » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 1:00 AM UTC

vertex-four wrote: post #36

cookiecaper wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Landlords have the right to change their mind when it comes time for lease renewal. You're arguing that landlords should be forced to always rent their property to the same tenant once they begin. That's how ownership, not rental, works. Rentals are for a limited time by definition.

> Rentals are for a limited time by definition. I know people (in fact, every branch of my family, along with many of my friends) who have rented their entire lives, because they can't own - they've never been able to amass enough capital or convince someone else to lend them it. Should they be uprooted every year (or more often) because someone wants to make a bit more money? Rentals are whatever the combination of…

>Should they be uprooted every year (or more often) because someone wants to make a bit more money?

If they are living on someone else's property, and that person wishes to sell the property, and the lease and any other contractual or statutory guarantees have lapsed, then yes? This is really not a new thing. You can't do away with property ownership as a concept just because San Francisco is ridiculous.

Re: “Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”

#57

Post by mod » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 1:00 AM UTC

x0x0 wrote: post #9

Lewisham wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's sort of obnoxious and should be illegal to force landlords to keep renters ad infinitum just because. That hardly seems fair to the landlord, no?

The law was passed in 1979. It's hard to seriously claim landlords could possibly be unaware of the law before becoming a landlord. If for some reason they just can't possibly see themselves in any other career, they may also choose to solely invest in buildings built since 1980.

Maybe I'm a bit ignorant here, but I don't always know the laws about things I'm doing before I do them.

If I wanted to rent my apartment out I wouldn't go searching for laws--I'd go searching for tenants (and a basic lease agreement I could modify).

If there's a required course or something, I guess it would make sense then.

Re: “Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”

#58

Post by therealwill » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 1:01 AM UTC

Here is the home: http://www.trulia.com/homes/California/San_Francisco/sold/71...

Taxes are 11,043 with a value of 904,085. $2145 looks like an EXTREMELY low rent for a house of this size in San Francisco. (half of the rent is just property taxes.) The landlord was likely losing money keeping it rented at $2145 even if he owned it free and clear.

Re: “Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”

#59

Post by SilasX » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 1:01 AM UTC

vertex-four wrote: post #29

SilasX wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if you're fine with the supply contracting further in already-choked markets, then that works! If not ...

Well, obviously, given that we're discussing rental in a rent-control city, it doesn't entirely kill off rental.

"Not entirely killing off the rental market" is a pretty low bar to clear :-P

Re: “Your monthly rent .. shall increase from $2145 to $8900”

#60

Post by DannyBee » Mon, Mar 16, 2015, 1:01 AM UTC

mcpherrinm wrote: post #8

Lewisham wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's sort of obnoxious and should be illegal to force landlords to keep renters ad infinitum just because. That hardly seems fair to the landlord, no?

I think it's sort of obnoxious and should be illegal to force renters to leave their homes just because. That hardly seems fair to the tenant, no?

For at least the past thousand years, the bedrock principal of law has been "restraints on alienation of property are generally considered invalid".

That is, property owners are free to do what they want with their property.

Another is: Your rights cannot exceed those of who you got them from (IE tenants cannot have greater rights to land than landlords)

Tenants are tenants for a reason.

The whole point of ownership is to have exactly the ability to have these rights.

Why should somebody who has no title to the land, be able to control what happens to the land?

The fact that someone lives somewhere doesn't give them magical rights to the place, and it shouldn't.

(Most landlord/tenant law exists to ensure everyone plays fair and doesn't flat out abuse each other, but doing something within your rights, tough shit)