05Oct
San Francisco and other cities in the Bay Area continue to be some of the most expensive in the country. Due to the high rents, some landlords may be inclined to illegally rent out spaces that aren’t legitimate apartments in order to exploit their recovery for rent. However, as a tenant you may not even realize that you are living in an illegal apartment unit which can affect your tenancy rights.
An illegal unit is a residential space that doesn’t have the required Certificate of Occupancy from the city. Although the rental unit may not be legal, it can still be subject to the San Francisco Rent Ordinance unless it’s exempt for some other reason.
If the dwelling is an in-law apartment, a garage apartment, in an attic, or basement or a cottage in the backyard, chances are that it may be an illegal unit. Some other indicators of an illegal unit include the following:
Even if your unit doesn’t have any of these elements, it may still be an illegal unit due to merely not being in compliance with housing and building codes. A Certificate of Occupancy is a public record. This means that, for instance if you want to find out if your San Francisco unit is an illegal or non-conforming unit, then you can look it up online to see if there is a certificate recorded for your place.
Part of the problem with living in an illegal unit is that it may not be safe. Since it hasn’t gotten an occupancy certificate, the apartment could have housing violations. Under California law, landlords are still obligated to provide the same standard of habitability to tenants in illegal apartments that they would have to provide to tenants in conforming units. This includes:
A lease to rent an illegal unit is considered void because the law doesn’t allow parties to go into a contract for an illegal purpose; they aren’t obligated to perform the contract duties. In other words, if there is no certificate of occupancy, the landlord isn’t entitled to collect rent from the tenant. However, being in an illegal unit can still make you subject to an eviction.
If you’re worried about living in an illegal unit, then you should address them with an experienced tenants’ rights’ attorney. Whether your landlord is trying to evict you or you have safety concerns, a Wolford Wayne attorney can help direct you as to what to do about the situation. Contact us today.
Recovered on behalf of a group of 30 tenants living in an SRO in San Francisco who were living with horrendous conditions in their rent controlled apartments, including rodents, bedbugs, mold, water leaks and harassment.Read More
Recovered on behalf of three families living in a building in San Francisco’s SOMA neighborhood who were forced to live with substandard conditions for years as a result of their landlord’s negligence, including issues with lack of heat, lack of hot water and cockroach/rat infestations.Read More
Recovered on behalf of a couple living in a rent-controlled home in the outer Sunset neighborhood. Our clients were forced to vacate after the landlord served them with an Owner Move-In Eviction Notice. After the landlords failed to move into the property, our clients filed suit for wrongful eviction.Read More
Recovered on behalf of a San Francisco tenant in Russian Hill. Tenant was forced to vacate her illegal apartment in retaliation for reporting unlawful rent increases to the San Francisco Rent Board.Read More
Recovered for a single long-term tenant in San Francisco. Our client was forced to move out of his apartment as a result of extreme landlord harassment.Read More
Recovered on behalf of three long-term tenants in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood who were constructively evicted due to noise and nuisance conditions created by their downstairs neighbors, which the owner refused to address.Read More
Recovered on behalf of elderly, disabled tenant who was forced to move out of her rent-controlled San Francisco apartment of 50 years after landlord/owner failed to resolve numerous building code violations that remained outstanding for over a decade.Read More
Recovered on behalf of seven tenants living in a makeshift boarding house in East Palo Alto.Read More
Recovered on behalf of two former San Francisco tenants who were evicted via an Owner Move-In Eviction and owner failed to occupy the unit as her primary place of residence.Read More
Recovered on behalf of an elderly long-term tenant who was forced to vacate her long San Francisco apartment as a result of her landlord’s refusal to address longstanding defective conditions, including lack of heat, mold, rodent infestations, and defective plumbing. Read More
Recovered on behalf of a San Francisco tenant who was forced to vacate his home as a result of ongoing, disruptive construction and the owners’ refusal to provide him with alternative housing. Read More
Recovered on behalf of a San Francisco family that was constructively evicted from their home in the Richmond District as a result of unlawful rent increases, defective conditions and tenant harassment.Read More
Recovered on behalf of a tenant living in an illegal “in-law” unit. In this case, a new owner purchased the building and then demolished our client’s unit without permits while she was displaced for seismic retrofitting.Read More
Recovered on behalf of two long term San Francisco tenants who were fraudulently evicted from their home of over twenty years under the pretext of an owner move-in eviction.Read More
Recovered for tenant who was injured when their stairway railing collapsed at the tenant’s Mission District apartment building.Read More
Recovered in action for a group of tenants forced to vacate their San Francisco apartment house due to severe habitability defects including mold and water leaks.Read More
For more information or to discuss your legal situation, call us today at (415) 649-6203 for a phone consultation or submit an inquiry below. Please note our firm can only assist tenants residing in San Francisco, Oakland & Berkeley.