Court Agrees Rent Hike Was Too Much in LA
A jury recently sided with a family in East Los Angeles who refused to pay rent when their landlord issued a 63 percent rent hike. The court says the family can stay put in their two-bedroom apartment, at least for a while longer.
Read more: The Delicate Art of Rent Increases
The court found the rent increase was excessive. The landlord wanted the family to pay $2,000 per month for the apartment. However, the court deemed $1,050 as more reasonable, which is actually $200 less than what the tenants were charged prior to the rent increase.
The court said that until the building’s owner Winstar Properties Inc. makes necessary repairs to the apartment the family wouldn’t have to pay any rental increases and only the $1,050. The jury said the landlord’s rent hike seemed unjustified since the jury found the unit’s condition “uninhabitable.”
Winstar has not commented on the case.
"We have a lot of roaches. Some of our doors are practically falling down ... it was 1,2,3,4,5, like 8 outlets were messed up, my cabinets in my kitchen were falling apart, the rug is old, my walls were peeling. They never did any maintenance," one of the tenants, Carolina Rodriguez, told Curbed.com. "The floor in the restroom is soft, it feels like one of these days you’re going to sink in."
But the tenants won’t be totally immune from rental increases. Once the landlords do fix the unit, the court said they then will be allowed to increase the rent.
The family’s attorney said his latest focus will be to challenge the rent increase to eliminate it permanently. He says he is attempting to do that in federal court with a lawsuit that accuses Winstar of violating the Federal Fair Housing Act, alleging the company only served rent increase notices to tenants who were born outside of the U.S.
Source: “Jury Sides With East Los Angeles Family Who Refused to Pay Excessive Rent Increase,” Curbed.com (Sept. 8, 2016)
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