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Legal
has gone way beyond what is necessary by providing benefits to the County’s renters at the expense of all landlords, particularly the small business, “mom and pop” property owners who make-up most rental property owners in the County. AAGLA’s Executive Director, Daniel Yukelson stated: “The County’s rental property owners have been suffering financially for nearly 2-years without rent collections, while at the same time being required to meet a variety of ongoing financial obligations.”
AOA’s President, Jeffrey Faller, further emphasized: “Landlords in the County continue to suffer under the County’s ordinance with no relief or assistance of any kind offered to help those landlords who are clearly struggling financially. Despite the availability of State rental assistance funds, many landlords are finding that tenants merely do not qualify for relief, approvals and funding are slow to non-existent, and many tenants are not cooperative or have moved on. It’s a big problem and a major financial burden that has been placed on the backs of small owners.”
AAGLA’s Board of Directors President, Cheryl Turner, stated: “The County’s use of the Pandemic to wield unlimited power and singling-out rental property owners to subsidize the livelihoodsofothers,interferingwithcontractualrelationships between landlords and their tenants, and stripping away all the tools and flexibility required to collect rent or workout repayments of rent are clear violations of law. None of us have sacrificed, nor risked our capital and livelihoods merely to provide private welfare – that is government’s job to do. ”
Commenting on the severe financial hardships being experienced by housing providers resulting from the County’s moratoriums, AOA’s Founder, Daniel Faller, stated: “As a result of the County’s imposed restrictions and interfering with our housing providers’ contractual relationships with tenants, many of the County’s housing providers struggle today to make ends meet and are losing their properties through foreclosure. Following months of not paying rent, renters will have no means to pay back what may surely amount to mountains of rental debts, particularly if they struggle to pay just one month’s rent. It is a fallacy to ever think that landlords will recover the past due rent owed them other than perhaps pennies on the dollar.”
AAGLA and AOA are represented by attorney Douglas J. Dennington of Rutan & Tucker LLP of Irvine. Mr. Dennington stated: “More recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings are highly favorable to our case whereby the Court granted injunctive relief for nearly identical self-certification provisions contained in New York state law prohibiting COVID-19- related evictions.”
On June 11, 2020, AAGLA filed a lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles on behalf of its members and the City’s housing providers asserting, among other things, a constitutional challenge to the City’s moratoriums on evictions and on rent increases. Following denial at the U.S. District Court and U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, AAGLA filed a Petition
for Certiorari at the U.S. Supreme Court. Recently AAGLA announced it had been notified that the Supreme Court ordered the City of Los Angeles to respond to its Petition for Certiorari by March 2022. Executive Director, Daniel Yukelson stated: “While this development is potentially very positive, we are being extremely careful to not read much into this since the Court could very well still deny the petition outright even after the City responds. However, this is at least a good sign as the U.S. Supreme Court does not request responses on most petitions.”
Update on Other Pending Litigation
During the past twelve months, the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles has made significant progress in its other litigation efforts.
• In a Federal lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles seeking to overturn the City’s moratoriums on evictions and rent increases, the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles awaits the City of Los Angeles’ response which has been compelled by the U.S. Supreme Court, and following the response, the Association is hopeful that this matter will be heard. When the Association succeeds by receiving a favorable ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court, it is the Association’s intention to seek compensatory damages against the City of Los Angeles and other jurisdictions that have imposed similar moratoriums.
• The Association has filed three additional lawsuits which are all outstanding seeking to overturn the City of Los Angeles’ RecycLA trash hauling monopoly, and one each against the City of Los Angeles and City of Beverly Hills seeking to overturn rental registration requirements.
• Finally, the Association has also been a major contributor to its statewide association, the California Rental Housing Association’s (CalRHA) case against the State of California, which seeks compensatory damages for the imposition of the statewide eviction moratorium.
Help Us! Please Do Your Part
To help the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles with these lawsuits the Association seeks your help. Please contribute to the AAGLA Legal Fund either online at www. AAGLA.org/LegalFund or by mailing your contribution by mail to “AAGLA Legal Fund,” 621 South Westmoreland Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90005. Contributions to the AAGLA Legal Fund help protect YOUR CONSTITUTIONAL PROPERTY RIGHTS and the rights of all rental property owners suffering under draconian regulations by standing up to overzealous bureaucrats. Your contributions help us to engage in litigation enabling us to fight back and win, and by securing justice and safeguarding Constitutional rights for all rental property owners. Contributions of any size are very much appreciated.
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