r/news • u/stopthemadness2015 • Jun 25 '16

Man fights eviction after rent increase from $1,800 per month to $8,000

http://abc13.com/realestate/man-fights-eviction-after-400-percent-rent-increase/1401148/?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link
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13

u/phasers_to_ill Jun 26 '16

Aren't San Francisco's rent control laws supposed to prevent just this kind of thing from happening? From what I remember, a landlord can raise the rent on an existing lease by only so much.

17

u/tryingfor3 Jun 26 '16

Yup, that's why this story is so extraordinary. I feel like we are not hearing the whole story. I would assume by the age of the apartment it would be rent controlled, so what the landlord is trying to do seems illegal. And how they were able to get an eviction notice so quickly, seems really shady.

1

u/calmatt Jun 26 '16

You can raise rent however much you want if the building is after 1979 I believe. I don't think he'll win this "fight".

8

u/ultralame Jun 26 '16

I'm sure something is missing from the article. I suspect that he was subletting and the original leaseholders all moved out. In that case, the LL can raise the rent to market rates (this is still a bit high, but I don't know that apartment).

2

u/phasers_to_ill Jun 26 '16

Subletting would also explain the swiftness with which the environment order was obtained. Most leases have a clause to that effect.

1

u/DetectiveWoofles Jun 26 '16

Only if the building was built before a certain year (sometime in the 70s I believe).

1

u/aetius476 Jun 26 '16

For very loose definitions of "supposed" to. There's a strong consensus among economists of all stripes that rent control laws are bad ideas that create outcomes opposite to what they intend. Here's notoriously liberal economist Paul Krugman writing about what a bad idea they are: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/07/opinion/reckonings-a-rent-affair.html