Content Library

Berkeley official oversaw agency that allegedly mismanaged $25 million By Doug Oakley, MEDIANEWS STAFF Inside Bay Area Article Last Updated:06/06/2007 07:49:59 AM PDT Berkeley Housing Department director Steve Barton resigned Tuesday, the latest person to leave in the wake of a scandal that has... Continue Reading

By Lucinda Garland, Director of Management, Small Property Division, Sunrise Management Company The article below was submitted as a follow-up to a recent presentation at a BPOA monthly meeting. It deals with the situation where an apartment manager is (a) deemed to be an employee under... Continue Reading

WHAT DOES THE MEASURE DO? Empowers tenants to buy their own homes at a substantial discount. Protects tenants from uncontrolled TIC conversions and Ellis Act evictions Provides new revenues to the City for maintaining and expanding its affordable housing programs. Restores balance to our City: ... Continue Reading

Pieri v. City and County of San Francisco: Round Two for the SF Tenants' Union At various times in these pages we have speculated whether Berkeley's laws regarding owner move-ins and Ellis Act evictions would be upheld by the courts. The issue, you may remember, is that state law guarantees an... Continue Reading

By David M. Wilson This article is provided for your education and is not intended as legal advice. Consult an attorney for legal advice about your specific needs. This is the first of a series of articles designed to provide a quick and dirty summary of the laws of California and Berkeley that... Continue Reading

[President's Message, September 2005] Rent control in Berkeley is a rapidly turning into a relic. With each passing day and each new vacancy, a smaller and smaller number of apartments are subject to the strictest form of control. New construction is everywhere, and not a single unit is... Continue Reading

What is the difference? Is it worth paying for? By P.J. Tradelius, Cal North Insurance Brokerage Insurance is a contract between you, the named insured, and the insurance company covering an agreed upon property for certain types of losses. The “causes of loss,” also known as the... Continue Reading

[Editor’s Note: the article below is reprinted from the March 2005 issue of Tips and Trends. Please note that Berkeley’s recently passed Measure P deals with a similar subject, i.e. the grounds on which a landlord may reject a substitute roommate. One important thing is to be... Continue Reading

A number of apartment associations recently approached the state Legislature with their concerns about renting to individuals whose names appear on the so-called “Megan’s Law” list. Many of their proposals, however, run the risk of needlessly creating more landlord liability,... Continue Reading

Some years ago a court decided that local rent control laws went too far when they were used to keep owners from moving into their own property. There were lots of common sense examples of unfairness: a family on sabbatical rents its home to someone who refuses to move out when the owners return;... Continue Reading

We regularly receive panicked phone calls at the BPOA office, from landlords who are at the receiving end of a tenant’s threat to “repair and deduct.” Many tenants, it seems, believe they possess a unilateral right to “fix” problems that may or may not really exist,... Continue Reading

By James Kilpatrick of Kilpatrick & Company A common question among owners of buildings heavily burdened by rent control is how much the law affects their ability to sell at a reasonable price. There is no question that a building burdened by many substantially below market rents generally... Continue Reading