There is a disturbing trend where unscrupulous law firms are enlisting tenants to bring forth legal actions against landlords. These lawsuits are based on deficiencies with the buildings, which give rise to huge damage and attorney fee awards against owners and management companies.
Q: I have a tenant who moved into his rental unit last month. I included a provision in his lease that prohibits smoking in his unit. Now, his neighbors are complaining that cigarette smoke from his unit is seeping through their walls. When I approached the tenant he told me that he has the right…
DetailsAs the California Legislature reconvenes, Californians will hear two decidedly different messages from both politicians and political pundits about the “state of the state.” Governor Brown will surely tout the “California comeback” and argue that the state is in much better fiscal health than just a couple
Wall Street JournalSurvey of 63 Economic Forecasters The WSJ just completed its March survey of over 60 economic forecasters, and the results were a bit disappointing. The forecasters, on average, expect the surging U.S. dollar and global weakness elsewhere will keep the economy slightly below 3% growth for all of 2015.
DetailsGross Receipts Tax Passed in 2012, but didn’t begin to phase in until 2014. [We have posted on our website – www.smallprop.org) – an extensive article about the new gross receipts tax approved by the voters in 2012, which will gradually replace the Payroll Tax (which virtually no small property owner was required to pay.]
DetailsCan a tenant place a poster on his balcony that says “I support the death penalty” or other political (and perhaps inflammatory) statements? I raised this very issue with eviction Attorney Dennis Block on our weekly radio show (Landlord-Tenant Radio, Mondays at 1:00 p.m. on KTYM 1460 AM).
When it comes to tax deductions, there are a few schools of thoughts. There are the people who want to write off everything, whether it’s legal or not, and figure the cost of an IRS audit won’t be that bad. Or else they think they can’t ever get caught. They are invisible, or so they…
DetailsIn 2015, all manufacturers of water heaters that are sold in the U.S. must conform their equipment to new energy efficiency standards. This applies to all residential, gas, propane and electric water heaters. Why should you care? Because water heaters, as we know them, won’t look the same. Here’s the who, what, how much it’s…
DetailsHopefully, if you own in the City of Los Angeles and are under the L.A. Rent Stabilization Ordinance, you have already paid your building’s registration fees of $24.51 per unit which was due by February 28, 2015. Serving a timely notice, you may collect one half of those fees from your tenants.
Most every year about this time, I criticize the sitting President of the United States for submitting an ever-larger federal budget that almost always includes a big deficit which adds to our massive national debt. I have criticized every president for this going all the way back to