Q: In San Diego, what is the maximum amount that can be awarded in Small Claims Court? A: The maximum amount an individual may be sued for in Small Claims Court is now $10,000. As of January 1, 2012, SenateBill 221 increased the Small Claims Court jurisdictional limit from $7,500 to $10,000. While there are…
DetailsQuestion One: I served my tenant with a 60-day notice to vacate. After 30 days, the tenant vacated without any notice. I deducted one month’s rent from her security and she is now threatening to take me to small claims court. Her position is that since she found an acceptable apartment within the 60 days,…
DetailsThere is a clear seasonal pattern for house prices, and earlier this year I predicted that the Case-Shiller indexes would turn negative month-to-month in October 2012 on a Not Seasonally Adjusted (NSA) basis. That is the normal seasonal pattern. Also I expected smaller month-to-month declines this winter than for the same months last year. Sure enough,…
DetailsHello everybody. As you may suspect, litigation continues to be filed in record numbers by resident managers against apartment owners and management companies for violations of wage and residency laws. The amounts managers demand are staggering. For example, in a matter I recently handled for a client, the former resident manager was demanding payment from…
DetailsA few months ago I had the opportunity to address 100 real estate investors at a dinner meeting. It was a great evening of give and take. My goal was to help them focus on
Hopefully, 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, 2013. Serving a timely notice, you may collect one half of those fees from your tenants. Collect $12.25 Fees…
DetailsObviously, the most significant economic news in recent weeks was the surprising January 30 report showing that fourth quarter GDP declined by 0.1% (annual rate). While that report may be revised slightly upward later this month, it was still a big surprise. As a result of that unexpected report, most economists have been revising their…
DetailsBy Cliff Hockley A few months ago I had the opportunity to address 100 real estate investors at a dinner meeting. It was a great evening of give and take. My goal was to help them focus on improving the profitability of their real estate investments. We discussed the following:
DetailsA lot of people are jumping into real estate again. They’ve heard the news that the market has reached the bottom and that this could be the best market of our generation. They’ve heard the good news that there is still a lot of distressed housing out there and that real estate can be…
DetailsThe sky is falling, the sky is falling………..(Chicken Little, the main character in a children’s fable) There are several Western versions of the Chicken Little folktale, of which the best known concerns a chick that believes the sky is falling when an acorn falls on his head. The chick decides to tell the King and…
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