When the Rent Stops for California’s Small Landlords | Jonathan Madison

We have no money right now to keep the house and the people are still over there. A family in LA County who owns an investment property hasn't been receiving rent for the last two and a half years and they're on the brink of losing this home. This is not the only case in LA as there are other cases where tenants are moving in and they're not paying rent and on top of it in some cases tenants are actually renting these homes out to short-term rental platforms and You can essentially live in a unit rent-free for years. Today, we sit down with Jonathan Madison, who's a real estate attorney. We also sit down with Jaime Vasquez and Resmic Toddles to find out what's going on with their cases and why certain laws in California might not be working well for both landlords and tenants. Jonathan, Jaime, it's great to have you on. Welcome. Good to see you, CMAC. Good to see you. Jaime, your son reached out to us, and you guys have a property right now. That the tenant hasn't paid for two and a half years the rent. Correct. And you have been paying the mortgage and you're facing some serious financial difficulties. You've been paying for the cost. Can you tell us what's happened? Can you tell us your story? We bought the house in 2003 in Campton, California. And the house was bought by our first son. When we buy the house, the house was with one big unit in the front and one small unit in the back. We buy the house like that. When we buy the house, that was rent. Somebody was living over there, and we say, okay, you can continue living over there. We never know about if it's illegal, if it's not. And we are still renting the house for years. But like two and a half years ago, the people living over there, they stopped paying their rent because we say, OK, we had to fix the house because the tenants, they build some like a storage in the back. They do walls inside the apartment to maybe to make some room more or something like that. And in some part, the roof was leaking, and we said, well, we have to fix it. We fixed it like five times, and always start again to leak it. And we say, well, we have to fix this one. We have to take out all the roof, clean all the apartment. The kitchen was destroyed for the bathroom. And then we say, well, you have to leave. We cannot do this one. If you are living the house, you have keys and everything, we cannot work. They said, well, no, we are not going to leave. And we start with the visual. My wife, she write down letters about it, okay, we're going to leave two months, 60 days. We do again for 90 days, and you have to leave. And I say, no. And they start to make the payment for the rent. And we start evictions, and we never get the eviction ready because they say that unit is illegal, and you cannot rent the house. We say, okay, but they have to pay the rent, or they have to leave the house, but we cannot do that. And do you still pay for the utilities? The house has just one meter for the power. And then that power is for the both units. And then we are still paying the power, gas, water for the tenants without payment. We have to pay the mortgage. Right now, we leave the pay for two months, the mortgage, because we have no money right now to keep the house. And the people are still over there. So you think you will lose the house if nothing changes? We had no options. We paid the lawyers, office lawyers, and they stopped the case because the tenants, supposedly they have lawyers, and then they say the unit is illegal. You cannot rent that house. And then the tenants say, okay, we need a jury trial to clear this case. The lawyer said, no, we cannot do that. Oh, you have to make $10,000 for deposit, and we can go with you for the jury trial. We have no money. And I asked, you guarantee? If I deposit $10,000, the people has to? No, I don't guarantee, but you have to do that. And then at this time, we have no money, too. Now, Jonathan, how do you see a case like this? So sorry to hear what you're going through, by the way. I mean, it's a clear example of a lot of the cases that I'm seeing up in the Bay Area. It's happening around the state of California where you have landlords, property owners, who don't own a whole lot of properties. This is their one and only investment property. You have landlords who are in a catch-22 because of California laws. The catch-22 being you have a situation where you have to bring your property up to code. You have to make sure that it's habitable by code and, you know, it could be even small defects, but the tenants are not allowing you to make those repairs. So he's in a situation where he can't really move forward with an eviction because there's a law, California Civil Code Section 1942.2, that says if you have a non-habitable premise, you're shaking your head, I'm sure you've seen it. If you have a non-habitable premises. You're not able to collect rents. You're not able to serve certain notices. You're not able to evict lawfully. So it places landlords like yourself in a situation where it is hard to get a jury trial. It's hard to advance your case because the law says, well, the tenants can stay there rent-free. They don't have to pay you a dime. And if the tenant is not allowing you to make those repairs, they can stay there as long as they want. And so this is a really, really serious issue that's endemic to many places in California right now. So what do the tenants say? They don't want to leave or are they willing to leave? Do they want you to pay them? Sometimes we hear. From another tenant, if we leave the house, we want some compensation. And sometimes maybe $35,000 or something like that. I don't know from where they take that amount, but maybe that is the amount. We don't have that money. And another thing is 30 months without payment. It's $1,200 by month. We pay the utilities, the average is around $350. If you make everything, it's around $45,000. Mm-hmm. And then right now, we don't have more money to support this one. And we don't have options. What can we do? We don't have options. We try everything. The only choice for us is to lose the house. Why did you buy this house? What was your, what were you trying to achieve? We just thinking about, we start with my wife. We thinking about our future and our son's future. And we spent like a one and a half years to get the house. We save money, we do everything. So hard to do, but we buy the house. Our son, first son, he's born over there. Well, we see that the city is the best to grow with the family, and we try to buy another house. But it's our job, my job, my wife's job, everything, we work a lot for that house. And we're thinking, okay, when we are not here, the boys can live a little bit better, and that's why we buy the house. Right now, the one choice is that you can get the permit from the city, convert the garage or something like that in a unit. When we think about that, that's why we try to get the house back. So you wanted to do the permitting, you wanted to legalize it. Yeah, but with the people over there, we cannot do nothing because we have to fix everything. Now, Jonathan, you mentioned getting some compensation, and this is, we're hearing something, it's called cash for keys or something like that. This is something that's happening right now. Yeah. Yeah. The whole idea of cash for keys, and it used to be, it used to make more practical sense, right? You had a tenant who was paying rent for a time, maybe they missed a couple of months, right? And it gave an opportunity for a landlord to say, you know what? I'll waive your rent for the last two, three months or so, right? That could be an example of cash for keys. You know, give me the keys. Don't worry about it. You find a different rental living space or situation. You can move and I won't hold you accountable for the last two to three months of rent. That's an example of cash for keys. And then you started getting into longer term situations where you have tenants who maybe miss rent payments for about six months or so, right? Right. And then, you know. They'd ask the landlord, well, can you pay me something over and above the six months? So can you waive the six months rent and pay me something in cash, out of pocket? And so now you have situations where it's gotten so out of control to the fact that tenants are being paid $35,000, but more than that. I've seen tenants in the Bay Area being paid $250,000. Wow. It's almost a normalization up there. Places like San Francisco, Alameda County, definitely Los Angeles, and Compton for sure. So, you know, the tenants are being advised by tenant advocacy groups, the free tenant lawyers that he was talking about, right? These free tenant lawyers are telling the tenants, you ought to bargain, you ought to negotiate, get a higher amount. So if you're a tenant in the business of squatting and you're a tenant in the business of not paying your rent, California has given you the opportunity to set up a real scheme for making money. You can essentially live in a unit rent-free for years, just like these tenants. It's real time. And at the end of your tenancy, or as you can see... If you're a tenant, the landlord is sort of zeroing in, trying to evict, that tenant can say, okay, well, I'll leave, give me $35,000, you know, and then we'll be square. And a situation like this, a lot of my clients, they don't have money, $35,000 in cash. And they would have if they didn't have to exhaust in their savings all the way up to now just to cover the shortfall on the mortgage. So it's really a situation, CMAG, where you have a real travesty. The government is standing in the gap for tenants. Tenants get the free tenant attorneys. Tenants get free legal advice. Tenants get rent funding, even money. There are programs out there that will pay the tenant's rent. On the other hand, you have landlords, and the government is not standing in the gap for them. The government is not giving you a fresh savings fund so you could keep up with your mortgage. The government is not saying you don't have to pay your mortgage. The government is not saying, you know, we have this program for you so you don't have to feel it. You don't have to worry about your family, where they're going to stay. They don't have programs that make it possible for you to keep your home while your tenants aren't paying the rent. And I think that's the real travesty. And I'm not advocating as a left or right, but it just makes sense. Generally, if the government's going to stand in the gap for one subgroup tenants, you need to have them stand in the gap for landlords as well. Landlords, families, property owners. Now, Jonathan, in this case, they wanted to change from unpermitted to make it permitted. How does that work? There's a law that has changed in the state that you can do that, right? And there's forgiveness on that, right? Yeah, there is. So just backing up here, section 1942 of the civil code says if you're a landlord, you got to keep your premise up to code, right? You have to make sure... If there are notices of violation outstanding, those are cured. You want to make sure there's proper heating and things like that. Otherwise, the law says you're not supposed to be collecting rents. You're not supposed to be serving notices to collect rents. There's also a law that says if you're a tenant, you're not allowed to stop your landlord from making repairs on the property. So these tenants are breaking the law actively, and no one's doing anything about it. There is a clear law, in fact, there's statutory authority and there's case law that says you as a landlord should be able to enter into your home without being obstructed, provided the 24-hour notice rule, so that you can make those repairs and satisfy that habitability. So another travesty for small landlords, property owners who don't have all this extra cash. Now, in terms of your options, Jaime, what options do you have right now? Do you have any other options left? The only thing we have right now is try to make the mediation in between me and the tenants. Now, I understand about some cash forking, but... If the amount is $35,000, we don't have $35,000. I understand maybe some money because to move, they need the money to make another security deposit for another unit. Okay, I say, okay, that's okay. Two months, I give you two months and I pay the truck to move. Moving expenses. I'm okay with that. Now, Jonathan, any thoughts for them? Is there any other options left? But it will take time, right? But from what you've been telling me, does it take time? How does it work? It will take time. Speaking to something you just said, too, in terms of relocation costs, costs of moving and whatnot, that's an important point. Because local governments now have their own set rates per tenant, what a landlord has to pay to relocate the tenant, right? So in San Francisco, it's $7,500 per tenant or so. And Oakland is around the same. It's probably around the same in Compton. But these tenants are asking for more than that, is the point I just wanted to make. They're asking for $35,000. They're not entitled to $35,000 under the code. They're just asking for more. It almost seems like that's sort of an extortion tactic, right? We're not going to leave unless you pay me what I ask for. So that's terrible. I do think that there are certain options that you have available now that you didn't have during the COVID time. One is you should have free legal assistance available in the court now for landlords, at least one or two attorneys. Now, you won't have a table of 12 attorneys, free attorneys like you do at the tenant's table. I know you've seen it, but there are options now for you to seek legal counsel free of charge here and there. You can also evict from more grounds now, right? So, for example, if your tenants are being a nuisance, and I would argue they are being a nuisance by definition under the code because they're not allowing him to come into your property. They're not allowing it when you need to go in there to make certain repairs. The law says now that you can evict that tenant. Simply because they are refusing to allow you entrance. And it sounds like this has happened repeatedly. Am I right? So the law does give landlords the ability to initiate court proceedings to evict a tenant for refusing to allow them into the property and make repairs. But that will take another, how long does it take? On average, probably about six to eight months. And it doesn't sound like you can wait that long. Yeah, because it's that time. That means we have to continue spraying the markets and everything for six months. The point is, we don't have the money to continue spraying. That is... I know that the eviction, how long time it takes. Because sometimes it takes three months, four months, and then when the court says, okay, for eviction, They passed the note for the sheriff, and the sheriff take up two, three months to go to the house. That's why we can start again with the one addition. You still have to pay legal fees. Because we still have to pay the mortgage. And the legal fees on top of that. Exactly. It's very interesting. You know, you talked about the sheriff going out and the writ of possession. Tenants can now complicate even that process, you know, when it comes to a non-payment of rent issue, when it comes to a nuisance issue. So, you know, it's probably kind of what you were alluding to. CMAC, to address your question as well, there is a bill that I really did think would make a huge difference for families like this. And don't quote me on the name, I think it was AB488, but it was a bill, it wasn't successful, but it was a bill that would have allowed advancing the time frame for cases where it was clear the tenants were squatting, right? I mean, clear, clear distinction. You know, we're not talking about the tenant that lost out on a couple months of rent. We're talking about tenants similar to your tenants and tenants who are being a nuisance, tenants who are clearly squatters, people who have also broken in, right, what we call forcible detainer in the law. The bill would have allowed an expedited process. So instead of six to eight months, you know, which you don't know how you pay the mortgage in that time, maybe it would be in the span of a month. You know, maybe you could kind of get there. That bill died, unfortunately, before seeing almost any light of day. And so my hope is that we have similar pieces of legislation that will be adopted and advanced for families just like this. So there has to be a program to solve these kind of issues, at least delay the foreclosure for you guys until you get a settlement in the court. But Jaime, thank you so much for coming here and sharing your story with us. We hope that a lot of people hear it and they come to help you guys out and hopefully changes the laws in California. I hope so. I hope so. Because it's so hard, really. It's so hard time for us. We said goodbye to Jaime Vasquez and now we're back. Jonathan, we want to talk to you about the laws because some of these laws are in books because in some cases, the landlords, especially the corporate ones, the big ones, are aggressive too, and they had the legal tools and the legal resources, but most tenants didn't. Yeah, look, it's a good point. The laws are there for a reason, right? You had decades and decades of landlords who also took advantage of some tenancies, maybe overbilling on the rents, displaced tenants in some situations. Thank unusual screening of some tenants. And that's why we have things like the Fair Housing Act, right? So you can no longer discriminate against certain tenants you who are looking to occupy your space, right? So there are a number very of laws out there right now that even I have to acknowledge, and I'm a landlord property owner advocate, but you have to acknowledge they're there for a reason. much. And so the goal is just as important to keep tenants from being displaced as it is to keep Landlords running their business. And some areas, some cities are now, like the city of L.A. is actually doing this, like giving tenants free attorneys. And some other places in the Bay Area, they're doing that too, right? But it's not all of California. It's not all of California. You look at places like Burbank, perhaps even like San Diego, more conservative counties don't actually have that available. So places like Alameda County, San Francisco, Bay Area towns for sure, cities. I see them everywhere, you know, because I'm constantly, you know, going to the network in the northern Bay Area, but they're not available in every county. So it's region-specific. Now we go to Razmik to find out what his story is in Burbank. So I had a bungalow to rent, to lease out. This Spanish lady came and says, I want to lease it for myself. And I checked her credit. She had someone else's credit, so I said, okay, and I said, I will lease it to you. Like a cosigner, you said a cosigner, okay. No cosigner, no, she just had someone else's credit, like she had a, how do I say, she had someone else's credit add to her credit. Like an authorized person. Anyway, she leased the property and she gave me a deposit, a first-month rent, and then the lease was written on May 17th. She was supposed to give me additional money on June 17th, but she never did. Called me and said, what's going on? She said, I'll pay you in two weeks, end of the month. Okay, that's fine. And then she never paid. So I said, what's going on? She never answered my call. So I went to knock to see what's going on with that property. I knocked the door, and someone else opened the door. I said, hey, guy. I said, who are you? He says, I'm Lee. I'm rented place. I said, no, I didn't rent it to you. I rented to this lady, Hispanic lady, Diana. Oh, she said, no. He said, no, I've got this from Airbnb. I said, what? I was shocked. So he showed me all the contact person, all the hosts, professional people, very professional. They exactly know what they were doing. And I went inside the house. The house was decorated with signs. Signs, don't... Like an Airbnb, you go to an Airbnb, they show all this information on the catalog that you don't do this, you don't do that, blah, blah, all of those, anyway. He said, what can I do? Do I leave? I said, no, I can't do anything. Unfortunately, the California law is a joke. For criminals, for the regular tenants, I understand. But for the people who rent your property and lease it out, make business out of your property and not pay you, that should be totally banned. It shouldn't be acceptable. Even the law should understand that. But they don't care, unfortunately. And the only thing you had to do, spend money. I spent over $10,000 in attorney fees to get the judgment. And the judgment takes at least three to four months to go through. Another flaw there, that it takes you three to four months to file a judgment, to go to the court. Court gives you another month, so you still another month to give a court date, actual court date, to sit in front of the judge. It took me four months to do all that, and then I got a judgment in my hand. So judgment, usually once you get judgment, you take it to the sheriff. Sheriffs should take not more than three days to do the lockout. And what they did, they said, oh, we're busy. We're understaffed. It's going to take at least 40 to 45 days. I said, are you joking? We went through the whole process. Already... I waited, wasted four months to get the judgment and I paid the fees and all that. Now I can't get the people out? I have a judgment in my hand. She says, no, no, no, no, no, you have to wait. You can't do that. I said, as an owner, judgment in my hand, I can't do anything? She says, no, we can't do anything either for you. You have to wait for us. For a sheriff to go inside. I said, look, are you protecting the criminals? Or are you supposed to protect the victims, not the criminals? And the criminals, they know all these rules and regulations. And they take advantage of that. So the government, the third state of California, and the county of Los Angeles, they're so... It's unfair to landlords or owners that they mix in things, two different things. Tenant is fine. If it's a tenant-occupied, I would have understood. But it's not a tenant-occupied. It was people doing business out of their own property and not making any payments. And it was very shocking to me the way they handled it. And I went to the sheriff's department and said, listen, guys, what's going on? I have the judgment in my hand. Why do you have to wait another 45 days? I already waited four months. She says, no, we're understaffed. Sorry, we can't. She was very relaxed. We can't do anything. You have to wait. So were they still there? I heard that you did that today was the final day when they were, like, things changed. Were they still there? Today, unfortunately, I was informed that I can go and the sheriff will be there today to lock them out. So when I went there, guess what? The door was open. Furnitures were there. Certain furnitures were there, the trash. But all their advertisement for Airbnb, everything was taken already. They just left the trash for me, a bed, towels. So these guys were able to come in and stay there for six months and rent your place out. And while the city doesn't allow Airbnb, right? In the city you're in. You're absolutely right. And I inquired from the Burbank. The city of Burbank does not allow short-term Airbnb. So I called the, I was, apart from that headache that I had, I had another headache with Airbnb. We were in communication for over three months. I said, listen, these people are illegal. They're not, they don't have a permit to do Airbnb. They don't have a, see that Burbank does not allow short-term Airbnb. They cannot do that. You gotta, you gotta get, you gotta stop them. Oh, they said, send an email, send an email, send us writing, send us this. Every time we did the same story, three months we just gave up. We are trying to be the voice for you Californians and if you like our content and what we're covering make sure to check out the newspaper Epoch Times. Epoch Times is a unique newspaper which tries to bring people together by providing content that covers all sides of the story with respect and with a lot of data and numbers. Our goal is to bring clarity to independent thinkers. There is a lot of social media hype and negativity and emotion in the media right now. When you read our paper, you get a different feeling. Make sure to check it out and let us know. Now let's go back to the rest of this interview. Jonathan, from what it seems like, places like L.A. and other areas where they have lawyers for tenants, shouldn't they have lawyers for landlords as well? And the ones that can't afford it because there is the corporate big, and that's what people call landlord. But there's a big number of small landlords that barely are affording the mortgage and they're buying a home. This is like their retirement plan. Do you think they should have for both sides or do you think they should have another way? Because the court system, from what it seems like, it takes a long time and there's a lot of procedures. Do you think there is a solution to this type of problem? Absolutely, there's a solution. And it's just a qualifier. Have landlords and tenants qualify based on their income. Because you can be a wealthy tenant, and you could be a poor landlord. It doesn't always have to be the adverse, you know. There are tenants that I've come across who are doctors, lawyers, engineers, and whatnot. In fact, I was a tenant for a while, you know, even in the practice. So I think it's important to have that distinction. So if you have a landlord who is at the lower end of the economic spectrum, they're going to need assistance. So it's just as important for that landlord to have legal assistance available, whether it be free legal assistance, partially free legal assistance, discounted legal assistance that's available at that courthouse, that's available maybe at the sheriff's department to advise them. It's not fair that the tenants are looked at as the subgroup that doesn't have money, In fact, many of these tenants have more money than the landlord by the time they reach court because they haven't been paying the rent. And it's just like the situation we just talked about recently, where you have tenants who hopefully were saving over the last two years, right? And perhaps they have some savings, but I guarantee you there's no reason those tenants shouldn't have more money in their bank account than the landlord we just spoke with. All that's to say, I think the solution, CMAC, is have qualifiers. Whether you're a landlord or a tenant, what's your median income level? That way it's fair across the board. Now, going to Burbank, this case, when we talk to Resmick, he has, in this situation, he has a tenant moving in, doesn't pay rent, but they've actually gone and rented the unit to Airbnb, while the city is saying it's illegal. But he managed to do the eviction process and it's been added for many months. But this case sounds very odd because the tenant is making money from the property and he's doing something illegal that's not allowed in the city. And I don't know if the tenant is going to face any legal repercussions. Well, you're absolutely right. They're probably not going to face any legal repercussions. This is something that's happening all over the state of California. You have a situation where tenant is not paying rent to landlord, and instead tenant is subleasing their unit to a, or through Airbnb. They're getting paid quite a decent amount of money, and they're pocketing that money, not paying it to the landlord. The landlord is facing fines from the city. If it's an HOA, I've seen it to where the HOA can penalize the landlord. Tenant subleases the property HOA. Without the permission of the landlord. Without the permission of the landlord. So now the HOA has fined the landlord over $10,000. And so the tenant is still there, by the way, just operating, you know. So this is a problem that's going on in just about every county, almost, in the state of California. And, you know, what's happened here in this case is just an illustration of the problem. We have to, in my opinion, we have to have a law that cracks down specifically on tenants who are unlawfully leasing a unit, Airbnb being a unit. Because otherwise, you have a situation where the tenants just can continue to unlawfully lease these properties and not pay the landlord. So, and then what happens to this tenant? Let's say eviction happens and they're out. Do they walk away without any repercussions or just can do that again? I haven't seen one tenant suffer any legal repercussions for having leased out one of their units without any authority from the landlord. And it gets worse. Most nine out of 10 lease agreements between landlords and tenants in California have a small clause that says no subleasing or assignment. All bold though, right? And it says, look, unless the landlord expressly consents to it in writing. And the tenants are able to say. Well, the heck with that provision, I'm going to do it anyway, and they don't face any legal repercussions. This is a problem throughout the state of California. And it's a different thing when some people have roommates or whatever they do, but this is something where the tenant comes in with the intention of making money from the property without compensating the landlord. And leasing to strangers. Yeah. I mean, these are really savvy tenants. You know, they're, they're, they're marketing it as a business. A lot of them, they're going on Airbnb and they're representing it as it's, it's, it's their space. You know, I have a two bedroom available for the weekend that houses eight, whatever it is. I mean, they're really savvy. They're posting it online. So this is not just some, to your point, some roommate situation or, or some family like they're, they're being as professional as you can. While breaking the law. Can they do that in multiple places? They probably could, right? Absolutely, they can. And the worst part is, on paper, you can be a tenant and occupy multiple spaces. So right here, you could occupy this space, you could occupy five other spaces in town. And the landlord does not have a right to lock the door on any of those spaces without an eviction notice. So you can operate, run a shop, run a full business, and be paid as if you own five properties while you only occupy those properties. How would you protect landlords? What can people do to not end up in this situation? Two things. One, we need some legislation that makes it a real crime to sublease your unit without the landlord's permission. And it shouldn't just be that the only remedy a landlord has is to file for an eviction for nuisance, because that's what that is. It's a breach of the lease. That shouldn't be the only remedy, because you might still have to wait six to eight months to get that tenant out. And by the way, you're still not getting paid rent during those six to eight months. And the tenant is still getting paid from other people and strangers for those six to eight months. And by the way, the city can fine you as a landlord for those six to eight months. So number one, there has to be a real, a real penalty should be, in my opinion, something under the penal code. So it's something, you know, hopefully it won't have to be enforced very much, but you have the threat there. This is a punishment. Right. You can't just do that. Right. So I think that's one thing. And that's taking care of the tenant's misconduct. I think the other thing you need, and I think this could address a lot of issues for landlords, whether it be an issue of a subtenant leasing their space like this one, or the other landlord family we talked to, where the tenant has just been there for two years and the landlord has exhausted their savings, maybe have to file bankruptcy, maybe lose the home. And I think that solution is, just like you have an automatic stay that's triggered in Say if you're a property owner, your property is going to go up for foreclosure. It's going to go to an auction, a bid. You can file a bankruptcy. It could be Chapter 7, Chapter 13, Chapter 11, and it triggers what's called an automatic stay, which means the property owner gets to keep their property. It's going to go through the bankruptcy process, but at least there's a mechanism that keeps it in their name. I think you need a similar law. Only in certain circumstances to where if you have a landlord in this situation, they are clearly exhausting their savings, they might have to file bankruptcy anyway, or they're going to lose their home, tenant hasn't been paying rent for years, it would help to have a law of some kind that says, hey, there's an automatic stay preventing the landlord from losing their home entirely. And at least whether it lasts for 30 days, 90 days, 120 days. There obviously is a subgroup of people who are not being looked after and who have fallen through the cracks. And those are the people we're talking about, CMAC, on this show. It's people who have fallen through the cracks. It's unintended consequences of legislation. It's not that the legislature and lawmakers were saying, let's make all of these landlords fall through the gaps. Let's go. Let's make it so they can't afford to pay off their mortgage. They're not doing that, but it's unintended consequences that are real. And I think if you at least had a law in place that says, okay, you're in a bad position, we're at least going to give you some time to catch up on your bills to stop you from losing your home, which is the worst possible thing that can happen. Right now, unfortunately, you have a situation where tenants can stay as long as they want. They have the gap. They have the government backing. They have, in my opinion, it's almost like they have government funding. Because they're getting free rent in someone else's space. So you need something on the other side of that for landlords who are struggling, who have families, mouths to feed, children, parents. They're the regular people. And I'm not talking about the big landlords. You know, I'm not talking about the corporations, right? I'm talking about the mom and pop landlords that you and I are talking with. Now, in terms of any tips for people that are renting homes, do you have anything that you can tell people that they can find a way to find out who might be a professional? You call them professional tenants. Do you have some ideas how people can tell? You can kind of screen tenants. Yeah, there is. And it's actually a good question because more recent laws have kind of narrowed the scope of what you can do to screen a tenant as a landlord. You can no longer discriminate against a tenant, discriminate, so to speak, by looking at their credit score, which I think is very helpful to do an assessment of whether someone's going to pay your rent for the next year. You can't look at their criminal history or background or use that. As a guiding tool. So some of these things, in my opinion, I don't agree with. But what you can do as a landlord today is. I always recommend a sit-down interview now in person. Don't do the Skype. Don't do the Zoom thing. You know, you need to see these people. They still need to have good references, solid references. Vet them as a candidate for hire. You know, call the references. Call previous landlords where they've occupied space because you might find that there's an eviction, you know, on the record. Thank You know, and from my experience here at Mac, I have a lot of... Really good clients, just people who will trust what other people say. Someone says, hey, I'm going to pay the rent the first of the month, every month for the next 12 months. I have a good-paying job, solid family. And then they turn around in two months and say, where's the rent? you. And it's not there, you know. So I think. Treating and approaching the tenant as if you're hiring a candidate to do a business that you own and set up shop for. That is the best way because you're not going to let anything slip through the cracks. You're going to be vetting them for their personality. You're going to be vetting them for their ability to pay your trust. And it won't get lost in the weeds of you liking them as a person because you're saying, hey, can you keep my business going? Because as a landlord, you are running a business. You know? So this is essentially, in a sense, this situation is making it harder for tenants because they also have to work hard to get the spaces. It is. I can't tell you, and it's unfortunate, the number of clients that I have that have just completely taken their properties off the market. Uh, there's a law called the Ellis Act, right? That allows you as a landlord to get out of the business of renting entirely. And I'd say the biggest part of the business from my firm, at least, I think other firms as well, has been the Ellis Act over the last year because landlords are saying, you know what, I'm done. I'm fed up. So I'm taking my property off the market entirely. Or they're going to really, really scrutinize what tenants are coming into their units, I think here's the real kicker, by scrutinizing and narrowing the scope of the tenants you take in, because you're afraid, because you know what's going on, now you have tenants who maybe do have that bad credit score, who maybe do have that criminal history, who maybe do have an eviction on their record, but maybe they're good people and they would. They'd really benefit from being in your space as a landlord. These are the people that the law, the laws are intended to help people that are also falling through the cracks. Hey, you messed up. You had some hard times. You can still get into a space and occupy it, right? Well, now landlords, because of the laws and the unintended consequences of the laws are saying, I don't want those people. Off the table, because I can't take the risk of you not paying rent and me losing my home potentially. And it's not just a theory, it's happening. We just talked to someone, it's happening too. So that's the unintended consequence. So hopefully things will change soon in California. We have some updates to give. Jonathan Madison, thank you so much for coming back at California Insider. It was great to have you on. Always a pleasure. See you back. Thanks. Tell us what you think about these cases and have you seen any of these cases yourself or experienced something similar as a tenant or as a landlord where the laws were not fair? You can always email us at siamak at californiainsider.com or comment. We read all of your emails and comments. I'm Siamak Khurramid, this is California Insider. We'll see you next time.