When a lender forecloses on a mortgage, term lease agreements that were signed after that mortgage was recorded are extinguished. A recent federal statute (The Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act) has altered this rule. However, if a lease is not arm’s length or it sets a rental rate substantially below market, then the foreclosure will invalidate the lease. Andrew Hawkins, who reportedly coerced more than 2,500 tenants into vacating...
Read MoreBeck v. Prana Eight Properties
In this case, tenants of one property owner attempted to void a prior judgment between their landlord and a neighboring property owner to which they were not parties. The judgment required our client, the landlord, to remove an unlawful fire escape. The trial court denied our client’s anti-SLAPP motion, finding that although the action arose from the protected conduct of prior litigation, tenants showed a probability of prevailing on the...
Read MoreThis is the sequel to the 2007 published decision in Birkner v. Lam. After the Court of Appeal remanded for consideration of the merits of Plaintiffs’ case, the trial court held that Lam’s litigation privilege defense insulated him from liability for serving a relative move-in eviction notice, even if the tenants were protected from eviction under the Rent Ordinance. The Court of Appeal affirmed.
Tehlirian v. City and County of San Francisco
In this unfortunate case, the City Board of Appeals bowed to tenant activist pressure and denied a remodel permit for a two unit building that had not been upgraded or updated in more than 50 years, and needed it badly. The remodeling would have temporarily displaced a tenant activist, who did not want to leave, and he also argued that the new building would not be inexpensive to rent. The Court of Appeal affirmed the Board of Appeals based on a...
Read MoreThe Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court, holding that a tenant’s assertion that the owner’s Ellis Act invocation is defective does not support a claim for declaratory relief.
Small Property Owners of San Francisco v. City and County of San Francisco
The Court of Appeal denied attorney’s fees to two plaintiffs in Tom v. City and County of San Francisco.
In a very sad story involving litigation between two elderly sisters, what should have been a simple partition of real property became a wrongful eviction cross-complaint. We filed an anti-SLAPP motion, which was denied, but were mostly successful in getting it reversed.
Alsugire v. Gerson Bakar & Associates
The Court of Appeal affirmed the denial of an anti-SLAPP motion filed in San Mateo County.
Our client bought a two-unit building that had been built in 1985 and was thus exempt from San Francisco’s rent ordinance. Apparently unaware of this, the prior landlord indicated that it was rent controlled. We won a judgment finding that the prior landlord’s mistake did not subject the property to rent control.
In a very strange case resulting from redevelopment in Oakland, a nightclub owner sued the City of Oakland and the building’s owner for violating his federal civil rights. Four civil rights and one contract claim were brought against the owner. Representing the owner, we contended that the claims arose from our client’s right of petition, triggering the anti-SLAPP statute. The trial judge stated that the civil rights claims were not directed...
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