Dear Mecoco,
I apologize for any snobbishness I may have displayed. If you care to tell me in what way, I would appreciate it, else if you prefer to drop the matter, thats quite all right. If I did any such thing, I didn’t intend to do so and I am sorry.
Providing housing for families is the duty of the family members, and I am sorry that I am not able to take on more than the business aspect of being a housing provider. I provide good housing, let tenants know clearly in advance what is expected of them, keep my promises, and don’t cheat anyone. I need my tenants to keep their parts of the agreement and not try to cheat me. I cannot carry on the business of providing this good housing without such cooperation.
From time-to-time, I have had tenants who have tried to take advantage of me and I have developed ways of dealing with them that preserve my integrity, and at the same time helped me to avoid problems, or to be able to resolve them fairly, which includes collecting money which is due to me. I am proud of my integrity, and of my creativity in developing policies which avoid problems. While I have a very strong lease, unusually strong, it does not take away any of the tenants’ basic rights, and it has earned the respect of my local judges. Every clause in it, strong as it may be, provides fair and lawful management of some genuine problem(s) without impairing the rights of the tenants.
I live in a world that involves the give-and-take of ideas and where logic is valued above all else. If my pointing out some other aspect of California L/T law has hurt you, and seems snobbish to you, I offer my genuine apology. But I think that I provide good information, genuinely trying to give an accurate perspective about the problems that come up in this forum, based on what knowledge of the law I have gained over years of experience, my experience in resolving problems in this area, and my experiences in the California courts. I hope that it is thus a good contribution to the forum.
I don’t mean to be contradictory, or snobbish, but I offer the following information to other readers to learn for themselves:
1) On the subject of the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act), see the web site:
http://www.usdoj.gov:80/crt/ada/animal.htm
2) The following is an abbreviation of California Civil Code 1950.5:
1950.5. (a) This section applies to security for a rental agreement for residential property that is used as the dwelling of the tenant.
(b) As used in this section, "security" means any payment, fee, deposit or charge, including, but not limited to, an advance payment of rent, used or to be used for any purpose, including, but not limited to, any of the following:
(1) The compensation of a landlord for a tenant's default in the payment of rent.
(2) The repair of damages to the premises, exclusive of ordinary wear and tear, caused by the tenant or by a guest or licensee of the tenant.
(3) The cleaning of the premises upon termination of the tenancy.
(4) To remedy future defaults by the tenant in any obligation under the rental agreement to restore, replace, or return personal property or appurtenances, exclusive of ordinary wear and tear, if the security deposit is authorized to be applied thereto by the rental agreement.
I skip to subsection (k):
The reader should judge for himself what deposits are covered by this section, as explained in (a) and (b):
(k) The bad faith claim or retention by a landlord or the landlord's successors in interest of the security or any portion thereof in violation of this section, or the bad faith demand of replacement security in violation of subdivision (i), may subject the landlord or the landlord's successors in interest to statutory damages of up to
six hundred dollars ($600), in addition to actual damages. The court may award damages for bad faith whenever the facts warrant such an award, regardless of whether the injured party has specifically requested relief. In any action under this section, the landlord or the landlord's successors in interest shall have the burden of proof
as to the reasonableness of the amounts claimed or the authority pursuant to this section to demand additional security deposits.
The next subsection is also part of CCC 1950.5 and the reader should judge for himself what deposits are covered under it.
Also the reader should ask himself, what is the difference between "No deposit is non refundable" and the statement of subsection (l)
(l) No lease or rental agreement shall contain any provision characterizing any security as "nonrefundable."
Once again, I apologize for any offensiveness you may feel that I have created. You and I are evidently interested in the same subject, and I would like to be your friend.
youngetc
