- ObamaCare, Common Core, EPA policy all raise specter of federal commandeering of state governments [Richard Epstein and Mario Loyola, The Atlantic] Vocally supporting Common Core, William Bennett provides new reasons to be queasy about it [Neal McCluskey, Cato]
- Mom lets six-year-old play within sight of his own front door. Then Child Protective Services arrives [Haiku of the Day]
- Study finds no evidence California cellphone ban reduced accidents [The Newspaper]
- Or maybe if you’ve been in good health for 13 years it’s okay to let the grievance slide: pols, union leaders urge unimpaired WTC rescuers to enroll for possible future compensation [AP/WCBS]
- “Thomson Reuters Thinks Not Responding To Their Email Means You’ve Freely Licensed All Your Content” [Mike Masnick, TechDirt]
- New frontiers in urban expropriation: San Francisco imposes crushing new “relocation assistance” burden on rental owners [Pacific Legal Foundation]
- A lesson in standing up for individual liberty, and not being discouraged by setbacks [my Cato Institute piece on Lillian Gobitis Klose’s flag-pledge case, Donald Boudreaux/Cafe Hayek]
Posts Tagged ‘landlord tenant law’
The benefit of liberation from rent control
A new paper estimates that Massachusetts voters’ decision to end rent control added $2 billion to the value of Cambridge, Mass. residential housing stock over 10 years. While some of this represents the improved worth of rental property whose value had been artificially suppressed by the previous law, much of it reflects improvements in the value of other, nearby property that had never been under rent control, as increased rates of renovation and improvement made whole neighborhoods more desirable. “In net, our estimates imply that more than half (55 percent) of the capitalized cost of rent control was borne by owners of never-controlled properties, illustrating both the importance of spillovers in housing markets and the potential unintended side effects of price ceilings.” [David H. Autor, Christopher J. Palmer and Parag A. Pathak, Cato Research Briefs in Economic Policy]
They came to stay, cont’d
It happened on AirBnB, the lodging-sharing service: “A woman rented her 600-square-foot Palm Springs, California, condo to someone for a little over a month, and now she says the guy won’t leave and is threatening to sue her.” [Business Insider, ABA Journal] For the case of the nanny who declined to leave her in-home living quarters after a falling out with the family that hired her, see this post last month. A February post raised the question of whether AirBnB visitors staying in units in San Francisco, a city with notably pro-tenant housing laws, might be able to dig in after a period much shorter than 30 days, the span that triggers tenancy status under general California law.
“New York City’s Affordable Housing Bonanza for the Rich”
NYC’s rent control laws “disproportionately benefit the well-to-do, who are more likely than the poor to remain for decades in apartments that become increasingly underpriced as the years go by. … The 220 affordable apartments [in a new West Side development responsive to subsidy incentives] will be split up among households of four earning no less than $50,300 and no more than $193,000 per year —- or nearly four times New York City’s median household income.” [Jim Epstein, Reason]
She came to stay: nanny won’t leave couple’s home
Upland, Calif.: “A California family is stumped about what to do with a live-in nanny they say refuses to work, refuses to be fired and refuses to leave. In fact, Marcella Bracamonte claims that the nanny, Diane Stretton, has threatened to sue the family for wrongful firing and elder abuse.” Stretton’s hiring agreement with the Bracamontes entitles her to room and board as part of her compensation, but she now indicates that she is suffering a disability and stays mostly in her room, the couple says. After the dispute arose the Bracamontes discovered that Stretton is on the state vexatious-litigants list and has been involved in at least 36 lawsuits; police say because Stretton is in residence it is a civil matter, but a judge threw out the couple’s initial eviction attempt, saying they had not filled out a quit notice correctly. [ABC News, auto-plays video ad; CBS Los Angeles] In September of last year, whether coincidentally or not, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law the so-called California Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights, affording domestic workers substantially more legal leverage in disputes with their employers. [SCPR] (& Scott Greenfield, with commenters)
June 19 roundup
- Heeding union and legacy air carriers, Congress nixes cheap flights to Europe [W.R. Mead/American Interest, Marc Scribner/CEI]
- Kneecapping the opposition: lawprof wants to yank trade associations’ tax exemption [CL&P]
- “Connecticut Supreme Court rules against man who got drunk and fell in bonfire” [Legal NewsLine]
- Making reform of big-city government a conservative cause [Scott Beyer]
- Judge: Pipe maker can sue qui tam law firm over press release calling products defective [Daniel Fisher, Forbes]
- British insurer group calls for action, says fraudulent accident claims up 18% in year [Insurance Journal]
- Long, detailed look at forces behind the madness that is the San Francisco housing market [Kim-Mai Cutler, TechCrunch in April]
NYC rental housing regulations
New York City’s homeowner registration requirements — a paperwork stage distinct from any rent regulation as such — are burdensome enough that neither Mayor Bill de Blasio nor Public Advocate Letitia James have succeeded in complying for the properties they own themselves. The registration requirement “also drives out smaller landlords, and provides a convenient way for bad tenants to get away without paying rent.” [DNAInfo New York, NY Renters Alliance via Future of Capitalism]
Tales of NYC tenant-security law
Although we call it “rent control,” the key thing it controls is often not so much what you can charge for a lodging as whether you can ever reclaim it. This recluse successfully held out for $17 million to relinquish his moldy, squalid rented lodging at what is now 15 Central Park West. [New York Post]
P.S. But at least the U.N. likes the idea. While on the subject of legal insanity in NYC real estate: Andrew Rice, New York mag, “Why Run a Slum If You Can Make More Money Housing the Homeless?” I wrote about the epic New York City homeless-rights litigation in Schools for Misrule, and more links are here.
Great moments in rent control
Some “affordable housing”/squatting enthusiasts in San Francisco are encouraging the stratagem of renting someone’s apartment for a night or two on AirBnB, declining to leave, and settling in for what might prove a prolonged process of eviction under the city’s highly pro-tenant landlord-tenant laws. [@marketurbanism]
Great moments in attorney fee requests
Judge Frank Nervo in Manhattan used phrases like “simply intolerable” and “gross overreaching” in denying Mayer Brown’s “request for more than $126,000 in attorneys’ fees in a lawsuit over a $6,400 security deposit. Judge Nervo added that the firm spent ‘a grossly unnecessary amount of time’ on simple tasks, including ‘research on the most basic and banal legal principles.'” [Clozel v. Jalisi, Above the Law]