BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 418
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Date of Hearing: March 24, 2015
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON JUDICIARY
Mark Stone, Chair
AB 418
(Chiu) - As Introduced February 19, 2015
As Proposed to be Amended
SUBJECT: TENANCY: TERMINATION: VICTIMS OF VIOLENT CRIME
KEY ISSUES:
1)should existing law, set to expire on january 1, 2016, that
has successfully helped SURVIVORs of domestic violence, human
trafficking, and other forms of abuse escape their abusers by
permitting them to terminate a residential lease, instead be
extended indefinitely without a sunset date?
2)IN ORDER TO HELP SURVIVORS OF SUCH ABUSE FIND REPLACEMENT
HOUSING THEY CAN AFFORD, should THE MAXIMUM AMOUNT OF RENT
THAT HE OR SHE IS LIABLE FOR AFTER GIVING NOTICE TO TERMINATE
THE TENANCY BE DECREASED FROM 30 DAYS OF RENT TO 14 DAYS OF
RENT?
SYNOPSIS
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Current law, Civil Code Section 1946.7, allows a survivor of
domestic violence, sexual assault, elder/dependent adult abuse,
human trafficking, or stalking to terminate a residential lease
early if he or she is able to provide the landlord with
documentation from a health professional, domestic violence
counselor, sexual assault counselor, or human trafficking
caseworker attesting that he or she is a survivor of abuse or
violence. Among other things, current law also prohibits a
landlord from disclosing any information provided by a tenant
regarding his or her notice to terminate tenancy unless required
by law or court order or when the tenant has consented in
writing to the disclosure. Section 1946.7 is due to sunset on
January 1, 2016 without further Legislative action. This bill,
co-sponsored by the California Partnership to End Domestic
Violence, Western Center on Law and Poverty, and the National
Housing Law Project, seeks to remove the sunset date on this
section of law and extend these provisions indefinitely.
According to proponents, the early lease termination law has
successfully helped survivors of abuse and violence get away
from their abusers without evidence that the documentation rules
have been unfairly exploited or misused. The bill also would
lower, from 30 days to 14 days, the number of days that the
survivor of abuse would be liable for rent after giving notice
to terminate the tenancy under these provisions. Supporters
contend that this reduction in rent liability would greatly help
survivors afford replacement housing they desperately need to
avoid homelessness, which is too frequently the outcome of
getting away from their abusers. Proposed amendments by the
author remove other provisions in the current version of the
bill that would require the accelerated return of the survivor's
security deposit and specify the procedure for doing so. As
proposed to be amended, the bill instead simply clarifies that
existing security deposit law, Civil Code Section 1950.5, shall
apply when a survivor of abuse terminates a tenancy under these
provisions, and that the landlord may not consider such a
termination to constitute a default in payment of rent nor
deduct from the survivor's security deposit by reason of such
termination. With these proposed amendments, the California
Apartment Association now joins an array of tenant advocates and
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advocates for victims of domestic violence and human trafficking
in support of the bill. There is no known opposition to the
bill.
SUMMARY: Extends indefinitely existing law that, until January
1, 2016, permits survivors of domestic violence, human
trafficking, and other crimes to terminate a residential lease
in order to escape their abusers. Specifically, this bill:
1)Removes the sunset date of January 1, 2016 for provisions that
allow a survivor of domestic violence, sexual assault,
stalking, human trafficking, or abuse of an elder or dependent
adult to terminate a residential tenancy before the end of the
term, substantiated by documentation of abuse or violence, as
specified, from a health professional, counselor, or other
qualified third party.
2)Decreases the survivor's maximum rent liability following a
notice to terminate from 30 days to 14 days.
3)Clarifies that a tenancy terminated under these provisions
shall not constitute a default in the payment of rent by the
tenant and no deduction may be made from the tenant's security
deposit to compensate a landlord for default in the payment of
rent by reason of a termination under this section. Further
clarifies that existing law on security deposits shall
otherwise apply when a tenancy is terminated under this bill.
EXISTING LAW:
1)Provides that if a tenant or lessee of real property breaches
the lease and abandons the property before the end of the
term, the landlord may deem the lease terminated and seek
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damages, or continue to perform under the lease and seek rent
as it becomes due. (Civil Code Sec. 1951.2.)
2)Allows a tenant to notify the landlord that he or she or a
household member was a victim of domestic violence, sexual
assault, stalking, human trafficking, or abuse of an elder or
dependent adult, and that the tenant intends to terminate the
tenancy. (Civil Code Section 1946.7(a).)
3)Requires that the above notice shall be in writing and
attached to one of the following documents:
a) A copy of a temporary restraining order or emergency
protective order that was lawfully issued and that protects
the tenant or household member from further domestic
violence, sexual assault, stalking, human trafficking, or
abuse of an elder or dependent adult.
b) A copy of a written report by a peace officer employed
by a state or local law enforcement agency stating that the
tenant or household member is a victim of domestic
violence, sexual assault, stalking, human trafficking, or
abuse of an elder or dependent adult.
c) Documentation from a qualified third party, based on
information received while acting in his or her
professional capacity, indicating that the tenant or
household member is seeking assistance for physical or
mental injuries or abuse as specified. (Civil Code Section
1946.7(b).)
4)Requires that the notice to terminate a tenancy, as described
above, must be given within 180 days of that date that an
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order was issued or the peace officer report was made.
Specifies that if the notice is provided as required, the
tenant shall be liable for payment of rent for the 30-day
period following notice and shall thereafter be released from
any rent payment obligation under the rental agreement without
penalty. (Civil Code Section 1946.7 (c)-(d).)
5)Provides that, if within the 30 days following the giving of
the notice to terminate, the tenant quits the premises and the
premises are rented to another party, the rent due on the
premises for that 30-day period shall be prorated, and that
existing law governing the security deposit shall apply.
(Civil Code Section 1946.7(e).)
6)Establishes a sunset date of January 1, 2016 that provisions
2) through 5) above will be repealed unless a later statute
enacted before that date deletes or extends that sunset date.
(Civil Code Section 1946.7(i).)
7)Prohibits a landlord from terminating or failing to renew a
tenancy based upon an act or acts of domestic violence, sexual
assault, stalking, human trafficking, or abuse of an elder or
dependent adult against a tenant or a tenant's household
member, except as provided. (Code of Civil Procedure Section
1161.3.)
FISCAL EFFECT: As currently in print this bill is keyed
non-fiscal.
COMMENTS: This bill, co-sponsored by the California Partnership
to End Domestic Violence, Western Center on Law and Poverty, and
the National Housing Law Project, seeks to remove the sunset
date for existing California law that, until January 1, 2016,
gives survivors of human trafficking, domestic violence, sexual
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assault, stalking, and elder or dependent adult abuse the
ability to terminate a residential lease with documentation of
abuse or violence. The bill also would lower, from 30 days to
14 days, the number of days that the survivor would be liable
for rent after giving notice to terminate the tenancy under
these provisions.
According to the Western Center on Law and Poverty, a co-sponsor
of the bill:
Domestic violence and other abusive relationships lead
to homelessness. Over 80% of survivors entering
shelters identified "finding housing I can afford" as
a need, second only to "safety for myself" (85%).
Between 22 and 57% of all homeless women report that
domestic violence was the immediate cause of their
homelessness. The Centers for Disease Control's
National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey
found that, among both men & women, 2.4% will require
housing services as a result of DV at some point in
their lives. Over half of the women needing housing
services received none at all.
AB 418 would address these problems in two ways.
First, it would remove the sunset date of December 31,
2015 for the ability for a survivor to terminate a
residential tenancy early, based upon giving a
statement to a healthcare and other enumerated
professionals. These provisions would become
permanent. Second, it would decrease the maximum rent
liability following a notice to terminate from 30 days
to 14 days. This change will make the ability to
terminate far more effective in allowing victims to
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escape abusive relationships. To the extent that
victims will have the financial resources to move
rather than stay, the change may be of benefit to
landlords and neighbors who might otherwise be in
proximity to further abusive acts.
Background of previous legislation establishing protections for
victims of abuse. In recent years, the Legislature has
recognized the importance of enabling victims of domestic
violence and other kinds of abuse to terminate a residential
lease without liability in order to escape their abusers. This
bill is the latest in a number of previous successful efforts to
further this important policy goal. In 2008, the Legislature
passed AB 2052 (Lieu), Ch. 440, Stats. 2008, which for the first
time allowed a tenant to terminate his or her lease within 60
days of the issuance of a temporary restraining order, emergency
protective order, or written report by a peace officer alleging
that he or she is a victim of domestic violence or stalking.
Absent that protection, victims who relocated may still have
been liable if the landlord did not agree to release the victim
from his or her obligations under the lease. Subsequently, AB
588 (V. Manuel Pérez), Ch. 76, Stats. 2011, lengthened the above
time period from 60 days to 180 days.
In 2010, the Legislature passed SB 782 (Yee), Ch. 626, Stats.
2010, which prohibited landlords from terminating or failing to
renew a tenancy based upon a documented act or acts against a
tenant or household member who is a victim of domestic violence,
sexual assault, or stalking. SB 1403 (Yee), Ch. 516, Stats.
2012, further extended these protections to victims of elder or
dependent adult abuse, and included protective orders among the
appropriate supporting documentation allowed when a victim of
abuse seeks to terminate a lease before the end of its term. In
2013, SB 612 (Leno), Ch. 130, Stats. 2013, extended these
protections to victims of human trafficking and authorized
documentation by a qualified third party professional to
establish that the tenant was a victim of abuse for the purpose
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of terminating the tenancy. SB 612 also established
confidentiality protections for the documentation, and
established a sunset date of January 1, 2016 for all of these
provisions.
Summary of existing procedures for termination of tenancy set to
expire at the end of this year. To help survivors of abuse get
away from their abusers, existing law permits tenants who are
victims of domestic violence, human trafficking, sexual assault,
stalking, or elder or dependent adult abuse to terminate their
rental or lease agreement before the end of its term.
Specifically, the tenant must provide written notice to the
landlord that he or she or a household member was a victim of
one of these types of abuse as well as documentation of the
abuse, in the form of a temporary restraining order, protective
order, emergency protective order, elder or dependent adult
abuse order, written report by a law enforcement agency or
officer, or documentation from a qualified third party, based on
information received while the qualified third party was acting
in his or her professional capacity.
Existing law provides for a standard form document that may be
used for this purpose, or modified as long as it contains
substantially the same information. This documentation must
include a signed statement by the tenant seeking to terminate
the tenancy attesting that he or she has been a victim of abuse
or violence, as specified, and identifying additional
information about the most recent incident and the person or
persons responsible for the acts of abuse or violence. The
documentation also must include a signed statement by the
qualified third party identifying his or her qualified
profession, as specified; licensing information, if applicable;
and attesting that the tenant stated to the third party that the
tenant or a member of his or her household was a victim of one
of the specified forms of abuse or violence. Under existing
law, qualified third parties include domestic violence
counselors, sexual assault counselors, human trafficking
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caseworkers, and various health practitioners, such as
physicians, psychiatrists, and nurses.
Existing law requires the notice to terminate the rental
agreement to be given within 180 days of the date the court
order, police report, or documentation from a qualified third
party was issued. If the tenant provides documentation as
required and gives the proper notice of termination within the
required 180 days, he or she must pay rent only for the 30 days
following the date notice of termination to the landlord was
given. After that, the tenant is released from the obligation
to pay rent and may vacate the residence without further
liability.
Existing law also prohibits a landlord from disclosing any
information provided by a tenant regarding his or her notice to
terminate tenancy unless required by law or court order, or the
tenant consents in writing to the disclosure. Confidentiality
is necessary because documentation of abuse can include
personal, sensitive information and may jeopardize the safety of
victims if disclosed to the wrong person (for example, the
current address of a relocated human trafficking victim if not
shielded from the trafficker or the trafficker's associates).
The provisions described above are all set to expire on January
1, 2016. The purpose of the sunset date was to allow the
Legislature to review the law in order to ascertain whether
there has been any misuse of qualified third-party documentation
by ineligible tenants or whether other unforeseen problems have
arisen. According to the author and sponsor, there are no
reported issues of alleged fraud pertaining to the third party
documentation and they are not aware of any unforeseen problems
that have arisen since SB 612 was enacted in 2013. Proponents
note that the federal Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) has
allowed the same third party documentation option for over a
decade, and they contend that landlords and housing authorities
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have generally not had a problem with this form of verification
under VAWA, and in fact, some landlords actually request it as
an additional way to document or corroborate instances of abuse.
To date, Committee staff has not received any reports of fraud
or misuse of the documentation, from landlord associations or
any other stakeholders. Accordingly, this bill would remove the
sunset date from current law in order to establish these
provisions indefinitely.
After a notice to terminate is given, this bill lowers the
liability for rent from 30 days to 14 days. As previously
described, existing law requires a survivor of abuse to pay rent
for 30 days after giving notice of termination to the landlord,
as long as the tenant provides required documentation and gives
the proper notice of termination within the prescribed statutory
period of 180 days. This bill would decrease the period of
time, from 30 days to 14 days, that the survivor of abuse is
liable for the rent after giving notice to terminate the tenancy
under these provisions.
According to the author, reducing additional rent obligations
will help more survivors find safe and decent replacement
housing - something that is crucial to combatting homelessness
among survivors. According to data from the National Sexual
Resource Violence Center, 52 percent of all sexual assaults
occur where the survivors live, and nearly 80 percent of sexual
assault survivors living in public housing wanted to relocate
because the perpetrator was nearby, but could not due to a lack
of funds and housing options. In a 2006 report by the U.S.
Conference of Mayors, 44 percent of the cities surveyed
identified domestic violence as the primary cause of
homelessness.
Under current law, victims of abuse renting under a
month-to-month lease may already relocate from a property within
a 30-day period without further liability simply by giving
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notice and failing to renew for the next month. Therefore the
current 30-day rent liability period primarily benefits those
victims who have obligations under a long-term lease, rather
than under a month-to-month lease. It should be noted that by
establishing a shorter 14-day period, this bill would
potentially benefit all victims of abuse under a rental
agreement or lease, whether it be month-to-month or for a longer
term.
Author's amendments regarding return of security deposits. As
currently in print, the bill would require an accelerated
process for the return of a survivor's security deposit upon
termination of the lease or rental agreement. Discussions with
both landlord and tenant advocates identified a number of
complex logistical issues associated with return of the deposit
when, for example, a single deposit is made jointly for all the
occupants of the household, but only some portion of the deposit
is required to be returned to the vacating survivor of abuse
because the other occupants intend to continue to rent the
property under the existing lease.
The author now proposes to amend the bill to remove all
provisions related to the accelerated return of the security
deposit. As proposed to be amended, the bill instead simply
clarifies that existing security deposit law, Civil Code Section
1950.5, applies when a survivor of abuse terminates a tenancy
under these provisions, and that the landlord may not consider
such a termination to constitute a default in payment of rent,
nor deduct from the survivor's security deposit by reason of a
termination of tenancy under these provisions. With these
proposed amendments, the California Apartment Association now
supports the bill and there is no known opposition to the bill.
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT: The bill enjoys support from a wide range
of groups, including tenant advocates and advocates for victims
of domestic violence and human trafficking, among others. For
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example, Safe Alternatives to Violent Environments (SAVE) writes
in support:
In 2005, the California Attorney General's Task Force
on Criminal Justice Response to Domestic Violence
reported that there were significant burdens placed on
victims seeking family court restraining orders.
Furthermore, immigrant survivors are often reluctant
to contact the authorities due to their cultural
aversion to involving outsiders in family matters or
prior negative experiences with the police and the
justice systems in their native countries.
Additionally, limited English proficient individuals
continue to face language barriers when interacting
with the court system. Removing the sunset would
ensure that survivors continue to have access to lease
terminations without having to turn to the courts or
the police.
Other advocates, including Next Door Solutions to Domestic
Violence, state that:
Even with the provisions that AB 418 would make
permanent, there are barriers to early termination
because the survivor must still pay for 30 days of
further rent after he or she leaves . . . This time
period deprives survivors of funds they desperately
need to secure new rental housing. Reducing
additional rent obligations will help more survivors
find replacement housing-crucial to combating the
homelessness survivors often experience.
The California Apartment Association (CAA) also supports the
bill, as proposed to be amended. CAA states: "(Our) members
don't believe that a landlord should hold victims liable for
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extended rent when they are fleeing a dangerous domestic
situation. In many cases, a move from the property is the best
decision for the victim and the family as well as for other
tenants at the property."
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:
Support
California Partnership to End Domestic Violence (co-sponsor)
Western Center on Law and Poverty (co-sponsor)
National Housing Law Project (co-sponsor)
AFSCME
California Apartment Association
California Catholic Conference
California Communities United Institute
Casa de Esparanza
Interface Children and Family Services
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National Council of Jewish Women California State Policy
Advocates
Next Door Solutions to Domestic Violence
Rainbow Services
Strong Hearted Native Women's Coalition
Zella Knight, Housing Commissioner, County of Los Angeles
Housing Authority
Over 15 individuals
Opposition
None on file
Analysis Prepared by:Anthony Lew / JUD. / (916) 319-2334
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