Summary: B.L. and her husband owns a single family home in Outer Mission of San Francisco, their nightmare began after …
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Today’s date: 09/12/2019
Your initial: B.L.
Are you a registered voter? Yes
Tell us about you: I have a family of 5, my husband and I with 3 children. We immigrated to the US in 1976 and started to work within one week after arrival. My husband and I each worked 2 jobs to support the family. My husband was a handyman and a photographer; I was a seamstress and a waitress; in addition to taking classes in the evenings and weekends to improve ourselves. We have worked 2 jobs for many years to be able to purchase our first home and an investment property for our retirement. We were tenants for the first 2 years.
What city did this happen? San Francisco
Which district is this property located? Outer Mission
What type of property, condo, Single family residence (SFR), 2-4 units or 5 units and more? SFR-3 bedrooms and 2 baths all upstairs and no rooms or baths downstairs at the time of leasing.
Is this a rent control unit or property? Yes
Why did you lease out part of your property if it was an inlaw unit?
My husband and I thought that we could retire on the rental income and it was our 1st home that we did not want to sell it.
When did the lease start? End of 1995; We started a new lease in approximately a few years later because 2nd son and 3rd moved out.
Background of tenants at the time of leasing your property?
Original lease in 1995 was 5 people-mom, oldest son and his wife, 2nd son and 3rd son. I was told by the oldest son when were still friends that he had a rental property in Vallejo, was a taxi driver and owned a taxi with couple drivers working for him; 2nd son was a real estate agent and had 8 houses and 3rd son moved back to help mom’s business and the mom owned a farm in Philipine, I did not verify our conversations when we were still friends. The oldest son also told me that he would be retiring and move back to the Philippines next few years.
When did you 1st find out the situation, you may just provide the year if you don’t remember the month and day? 2011
What was the situation and event, please describe in detail as much as possible:
After we purchased our first investment property that is a 3 bedrooms and 2 baths single family house in 1995 for $1,200, we leased it out to family of 5, parents and 3 sons. The mom reported to me that 2 of her younger sons moved out and should change to 3 tenants after 2 of the younger sons moved out. We always got along and were friends, we would send them Christmas gifts and they would invite us for coffee or tea the first five years until our 1st rent increase according to the San Francisco Allowable Rent Increase after 5 years.
In 2011, one of the tenants’ younger son came to my house and gave me a letter stating that roof leaked which I had no knowledge and tenants never report to me, I used to periodically call the older son to see if everything ok and he said he would call me if any problems. We only drove by outside to check. We were surprised that the younger son (no longer my tenant) gave us the letter and not the oldest son who was the actual tenant. I contacted the oldest son to arrange for a visit and inspect the place ourselves the very next day. The oldest son talked to me aside from his mom and asked me to partner with him to evict his 2nd brother who moved in without paying him rent after his 2nd brother lost all his money in real estate. I told him straight that I would not be involved in his family business. He was also speechless when I asked him why all above listed issues were not reported.
We scheduled and hired a roofer to replace the roof the following week after 1st inspection.
After a few days later, I received a notice of violation from the city that the door knob was broken, heater was not working, roof leak due to stains on the kitchen ceiling. I scheduled an appointment for inspection and found that the tenant illegally and poorly constructed an inlaw unit with a shower room which did not have any proper exhaust pipes or insulations, shed in the backyard and cut my Cherry tree without my permission or approvals or any city permits. They also subleased to 2 separate tenants for the shed and the illegal inlaw unit. I asked why those additional things were not report at my 1st visit when I received a letter from his brother, he said that his family did not use heater and did not think that it was a big deal.
What did you do to handle the situation on what was reported, please describe in detail as much as possible.
I contacted an attorney right away to learn what we can do since the tenant illegally constructed some rooms downstairs without my permission. My attorney help me to write a letter to the tenant to bring the condition to original conditions within a month without any evictions. The tenant moved out within 3 days and he told my attorney, I was so surprised that they moved out so soon. When we got inside the property, they damaged the property even more, got water all over the wood flooring.
I hired a licensed contractor and building permits to restore the conditions and remove the illegal in-law. The building department came and told us that we could just use Clorox to clean up the kitchen ceiling, it was not a big deal.
After 8 months they moved out, I received an attorney letter right before Thanksgiving suing us for $500,000 for damages due to stress and “mold”.
How did the situation get resolved?
My attorney advised me to report to my insurance company and insurance would hire its attorney because it could be very expensive, like $30,000 to $50,000, so I did.
The insurance attorney suggested me to go through mediation and agreed with him. I also hired the same attorney from the 1st incidence of same tenant since he knew the case and knew exactly what had happened. The tenant admitted that was his fault to build the illegal in-law so the price was reduced to $50,000. My attorney and insurance attorney advised me to settle with $50,000 because the insurance company will pay for it but not my own attorney fee; I would most likely be paying a lot more attorney fee out of my own pocket if I did not settle even though it was not my fault. My only option was to settle and not drag on any longer, it cost me a great deal of stress that I could not sleep every night due to the unfairness.
How much money did it cost you including lawyer fee and construction fee?
Approximately $10,000 of my own money for lawyer fees that I personally hired plus over $20,000 to rehabilitate the conditions.
Did your insurance company pay any money to those tenants?
Yes, my insurance company settled $50,000 with the tenants without any choice.
How much did you insurance premium go up after insurance paid the settlement?
My insurance premium went double after the case settled.
How did you feel about this ordeal?
We felt unjust and still are. Why did we get punished and penalized without doing anything wrong and tenants got rewarded by committing crimes and violating the lease.
What did you learn from this ordeal?
I should have inspected my property inside more often to prevent it happened. I started to attend more landlord seminars to learn more about protecting my rights.
What would you like to see by sharing with your legislatures and share with the public; and any other comments?
- I used to have great relationships with tenants; unfortunately, the lawmakers divided us with all “tenant protection laws”. The current laws are encouraging enemy between tenants and landlords.
- I am looking for fairness and property ownership rights, Our lawmakers should stop protecting illegal acts and someone who violates mutual agreement on contracts.
- I do not want anyone to label me as a “rich landlord”. We have worked very hard to build our own retirement plan and did not come easy.
- We need the lawmakers to protect the good and innocent people, not encourage more people to pretend to be victims and the worst would be the good people get punished.
- It never came across our minds that we would be applying any government welfare despite our hardship, I believe that is saving the government funding. My family just don’t want to be punished for not doing anything wrong.
- Lawyers who present tenants should have a cap on how much money they can make; that would prevent all the frivolous lawsuits.
The report stated above is true. We hereby authorize BetterHousingPolicies.org to share and publish it.