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The Way We Work Now
I’m Defending Tenants Against Scamming Slumlords
The Way We Work Now is a series chronicling how people’s lives and careers have fundamentally changed because of the pandemic.
Frances Campbell is a housing rights attorney in Los Angeles and has been practicing law for 20 years. She spoke with Mai Tran about how tenants in California can protect themselves when facing eviction in the midst of a pandemic.
My firm represents tenants in lawsuits against landlords. We do a lot of wrongful eviction and fraudulent eviction cases where a landlord says to a tenant, “You have to move because my mom’s moving in,” and then mom doesn’t move in. We sue for that. We do a lot of financial elder abuse cases where a landlord is evicting an elderly tenant who may not be aware of their rights, and we defend eviction actions.
The pandemic stopped all our cases brought by tenants against landlords that were going to trial. The pandemic also stopped eviction cases from coming in because, when it first hit, there was a rent-payment moratorium issued by the city of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County. The Judicial Council of California also issued an eviction moratorium. We all thought this freeze on eviction cases was going to last for quite a short period of time, but it lasted several months. And then the Judicial Council, which is in charge of all of the courts, essentially said to the legislature, “Stop making us do your dirty work. We’re going to lift this eviction moratorium because you’re asking the Judicial Council to legislate.” So in August, the state of California put together a statewide Covid-19 act that amended several parts of the eviction statutes.
There’s been a spike in eviction actions where landlords are making things up so they can try to evict a tenant based on breach of lease.
Now we have a statewide, semi-eviction moratorium, which means landlords can evict people for doing certain things but not others, like not paying rent. Some landlords are now getting creative…
