Price Gouging in California: What You Need to Know!

Welcome back Inside Uplift Property Management I'm Tommy Perfect CEO and broker here at Uplift Property Management and today I'm going to talk a little bit about some subjects that are going on here in Southern California with our recent wildfires and a big issue that comes up with price gouging and how that affects your rental property.

All right so this week just last week actually Rob Bonta has issued a letter out and the department of real estate has sent that out to all their real estate agents talking about price gouging rules and the idea that our current attorney general of California is really going to come after any of these housing providers that are price gouging.

What those price gouging rules really apply are about how much you're going to increase your market rent right so first off you can't increase rent more than 10% doesn't matter if you're exempt from rent control laws this price gouging law goes into effect for all housing providers and it actually applies to several other things like food emergency supplies and medical items. This is long-term rental property this is at your renewals this is short-term rentals as well so if you have your house on Airbnb or Vrbo these rates really apply to you so that you aren't price gouging these people when there is a state of emergency in effect.

I know most of us landlords are not really going after this price gouging thing but there are a few bad actors that are really taking advantage of people in a vulnerable time in a state of emergency so Rob Bonta has actually filed charges against a few different cases they have open cases that they're actually working, one of the ones that they highlighted was somebody who was increasing rates 38% for people applying after they'd applied for rental property so really while you're dealing with this changing time make sure that your rents and your rental rates stay consistent and stay compliant with that law that you aren't going above that 10% increase.

This price hike really is what was the kind of bait and switch tactic that a property management company used and obviously we don't know all the details about that certain case and and how it's being portrayed but that is what Rob Bonta is expressing to the public and to us property managers and landlords.

As we've talked about them opening up cases they've actually issued over 500 other warning letters to housing providers in Southern California and that really is important that we pay attention to this because if it's their focal point they're going to try to find somebody to be their poster child right so make make sure that you are staying compliant the charges that come through are you know up to a $10,000 fine and up to a year in prison depending on how your case goes and that doesn't even include all the attorney's fees that you're going to have to deal with.

In times of state of emergency we really need to focus up and stand against exploitation of people these people really need us this is our time to have ethics and really live those Ethics in real time I know that some people might want to capitalize on our rental rate or take advantage of an opportunity right? capitalism but when people are at their most vulnerable it's time to be a standup citizen here and work together again we have active investigations going on right now make sure you're compliant make sure your listings are compliant and let's make sure that we are not going to incriminate ourselves and find ourselves in hot water with the Department of real estate and your license as well as the Attorney General of California so let's make sure that we are all continuing to Uplift our fellow neighbors and if you have any questions about this price gouging law and you know more opinion on it feel free to contact us at Uplift Property Management we'd happy to go over any of those things with you in more detail.