The Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles (AAGLA) announced on Thursday that it has filed another lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles, seeking to nullify and enjoin the city from enforcing an ordinance prohibiting rental housing providers from increasing rent. The accusation is that the city is violating both the United States and California Constitutions on the grounds that it deprives the Association’s members of due process by effectively denying property owners from implementing annual rent increases mandated by the Rent Stabilization Ordinance.
L.A.’s Rent Freeze Ordinance prohibits residential rental property owners from increasing rent on properties subject to the City’s Rent Stabilization Ordinance for a period of one-year following the end of the declared “Local Emergency.” The City declared an end to the local emergency as of February 1, 2023 and, accordingly, the Rent Freeze Ordinance will continue until February 1, 2024.
“This ordinance, which has frozen all rent increases for more than three years under a period of extreme inflationary pressures, has been a tremendous financial strain on the City’s rental housing providers. As a result, many housing providers in Los Angeles have been forced to exit the rental business, liquidate retirement savings to keep up with rapidly rising costs, or in extreme instances, are facing foreclosure proceedings,” said Cheryl Turner, President of the AAGLA Board of Directors and a Los Angeles based attorney. “No other type of business or entity, not food suppliers, medical professionals, nor the government itself, have been burdened by what will ultimately be a four-year mandated ‘freeze’ on income from which housing providers will never be able to make-up.”
Earlier this year, AAGLA filed a lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles seeking a writ of mandate and declaratory and injunctive relief to prohibit the City’s enforcement of two renter protection ordinances. During December 2022, AAGLA and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association filed a joint lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles seeking to overturn Measure ULA, the so-called mansion tax, of 4 percent on real estate sales or transfers of more than $5 million, and 5.5 percent on real estate transactions valued above $10 million, which took effect on April 1, 2023. Both these latest cases are still pending.