Feature
by the San Francisco Rent Board
The Rent Board fee appeared on the December 2004 property-tax statement. The new fee is $22 per apartment and $11 per residential hotel room where the tenant was in residence as of November 1 of 2004. Note that the landlord may pass through 50% of the costs of the fee to each unit, which is $11 per unit and $5.50 per residential hotel room. This fee defrays the cost of operating the Rent Board—for the Rent Board does not receive any property-tax funding. Because of the fee, there is no charge for filing a petition with the Rent Board. Owner-occupied units are exempt from the fee unless there are tenants residing in the owner’s unit. To avoid receiving a bill for the fee for the owner’s unit, a homeowner’s exemption must be on file with the Assessor’s Office. Units that are rent-controlled or regulated by a governmental unit, agency or authority are also exempt from payment of the fee. Please call the Tax Collector’s Office at (415) 554-6203 if you have any questions regarding whether the fee was properly billed for a unit.
Collection Procedure for the Fee
Chapter 37A of the Administrative Code allows the city to collect a per-unit fee for each residential dwelling unit that is subject to the Rent Ordinance. This fee is billed to the landlord each year on the property-tax statement sent in November; but the law permits landlords to collect a portion of the Rent Board fee from those tenant(s) in occupancy as of November 1 of each year. Under current law as amended in the summer of 2004, the landlord is allowed to collect 50% of the cost of the fee from the tenant. Every year, the landlord may bill for this amount as of November 1. Chapter 37A was amended in 1999 to change the manner in which the fee is collected. These changes are explained below:
The fee must be deducted from the interest due the tenant on the deposit held, unless the landlord has paid the interest payment annually to the tenant. The owner can bill separately for the fee, if the interest is paid annually to the tenant or no deposit is being held.
Landlords may bank the fee since 1999 and collect it in later years. This means that a landlord does not have to collect the fee in the year that it was due, but is entitled to bank or collect the Rent Board fee in later years if the landlord so desires. This change only applies to fees imposed from November 1999 and thereafter. Landlords who failed to collect the Rent Board fee for years prior to 1999 will not be able to collect those fees.
Request for payment of the fee includes: (1) a written explanation that itemizes the fee amount due for each year for which payment is sought; and (2) an itemization of interest due for each year not paid.
Please note that a tenant’s failure to pay the Rent Board fee as demanded is not a just cause for eviction. The landlord will have to go to Small Claims Court in order to collect.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of SFAA or the San Francisco Apartment Magazine. You can reach the San Francisco Rent Board online at www.sfgov/rentboard or by telephone at 415-252-4600.