Talking Business

by Emily Landes

If the women running Eviction Assistance had to give just one piece of advice to landlords with nonpayment of rent issues it would be this: don’t try to handle these situations on your own. Paralegal Jo Biel Clark can remember several occasions when landlords had to face possible foreclosure before they finally decided to seek help with their delinquent tenants. Unfortunately, a lot of landlords try to work things out on their own and they trust and hope that the tenant is going to pay,” she says. “Before they know it, they are two or three months down before they come to us in the first place.”

Instead, Clark recommends that as soon as the rent is past due, landlords should give Eviction Assistance a call. The company has a 25-year history helping landlords, primarily with nonpayment of rent evictions. In that time, it has gotten its eviction process down to a science. A court runner comes to the office—a flat in the Lower Haight—every morning so that all paperwork is filed as soon as the courts are open. Almost every Wednesday and Thursday you can find Eviction Assistance’s owner, attorney Cindy Lee, at an eviction hearing; almost every Monday she will be back at the court house prepared to go to jury trial, even though 99% of the time the landlords and tenants settle beforehand. Lee estimates that she can have the tenant out in four to six weeks if the eviction is uncontested, up to eight weeks if it’s contested. It’s a well-oiled machine at this point,” she contends.

The company sticks mainly to quick and simple nonpayment cases, passing most nuisance, Ellis Act and owner-move-in evictions on to other SFAA attorneys. We have enough work and speed is one of the main things we focus on,” Lee acknowledges. In fact, after a quarter century in San Francisco, Eviction Assistance just finished up its first long, drawn-out court battle on behalf of one of its primary clients, the San Francisco Housing Authority. A tenant who hadn’t paid her subsidized rent in years refused to pay her $40,000 outstanding balance via a payment plan. She also wouldn’t budge from the unit, even if it meant the forgiveness of that debt. She insisted upon her day in court. In the end, the jury was out for only 45 minutes; it awarded both possession and back rent to the authority. The woman refused to take the jury’s word as the final say; she filed a stay of eviction and even lobbied her supervisor to stay in her unit. She did exhaust every resource, but in the end, she was out,” Lee reports.

Most nonpayment of rent cases are a lot less dramatic, of course. Usually both parties want to settle and often work out a Pay and Stay” stipulation. (Eviction Assistance, which charges a flat fee for its services, will draw up this document for no additional charge.) The stipulation allows the delinquent tenant to stay in the unit as long as there is no further delinquency and the owner is paid back (usually on a payment plan schedule) for any back rent. If the tenant misses a payment again, the eviction proceedings move forward quickly. This arrangement works out well in the majority of the cases because most people want to avoid an eviction if at all possible, posits Clark. Most tenants are good people and most landlords are good people. Most tenants want to pay their rent and most landlords want to let their tenants stay and pay their rent,” she says.

Still, sometimes there is no room for negotiation. For example, tenants with the San Francisco Housing Authority lose their housing immediately if criminal activity takes place on the property. This can lead to some heartbreaking scenarios where elderly tenants are forced out due to their children or grandchildren’s behavior. One time, a senior couple got in trouble with the authority because their 12-year-old grandson set fire to a neighbor boy’s pant leg. Eviction Assistance was able to work with the authority and the couple so that they could stay as long as their family members didn’t live there. But, in the end, they missed their next rent payment and were evicted from their unit.

Lee has sympathy for tenants who find themselves in these dire straights, but believes there’s no excuse for nonpayment. Unfortunately, we deal a lot with these heart-wrenching situations,” she admits. But the bottom line is that these people didn’t pay their rent, and a lot of times they’re able to get away with thinking they can not pay their rent and stay.” Both Clark and Lee believe that part of the reason tenants get away with nonpayment is because landlords, especially smaller owners with limited experience, are afraid of the court system. But they emphasize that there’s nothing to be afraid of and that facing the problem head-on is a lot better than ignoring it and hoping it will go away. They’re afraid of the horror stories they hear about wrongful evictions,” comments Lee. But in a majority of the situations we are going to be able to take a look at the case and assure them that that is not going to happen.”

Part of the reason Lee can be so confident is that Eviction Assistance has developed a good reputation among tenant lawyers and advocates. Even the Rent Board likes us,” quips Clark. They refer people here.” That reputation and the collaborative spirit it engenders is invaluable to Eviction Assistance and its clients. For example, most tenant attorneys avoid delay tactics like demurrers (a motion that says the eviction can’t move forward because the complaint is faulty) if they are facing Lee because they know it won’t work. We say we’re demurrer proof,” Clark jokes. Perhaps even more valuable than the relationship with other lawyers is the relationship with the court, she adds. We’ve worked in this system for 25 years. They know us; we know them. We get things done. They’re our friends. And that makes a huge difference.”

With Eviction Assistance’s knowledge of the system and its long-established relationships, not to mention its quick and hardworking staff and low costs for services, it’s no wonder Clark believes that landlords are foolish to proceed with a nonpayment eviction without help. You have to follow the rules properly,” she advises. And if you don’t, you lose. So, it’s not a good time to practice on your own.”

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of SFAA or SF Apartment Magazine. Emily Landes is the managing editor of SF Apartment Magazine and Rental Housing. Copyright © 2007 by SF Apartment Magazine. All rights reserved