If a landlord wants to evict an Oakland tenant for violating their lease, they’ll now have to prove that the renter’s behavior caused “substantial actual injury” to the property owner or other tenants.
The Oakland City Council on Tuesday approved this update to its Just Cause for Eviction Ordinance, which spells out permissible reasons for removing a tenant from a property. Supporters of the new “substantial injury” rule say it will prevent landlords from using technicalities in the fine print of a lease agreement as an excuse to kick someone out.
The change comes about a month before Oakland’s COVID-19 eviction moratorium is set to expire on July 15. Eviction cases have risen rapidly in the rest of Alameda County since the county’s pandemic ban was lifted, so numbers are expected to climb in Oakland too when the city policy ends.
“Putting this additional protection in place,” said Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas, who wrote the amendment, “will help prevent a surge of unnecessary evictions.”
The new policy also requires landlords to demonstrate that the tenant’s conduct was “unreasonable.” Property owners are already required to send a written warning to renters about the violation, giving them a chance to correct their behavior before an eviction attempt. Under the new rules, this notice must be written in clear language and include several details about the alleged violation.