HOUSING ENFORCEMENT SECTION

The Housing Enforcement Section addresses code enforcement issues at multi-family rental properties. Prosecutors receive criminal case referrals from Los Angeles Housing Department’s (LAHD’s) Systematic Code Enforcement Program (SCEP), charged with systematically inspect all multi-family residential rental units on a periodic basis. These violations include failure of major building systems, including electrical, plumbing, and heat, as well as violations resulting from deferred maintenance and vermin and insect infestation. Cases are also referred by the L.A. Fire Department and L.A. County Department of Health Services. Prosecutors are also assigned to review and process violations of the Rent Stabilization Ordinance.

Housing Enforcement prosecutors are also assigned to the Inter-Agency Housing Task Force with inspectors from the Los Angeles Fire Department, Los Angeles County Health Department, and the Los Angeles Housing Department.

CASE SPOTLIGHT: People v. Darren Stern

In March 2008, Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo announced his office had secured a $10 million settlement with Darren Stern, the owner of Landmark Equity Management, Inc. This settlement comes as a result of the City Attorney's 2006 civil suit alleging that Landmark engaged in a calculated scheme to drive low-income tenants out of more than 800 rent-controlled apartment units in the City of Los Angeles.

Landmark was prosecuted because it had systematically purchased rent-controlled buildings with high occupancy rates and then embarked on a pattern of harassment and intimidation in an effort to unlawfully drive out as many rent-controlled tenants as possible. The goal of the scheme was to illegally evict the tenants, raise the rents and then sell the buildings for an inflated profit.

The City Attorney's office successfully argued that Stern and his affiliates engaged in dozens of violations of state law through a number of illegal or unfair practices, including allowing properties to fall into disrepair and failing to remedy serious and extensive code violations, illegally increasing rents and refusing to pay for relocation in violation of the Rent Stabilization Ordinance, illegally shutting off utilities, entering units without permission, harassing tenants and refusing to accept rent payments, then suing tenants for failure to pay.

The court judgment secured by the City Attorney required Landmark to pay a $1 million fixed civil penalty and establish a $9 million restitution fund. The restitution fund is being used to give refunds on the rent tenants paid between June 2002 and March 2008. The fund is also being used to back pay relocation assistance to tenants who were forced out of their buildings. In what is perhaps the most creative aspect of the settlement, Landmark owner Darren Stern will be banished from the residential rental market in the City of Los Angeles for 4 ½ years.