{"id":193644,"date":"2026-02-25T21:24:23","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T21:24:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/193644\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T21:24:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T21:24:23","slug":"can-landlords-raise-the-rent-when-roommates-move-out-in-oakland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/193644\/","title":{"rendered":"Can landlords raise the rent when\u00a0roommates move out in Oakland?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ThreeA majority of Oakland apartments are covered by rent control, which allows rent hikes only under certain circumstances. A recent lawsuit takes aim at one attempted raise. Credit: Florence Middleton for The Oaklandside<\/p>\n

When Lily Woo saw the listing for the two-bedroom on Van Buren Avenue in March 2024, they eagerly set up a viewing with their partner at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was a good location, a few blocks up from Lake Merritt, and the rent felt fair at $2,350 a month. The pair moved in together that spring.<\/p>\n

But when they split up the following year and Woo chose to stay in the apartment with a new roommate, they were hit with a sizable rent increase and told to leave if they weren\u2019t willing to pay. Now Woo is suing the property owner, arguing he violated Oakland\u2019s rental housing laws.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In response, the landlord has walked back the rent hike, but the ongoing lawsuit<\/a> calls attention to a California rental rule that can have vastly different impacts depending on whether it\u2019s followed and how it\u2019s understood.<\/p>\n

A 27% rent hike<\/p>\n

Most apartment buildings in Oakland, like Woo\u2019s, are covered by the city\u2019s rent control law<\/a>. That law states that landlords can only raise the rent by a certain percentage each year. A few years ago, Oakland capped this percentage at3%<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But under a state law called the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, landlords can reset the starting rent price at any level once tenants move out of a unit and new residents move in.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where things got tricky in Woo\u2019s situation.<\/p>\n

According to a lawsuit Woo filed in January, their building\u2019s property manager had Woo\u2019s partner sign the lease in March 2024. Woo, even though they were the one who\u2019d found the apartment and would be moving in together with their then-partner, was told to sign a separate document instead.<\/p>\n

That document, according to Woo, was called the \u201cAddendum For Purpose of Future Costa-Hawkins Rent Increase.\u201d It allegedly stated Woo was not an \u201coriginal tenant\u201d of the unit and said that the landlord, Jeffrey Jue, could raise Woo\u2019s rent beyond what Oakland law allows if their partner, the one who signed the lease, moved out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The statement Woo signed falsely stated that they were not an original tenant \u201cbecause I am replacing a vacating tenant and\/or I was not a party to the original rental agreement and did not begin my tenancy fewer than 30 days thereafter,\u201d Woo quoted in the lawsuit. They are represented by attorneys from the California Center for Movement Legal Services<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Woo, who was unfamiliar with Oakland tenant laws at the time, thought \u201coriginal tenant\u201d referred to the first people who ever lived in the building, and said they felt pressured to sign the addendum on the fly.<\/p>\n

About a year later, Woo notified property manager Kathleen Morton, who\u2019s also named in the lawsuit, that their partner was planning to move out and that Woo intended to stay in the unit with a new roommate. Morton allegedly responded by text message that Jue \u201chasn\u2019t recently been allowing roommates\u201d to stay. The implication was that Woo was a roommate, not an official tenant.<\/p>\n

Once Woo gave formal notice, the lawsuit says, Morton notified them that the landlord would reset the rent at $2,995. She later followed up, saying, \u201cIf this is not acceptable than all tenants must be out of the unit by August 31st. He is sticking to the market rental rate.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The new rent price would constitute a 27% increase, \u201cfar above the 2.3% allowable under Oakland\u2019s Rent Adjustment Ordinance,\u201d Woo\u2019s lawsuit says.<\/p>\n

Dispute over who\u2019s an \u2018original\u2019 renter<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very stressful,\u201d said Woo of the messages from the property manager. Woo said they\u2019d made an effort to be \u201ctransparent\u201d with the landlord about their situation and to make the case that they\u2019d been a good tenant, always paying rent on time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI just want to stay in my home, for the legal price we rented it at,\u201d Woo said. A massage therapist, they said they wouldn\u2019t be able to afford the $650 monthly increase.<\/p>\n

After speaking with other renters in the 29-unit building, Woo said it appeared that their landlord has taken similar steps with other tenant pairs.<\/p>\n

Reached by phone, Morton said she was \u201cnot at liberty\u201d to discuss the lawsuit. Jue did not respond to an email or a voicemail seeking an interview.<\/p>\n

According to public records, Jue owns eight properties in Oakland and Berkeley, mostly mid-sized apartment buildings.<\/p>\n

Woo and their lawyers are adamant that anyone who moves into a unit at the start of a tenancy is an \u201coriginal occupant\u201d under state and city law, regardless of what apparent contracts they\u2019ve signed. That means even if one tenant in the unit moves out, the landlord still has to abide by rent control rules for the others, instead of treating it like a brand new tenancy and resetting the rent price.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t just keep people off the lease,\u201d said Woo\u2019s lawyer Ethan Silverstein. \u201cLandlord\u2019s can\u2019t just do that to get a big rent increase.\u201d<\/p>\n

And telling Woo to move out if the rent increase wasn\u2019t satisfactory is also illegal, he said, since he argues Woo is a legal tenant and Oakland only permits evictions under certain circumstances and through a specific formal process.<\/p>\n

From Silverstein\u2019s perspective, \u201cmany landlords think they have creative solutions through contracts to undermine rent control. These solutions don\u2019t work. But it can be very upsetting and very stressful, especially when tenants are not experts in the ins and outs of the law.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, there are specific circumstances when a landlord can legally raise rent after a tenant leaves, he acknowledged.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder specified conditions, Costa-Hawkins permits an owner to set initial rents without restriction when a covered unit is sublet or assigned and none of the original occupants permanently reside in the covered unit,\u201d Oakland\u2019s rent ordinance says.<\/p>\n

Many landlords find Oakland\u2019s rent control laws too restrictive; the East Bay Rental Housing Association, a landlord advocacy group, opposes<\/a> such ordinances, arguing they \u201cworsen housing shortages, damage their communities, and both overly burden the wrong owners and subsidize the wrong renters.\u201d<\/p>\n

After their lawsuit was filed in January, according to Silverstein, Woo received a letter from the landlord\u2019s lawyers, agreeing to let them stay in the apartment at the original rent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But they\u2019re not withdrawing the lawsuit and are still seeking damages for the period before that agreement. \u201cThey had to live with the emotional stress of their tenancy being in flux for months,\u201d Silverstein said.<\/p>\n

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