Real estate news

Homes for rent Find your new rental house with the click of a mouse! View photos, descriptions, and maps of available properties for rent in the greater Sacramento area, including single and multi-family homes, condos, townhomes, duplexes and apartments. Let HP manage for YOU! Let the company that specializes in custom service for single family homes help you get the most out of your rental assets in the Sacramento Valley!

Bill to let landlords reject sex offenders

Owners fear liability from other tenants.

Apartment owners call AB2603 their newest strategy to maneuver between state laws that bar apartment owners from discriminating when renting and tenants who discover registered sex offenders living next door. The California Apartment Association, which sponsored the bill, says landlords are increasingly fearful of legal scenarios that stop them from screening or evicting sex offenders who appear in an online Megan's Law database, but make them liable for tenants who commit crimes.

"It's a legitimate business decision to keep sexual predators out of apartment communities," said Thomas Bannon, CAA chief executive officer. "To protect children is a good business decision."

The bill, authored by Assemblywoman Nicole Parra, D-Hanford, is scheduled for a 9 a.m. hearing in the Assembly Judiciary Committee.

Opponents say the measure is unnecessary and amounts to lifelong denial of housing for sex offenders. Under Megan's Law, offenders must register their addresses, which are posted online for the public.

So far, there are no reports of registered sex offenders molesting nearby tenants, says the CAA, whose members own or manage 759,000 apartments statewide. But Bannon said fears have led some apartment owners to pay registered offenders to leave their complexes.

"We're in a situation where if we find out somebody is a Megan's Law violator we can't refuse to rent to them or it's a $25,000 fine," said Mike Force, owner of Sacramento-based Westcal Management and a CAA board member.

In January, landlords pushed a bill allowing them to simply reject applicants and evict tenants who show up in the online Megan's Law database. But it died after arguments that it was discriminatory for life.

The new bill says registered sex offenders will no longer be considered part of any protected class such as race, religion or sexual orientation when applying for an apartment or fighting an eviction. That frees landlords to deny apartments or evict sex offenders without running afoul of fair-housing discrimination claims.

But opponents, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Western Center on Law and Poverty and California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, argue the law could worsen the situation. In letters to lawmakers, they argued the bill could drive more offenders toward homelessness and low-income rentals, prod them not to register and make it even harder to track them.

The California Association of Realtors says the bill could expose landlords to more, not less, liability. Requiring landlords to determine whether every applicant is a registered sex offender invites lawsuits when the qualification process fails, it argues.

The CAR also called the bill unnecessary, even premature, until Attorney General Bill Lockyer issues an opinion on whether landlords are actually liable for denying apartments to sex offenders.