Santa Ana landlords may pass new ordinance fee onto renters

The city of Santa Ana has a new ordinance to hold landlords accountable for rent increases, but half of the fee may fall on the renter.

It’s part of the city’s Rent Stabilization and Just Cause Eviction Ordinance now requiring landlords to enter renters’ information into an online database to keep apartment owners in compliance. The rental registration fee for the landlord is $100 a unit every year and they can pass half that cost on to the renter.

“We go to work just to pay our rent, on top of it its our food, our insurance, our car payment, our gas money, kids,” Santa Ana renter Christian Martinez told NBC4, “I can’t afford it.”

Some renters are receiving letters from landlords stating that the city is implementing new regulations for rental properties… and “to cover the incurred costs, we will be implementing an annual nominal fee of $50 per tenant to contribute to the city’s rental registration fees.”

“If I knew that my landlord was gonna come fix my stuff and everything, then yeah gladly you know, but if my landlord doesn’t come fix anything I need then I’m not gonna pay $50 dollars,” exclaimed Santa Ana Renter Ricardo Naranjo.

The rental registry launched in August, but the deadline for landlords to register is December 31. Landlords must register each rental unit with tenant information and pay a $100 registry fee per unit.

Los Angeles County also has a similar ordinance with a landlord registry fee of $90 per unit.

“It can be split between the property owner and the tenants. Frankly, if this is a mandate of the cities, they should be paying for it,” said Chip Ahlswede, Vice President of External Affairs for the Apartment Association of Orange County (AAOC.)

Landlords must also give renters notice if they are going to pass half of the fee on to the renter. Some renters will see the fee start in January 2024.

Ahlswede said AAOC already pushed back on the ordinance for its compliance with privacy regulations.

“They sent out the registry, opened it up, and requested that all property owners include the names of everybody in the unit, including their contact information, their email addresses, their phone numbers, and what language they spoke at home. We saw that as incredibly invasive and not the purview of the city to ask in this case, and so we talked to them about narrowing that down,” Ahlswede explained.

According to the city, the “Rental Registry allows the city to compile key data on rent-stabilized units, track allowable rent increases, monitor compliance with the city’s ordinance, and communicate rental unit data…”

The AAOC added that much of the information is already available in a parcel search.

“This is yet another burden, yet another cost, and yet another problem being put on property owners and are impacting the lives of thousands of tenants throughout Santa ana, as well as other communities because that money could be much better spent improving the property, improving the opportunities for the people that live in those communities, rather than giving the government a database of information they already have,” Ahlswede concluded.

Martinez said he’s been asking his landlord to fix his kitchen cabinets for years.

“The cabinets, they’re all rotten… it’s falling apart, so when we ask them to come fix our house… we do pay rent, and it’s not $1,000, its not $1,500, its more than $1,500!” he exclaimed.

Apartment owners must register by Dec. 31 or face late fees that cannot be passed to the renter.

NBC4 reached out to the Santa Ana Mayor and city councilmembers. A spokesperson for the city responded in an email stating, “The rental registry does not charge any fees to renters, only to landlords who are required to register their rental properties, if applicable.”

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