Tri County Apartment Assn. v. City of Mountain View

In Tri County Apartment Assn. v. City of Mountain View (1987) 196 Cal. App. 3d 1283, the City of Mountain View enacted an ordinance requiring a landlord to give 60 days' notice of any rent increase. At that time Civil Code section 827 required that a landlord give 30 days' notice of any rent increase. This court stated that the issue was "whether a municipal ordinance restricting the effective date of proposed rental increases is a valid rent control measure or a prohibited trespass into landlord-tenant areas preempted by state law." (Tri County, at p. 1286.) The City of Mountain View argued that the ordinance should be classified as a permissible control of rent increases. However, this court concluded that the ordinance addressed notification, not rent control, because it dealt "directly and unequivocally with the subject of when a landlord must notify a tenant about a rent increase." ( Id. at p. 1293.) This court then considered "whether the Legislature had preempted the field of notification in landlord-tenant relationships." (Ibid.) In Tri County, the Court stated that "landlord-tenant relationships are so much affected by statutory timetables governing the parties' respective rights and obligations that a 'patterned approach' by the Legislature appears clear." ( Tri County Apartment Assn. v. City of Mountain View, supra, 196 Cal. App. 3d at p. 1296.) This court then noted that the ordinance adopted the same purpose as the statute, i.e., appropriate notification, but changed the statewide chronology. (Ibid.) This court also found that "the extensive scheduling provided by the Legislature reveals that the timing of landlord-tenant transactions is a matter of statewide concern not amenable to local variations," and that the ordinance "directly conflicts with the legislative scheme." ( Id. at p. 1298.) Accordingly, we held that state law preempted the ordinance. (Ibid.)