EDITORIAL NEWS ALERT: L.A. City Council Pays for Renters’ Defense Attorneys

EDITORIAL NEWS ALERT: L.A. City Council Pays for Renters’ Defense Attorneys

By Janet M. Gagnon, Esq.

Chief Corporate Affairs Officer & SVP, Government Affairs

On April 1, 2025, the Los Angeles City Council unanimously passed a permanent ordinance establishing a Right to Counsel Program that provides city-paid attorneys to defend low-income renters against legal evictions (a/k/a Unlawful Detainers).  All Rental housing providers, including single-family properties, accessory dwelling units, condominiums and multifamily properties, will be required to provide notice to ALL renters of this new program once the Los Angeles Housing Department (LAHD) has created the notice, called Right to Counsel Program Notice (“RTCP Notice”). The notice must be provided at the start of a tenancy, when an eviction notice is served and at other certain points in time related to housing subsidies.

This Right to Counsel ordinance has been in the works at the City Council for a long time.  It started back on February 14, 2023 with a motion by the Democratic Socialist of America members on the City Council, namely Nithya Raman, Eunisses Hernandez and Hugo Soto-Martinez, along with Council Members Bob Blumenfield, Heather Hutt and Kathy Yaroslavsky.  Since that time AAGLA has fought tooth-and-nail against the ordinance urging the City Council to instead spend these funds on direct rental assistance to avoid evictions entirely, including attorney’s fees and court costs.

During the meeting on April 1^st, it was no surprise that the legal aid attorneys directly financially benefiting from this permanent program provided public comment in support of it as did several tenant activist groups including Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) and Strategic Actions for a Just Economy (SAJE).  They once again voiced the false narrative that it is unfair for renters not to receive City-paid attorneys when rental housing owners pay out of pocket for attorneys to represent themselves in court.  This is clearly inequitable on its face as the City will not be providing paid attorneys for rental housing providers.  Further, it fails to recognize the simple fact that most rental housing owners place their properties into limited liability companies for risk management purposes.  As such, they are required by state law to have an attorney represent them in court and are strictly prohibited from representing themselves pro per/pro se.

In addition, at 11^th hour, the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office couldn’t resist going beyond their responsibility in drafting the ordinance as instructed by the City Council and instead threw in additional garbage by attempting to expand the new affirmative defense provided to low-income renters eligible for the program to ALL renters (including high-income and middle-income renters that can afford to pay for their own legal representation).  This wrongful expansion would have allowed high-income and middle-income renters to use lack of proper notice about the Right to Counsel Program that they cannot participate in as grounds to defeat a legal eviction.  AAGLA zealously opposed this inappropriate and damaging extension by the City Attorney’s Office.  Fortunately, Council Member John Lee offered an amendment to revise the language to clarify that the affirmative defense can only be used by “eligible Tenants, defined as Tenants making 80% of area median income (AMI) or below” and it was passed unanimously.

As some of you may recall, the City of Los Angeles already has a pilot program for Right to Counsel that has been in place since 2020.  This new ordinance means that the City will now consider funding this program as a permanent program.  Funding will be based on monies received from the transfer tax that was established under Measure United to House LA (ULA), a ballot measure that was passed by voters in November 2022.  However, some funding under ULA is now under consideration for re-utilization as direct rental assistance for wildfire impacted individuals.

We will be sure to keep our members updated as to when the new Right to Counsel Program Notice has been created, so that you can be sure to provide it to all renters as required by this new ordinance.

This article is for informational purposes only. If you have any questions regarding your property or specific leasing issues and the requirements of any legal changes described herein, please consult with an attorney.

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