Habitability
It started as a spot.
Something small near the baseboard. You wiped it down with bleach and a paper towel, and you thought that was the end of it.
It came back bigger.
Black and green, spreading behind the paint, coming through faster each time. Bleach is not a repair. Whatever is feeding it is inside the wall, and it is still eating.
Notice
You called. Nobody came.
Nine messages. Two work orders. One promise that never turned into a person with tools. In California, the day your landlord learns about it is the day the clock starts on them, not on you.
Then it reached your kids.
Red eyes. A nose that runs indoors and clears in the car. A cough that lives in the house. A rash nobody can explain, on a child who did not choose this apartment.
Filed
So you stopped asking.
Asking is a favor, and a favor can be ignored forever. A filed case is an obligation, and it arrives with a calendar the landlord does not control.
A door that opens onto clean air.
A home you can breathe in, kids who are well, and a record that says plainly what was done to you and that it was not allowed. This is a dramatization, and it is also an ordinary week in this practice.
You are not the small one here.
Landlords count on the size difference. On you being tired, and busy, and unsure whether any of this is even against the law. It is. California decided a long time ago that a rental has to be fit to live in, and that a landlord who ignores you does not get to keep collecting full rent as though nothing is wrong.
Nobody starts out brave. The tenants who get answered are almost never the loudest or the richest. They are the ones who wrote it down, and then made one phone call.
Check your case
Six questions. No dollar figure, no guessing at your case.
This does not estimate what your case is worth, because nobody honestly can from a web page. It tells you which California protections your own facts touch, names the statute behind each one, and shows you what is missing. Nothing you select is sent anywhere unless you choose to send it.
What California actually gives you.
01
A home that is fit to live in
Mold and water intrusion, no heat, failed plumbing or no hot water, infestation, dangerous wiring, broken locks and windows: California does not treat these as amenities. The landlord owes a habitable home for the whole tenancy, not just on the day you signed. Once they know about a defect and a reasonable time passes without a real repair, the failure is legally theirs. A patch that does not hold is not a repair.
Cal. Civ. Code §§ 1941, 1941.1; Green v. Superior Court (1974) 10 Cal.3d 616; repair-and-deduct under § 194202
The right to complain without being punished
If a landlord raises your rent, cuts your services, or moves to evict you within 180 days after you complained about conditions or brought in a code inspector, the law presumes they did it in retaliation. The burden lands on them to prove an honest reason. This is the single most useful thing a tenant can know before picking up the phone to complain.
Cal. Civ. Code § 1942.503
Only a court can put you out
Changing the locks, hauling your belongings to the curb, or shutting off power, water, or gas to make you leave is unlawful, whatever you owe and however the tenancy is going. It carries penalties for each day it continues, plus your actual damages. An eviction in California runs through a court, and the removal itself is done by the sheriff on a judgment, by nobody else.
Cal. Civ. Code § 789.3; Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 1161 et seq.04
Your deposit back, on a clock
Twenty-one calendar days after you move out, a landlord owes you an itemized statement of anything withheld and whatever is left of your deposit. Silence is not an option they have. Withholding it in bad faith exposes them to statutory damages of up to twice the deposit, on top of returning the deposit itself.
Cal. Civ. Code § 1950.5
The lawyer
Eighteen years on the tenant’s side of the table.
I am Richard C. Koman. I have represented California tenants for eighteen years, and I have recovered tens of millions of dollars in settlements for them.
Before and alongside the law, I worked on nonprofit ventures that took me to Uganda and to Macedonia. That is a longer way of saying I have spent much of my life around people who were told that their situation was simply how things are, and watched how often that turned out to be untrue.
I rent my own home. So when I say I know what it is to hand most of a paycheck to somebody every month and need them to do one thing in return, that is not a line in a brochure.
The office is in Petaluma. I take cases for tenants in Sonoma, Marin, and San Francisco counties. On eligible habitability and wrongful-eviction claims there is no fee unless we recover for you.
Past results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome. Every case turns on its own facts, and no lawyer can promise you a result.
What happens when you call
Three steps, and you control the first two.
The call
Twenty minutes, free, no obligation, and you do not need documents in front of you. Bring three things: how long it has been going on, what you told the landlord, and how you told them. I will tell you plainly whether I think there is a case, including when I think there is not.
The record
Most tenants already hold more evidence than they think: texts, emails, portal messages, work orders, photos with dates on them, a code enforcement file, a pediatric visit. We collect what exists, and I tell you the few things worth adding now so the record is complete before anyone is negotiating over it.
The demand, then the case
A documented demand goes to the landlord and their insurer. If that does not produce a serious number, we file, and the calendar starts working for you instead of against you. A landlord who could ignore a tenant indefinitely cannot ignore a discovery deadline.
Most matters like these resolve before trial. Yours might not, and how long it takes depends on the landlord, the insurer, and the court’s calendar as much as on us. Anyone who promises you a number or a date at this stage is guessing.
Your landlord does not get the last word.
Call and describe it in your own words. If there is a case, I will tell you. If there is not, I will tell you that too, and usually what to do instead.
- Phone
- 707.544.5354
- Office
- 755 Baywood Drive, 2nd Floor
Petaluma, CA 94954 - Where I practice
- Sonoma, Marin, and San Francisco counties