PRIYA SHARMA/Daily Bruin Many students have already begun
hunting for places to live next year ““ whether it is in or
outside of Westwood Village.
By Stella Chu and Lisa
Klassen
Daily Bruin Reporters
After writing a $300 check in the spring as a deposit for her
new apartment, Patricia Kwok, a fourth-year business/economics
student, stopped looking for a place to live.
“We were under the impression that the deposit was to
guarantee us a spot in the complex,” she said.
When her friends who had also paid $300 to live in the same
complex began to receive calls saying that they were declined
tenement, Kwok began to wonder about her future housing.
“We started to question how the manager could collect so
many deposits for so few available spaces,” Kwok said.
By August of that summer, she found out that she had gotten the
apartment, but some of her friends weren’t as lucky.
“At the end, it was obvious that the money was to put us
on the waiting list for the apartment,” she said. “My
friends who didn’t get the apartment went through a lot of
trouble to get back the $300 they had paid.”
CAMPUS RESOURCES: Student Legal Services70 Dodd
Hall Los Angeles, CA 90095-1439 (310) 825-9894 Open 9-5 M-F,Closed
12-1 www.studentlegal.ucla.edu
Community Housing Office350 DeNeve Dr.Los Angeles, CA
90095-1495(310) 825-4491 www.cho.ucla.edu Experiences like
Kwok’s are not uncommon when students begin the scramble for
fall apartments.
And according to the UCLA Community Housing Office, students are
often unaware of their rights as renters.
Other horror stories students brought up involve astronomical
increases in rent, students living in basements advertised as
“suites,” and others forced to live great distances
from campus.
“The most common problems that students have with their
landlords have to do with their security deposits and the terms of
their leases,” said Sonja Busum, a representative of the
housing office.
The Community Housing Office primarily serves as a resource and
information source for perspective renters. When students encounter
legal problems, Busum and others at the office advise them to seek
help from Student Legal Services.
The SLS offers low-cost legal counseling and assistance to all
currently registered students. Among the variety of legal issues
they cover include tenant and landlord problems.
“Most students don’t read the fine print until there
is a problem,” said Elizabeth Kemper, director of Student
Legal Services. “With the holding deposit, there’s a
twist ““ now it is outside of the statutory limits on the
deposit law since a landlord/tenant relationship doesn’t
exist yet.”
After paying a holding deposit, tenants should still remain
cautious.
“At the point that a holding deposit has been paid, the
relationship between the tenant and the landlord is still very
vague since the application hasn’t been processed yet,”
said Robert Lucey of Westside Rental Connection, a Los Angeles
rental directory.
Kwok’s situation can be avoided by making sure that all
transactions are clear and documented, Kemper said.
“A student should never put down money without getting it
in writing specifying what it is for,” Kemper said.
But not everybody experiences such difficulties when searching
for an apartment.
“I got lucky,” said Becca Demos, a third-year
business economics student. “I waited until the last minute
to start looking for an apartment, but if you want one for next
year, you should start looking early.”
Demos suggested exercising caution when paying housing
deposits.
“(Some of the landlords) really screw you over on your
deposits,” she said. “They also charge a lot of money
for regular wear and tear of the apartment.”
Demos, like many others, said she feels powerless.
But some managers are unaware of the large problems that exist
among tenant and landlord relations.
“I’ve never heard of the holding deposit
policy,” said Teleb Elcott, an apartment manager. “We
don’t charge anything like that to our tenants.”
But different landlords have different policies, he said.
With security deposits, landlords often charge high deposit
rates to guarantee that their tenants will take good care of their
new apartment.
According to Kemper, there are laws set to limit the amount of
money for the security deposit.
“Landlords can’t charge more than two month’s
rent for an unfurnished apartment or more than three month’s
rent for a furnished one,” she said. “Any money that
the landlord keeps is a security deposit.”
According to California law, a landlord may only deduct from the
security deposit for unpaid rent if the apartment shows excess
damage of ordinary wear and tear and if cleaning is necessary,
Kemper said.
Some tenants, like Saba Bazargan, a fifth-year philosophy
student, believe that apartment managers are taking advantage of
students in need of housing.
“This year we didn’t have a really hard time finding
an apartment,” Bazargan said. “We found one for $1,300
a month and decided to take it. We paid the deposit, but things
changed when we came back.”
After paying the deposit, Bazargan said his landlord informed
him that his rent would be $1,500 a month, instead of the lower
price he named earlier.
“But they can do that here,” Bazargan said.
“The landlords know that there is a high demand and a low
supply.”
According to Kemper, landlords can’t legally raise the
rent during the lease. “They can change terms of lease only
if they both consent,” she said.
In addition, the terms of lease depend on the legal agreement
between tenants and landlords.
“Some don’t specifically indicate the apartment
number, some don’t specify the amount of rent,” she
said. “If there is still a violation if all these things have
been included in the document, the student has a cause of
action.”
When students manage to secure an apartment, they are usually
required to begin their lease in June, which leads many who are not
at UCLA for the summer to sublet their apartment.
But subletting can create problems because some landlords do not
allow it.
Although landlords tend to carry bad reputations, there are some
exceptions.
“Some are great, I don’t tend to see those, but some
act in good faith,” Kemper said. “Unfortunately, the
bad ones make it very difficult.”