Following the Eaton and Palisades fires, which caused tens of thousands of Angelenos to lose their homes, SAJE has filed a lawsuit against six Los Angeles–based landlords and agents accused of illegally raising rents to exploit displaced residents.
This is the first private civil action against illegal rent gouging since the fires began.
Filed on February 21, 2025, our complaint aims to enforce compliance with California Penal Code § 396, which bans extreme price increases on housing and essential needs following emergency proclamation, as well as the Unfair Competition Law. SAJE is represented by the Housing Rights Center, Western Center on Law & Poverty, Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, and Movement Legal.
The defendants—owners, leasing agents, and property managers—are accused of raising rents by 25% to nearly 50% in direct violation of anti-price-gouging laws, which limit rent increases to 10% following a natural disaster.
Unfortunately, rent gouging is not new. For years, SAJE has been helping working-class tenants in South Los Angeles fight illegal rent raises and ensure landlords comply with local rent-stabilization laws. But the displacement caused by the fires catalyzed an unprecedented wave of new violations, with The Washington Post reporting that average rents in Los Angeles County surged by 20%, with some neighborhoods seeing spikes as high as 130%.
SAJE filed this lawsuit because California has a very clear anti-rent-gouging law that we believe must be rigorously enforced. As we see daily in our tenant advocacy work, housing laws are virtually meaningless without enforcement—in Los Angeles, we have laws against landlord harassment, unlawful evictions, and illegal rent increases, but not enough resources to ensure landlords comply or bad actors are penalized. The result: more and more affordable units are disappearing from our already tight housing market, and eviction rates are rising—both of which are making Los Angeles County’s homelessness crisis much worse.
We hope that increased public scrutiny and the threat of legal action will force these landlords and others to remove rent-gouged listings or lower rents to the appropriate rental listing price.
You can read the complaint HERE.
