An unfortunate trend in recent legislation is the increased use of technical definitions in widely separated areas of law, forcing the reader to review multiple volumes of several different codes in order to understand a single, apparently simple, piece of legislation.
The Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, popularly known as “Proposition 65” (or “Prop. 65”), requires businesses to warn California residents before exposing them to specified chemicals.
“If a tree falls in the forest with no ears to hear does it make a sound?” While the answer to that riddle still remains elusive to many, a recent California court of appeal decision did succeed in answering another riddle: “If a tenant has yet to be formally evicted, but the lease is terminated, do they still lawfully possess the premises?”
By Jana Contreras
On June 5, 2018, San Francisco voters passed Proposition C, which imposes a new gross receipts tax of 1 percent on revenues a business receives from leasing warehouse space in San Francisco and 3.5 percent on revenues a business receives from leasing certain qualifying commercial spaces in San Francisco. Proposition C becomes operative on January 1, 2019. The proceeds of these taxes will fund quality early care and education for young children and other public purposes.
In January 2017, the Department of Housing and Community Development published statistics indicating that there is a need, on average, for approximately 180,000 housing units to be developed each year in California, while only 80,000 housing units are currently being constructed.
Parties to real estate contracts often change over time, whether as the result of an assignment, financing, or otherwise. Relatedly, additional parties (beyond those named in the underlying contract) may claim a property interest in the subject of such a contract, perhaps in connection with a security interest in the underlying fee in the form of a mortgage or a deed of trust, or a security interest in a leasehold estate by way of a leasehold mortgage.