Renters waited too long to make case
CITY HALL — A Santa Monica couple that may have gotten taken by both their landlord and their apartment’s previous tenant in a complicated rent scheme got little satisfaction from the city’s rent control board this week.
Brian Biedul and Dawn Rosenquist were seeking payback for what they claimed to be years of overcharged rent, but commissioners ruled on Thursday their claim was unfounded.
Biedul and Rosenquist, who live at 2507 20th St., requested that the Santa Monica Rent Control Board award them restitution for the seven years they believed they were being overcharged in rent.
Under Santa Monica rent control law, the Rent Control Board can authorize tenants to withhold future payments to landlords when they are overcharged. Commissioners on Thursday, however, felt the agreement the couple made with then-landlord Mary Deckert didn’t qualify them for reconstitution.
“This sounds so beyond a normal business arrangement,” Rent Control Board chair Alan Toy told Rosenquist. “This sounds like a corrupt sublease arrangement.
“This sounds so beyond a normal business arrangement.” — — ALAN TOY Rent Control Board chair
“The bottom line is, you were took, and you had to sit on it for seven years by people who, unfortunately, are not present to answer in this dispute.”
In February of 1998, Biedul and Rosenquist moved into the two-bedroom unit after the complex manager, George Elian, and his wife, Beth, moved out. The Elians were tenants at the property since 1979. After moving in, Rosenquist put the utilities in her name, and she and her husband believed they were the proper occupants of the unit, according to city records.
The couple agreed to pay the Elians $728 in monthly rent. Then, at the beginning of 1999, the couple began paying the property owner directly at an increased rent of $1,000 per month. The couple had no contact with Deckert until they began making checks payable to her at the increased rent rate in 1999, according to city records.
The couple had continued to pay the increased rent since 1999. Dana Menck, the current landlord, purchased the property in July of 2002. According to city records, Menck was in compliance with Rent Control Board regulations when he purchased the property. Therefore, he can’t be held liable for any alleged excess rent paid to the prior owner.
After years of annual adjustments, the maximum rent for the unit is now $1,157 per month. Biedul and Rosenquist con-tend they became leasees of the unit when they moved in. As such, they believed the increased rent they were required to pay a year after moving in was inappropriate.
Commissioner Jeffrey Sklar said that when the Elians moved out of the unit, it may have benefited both them and Deckert. The Elians, long-term renters, may have been pocketing some of the $728 monthly rent money that Rosenquist and Biedul paid during 1998, Sklar suggested.
At the same time, Deckert also may have benefited from the arrangement, Sklar said. Within a year of the Elians’ move, the rent was brought up to market rate and Deckert received more income from the unit as a result.
Toy indicated that because the couple agreed to pay the higher rent starting in 1999, they were in fact subtenants who became the rightful tenants at that time.
Toy also said, had the couple believed they had been duped by terms of the arrangement, they would have faired better in the dispute had they presented their case to the Rent Control Board in 1999, when the rent increased to $1,000 per month.
“The fact this happened more than six years ago is a long time to be going after your just desserts,” Toy said.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 29, 2005. Read the original PDF.