San Jose's Tenant Anti-Harassment Ordinance prohibits 14 categories of landlord conduct designed to pressure covered tenants out, including utility shutoffs, lockouts, threats, false notices, and refusal to accept rent. Violations carry civil penalties and tenant damages.
SJMC 17.23.1500, the Tenant Anti-Harassment Ordinance, applies to Apartment Rent Ordinance units, Tenant Protection Ordinance units, and certain other rentals. The fourteen prohibited acts include: interrupting essential utilities, failing to perform repairs, abusing the right of entry, threatening or coercing tenants, refusing tender of rent, removing personal property, lockouts without legal process, serving false notices to quit, retaliation for protected tenant activity, misrepresenting immigration status, harassing protected-class tenants, and engaging in a pattern of conduct designed to force a tenant to vacate. Tenants may sue for actual damages, statutory penalties, attorney fees, and injunctive relief, in addition to filing complaints with the Housing Department.
Each act of harassment is a separate civil violation with tenant remedies including treble actual damages, statutory penalties, attorney fees, injunctive relief, and Housing Department-imposed administrative fines.
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