get help

The best way to defend yourself against predatory landlords is to join the union and organize with your neighbors. Get in touch to learn about how SVTU can help you and your neighbors to fight back together!

We aren’t lawyers and don’t give legal advice, but we have compiled a few helpful tips below, along with some resources in our tenant tools section.

support for common issues:

If you receive a Summons & Complaint, you must file an answer within 10 days or you may automatically lose your case. Use the Tenant Power Toolkit, either on the website or with volunteer support at a local meeting.

Landlords are required by state law to provide habitable premises, which means everything works, no mold, no pests. If you think something needs repair you’re almost certainly legally entitled to that repair. Landlords usually can’t charge you for the repairs.

Notify your landlord whenever you need a repair, in writing for documentary proof of your request. Take pictures and document the problem early and often. If your landlord won’t repair it, keep contacting them about it so you have a paper trail.


If that doesn’t work, you can file a complaint with the city or county services online or by calling 311:

City of Sacramento

County of Sacramento (must register for account)

An inspector will call to schedule an inspection and issue a Notice to Comply to the landlord. If you are dealing with bad conditions, most likely your neighbors are too. Ask them about it and try to file complaints at the same time. You are more likely to get results that way.

You are entitled by law to “repair and deduct,” meaning pay for repairs yourself and then deduct the costs from the rent. You are also entitled to withhold rent if the landlord will not make repairs. Withholding rent can be risky, so if you are considering this tactic, get organizing support from the union and legal help from a lawyer (try Legal Services of Northern California).

Landlord harassment is very common, especially when landlords are trying to sell a home for as much money as possible, demolish homes for redevelopment, or clear out a building of rent-stabilized tenants to re-rent to new, market-rate tenants. Tenant harassment is illegal.

If your landlord is harassing you, file a harassment complaint with … by using their online form here, by calling them at …, or by visiting in-person at ….

Filing is not likely to make the harassment stop, but you want to establish a paper trail. [The Housing Department will send a letter to your landlord telling them that harassment is illegal and telling them that tenants may sue landlords for harassment.]

To actually make the harassment stop, tenants need to organize as a group. Join the union.

The City of Sacramento’s Tenant Protection Program (TPP) establishes limits on annual rent increases for covered residential rental units, which is 5% plus the California Consumer Price Index (CPI). The current maximum allowable annual rent increase is 8.6% for covered rental units. 

If you are covered by TPP within the City of Sacramento and your rent increase is over 8.6% it is illegal and you should start by writing a letter to your landlord establishing the law and refusing to accept the illegal increase. Volunteers in the SVTU can help you draft this letter, or you can use the Tenants Together draft letter template.

Consult this information on breaking a lease from Tenants Together.

Consult this information on getting a security deposit back from Tenants Together.

SVTU does not mediate conflicts between tenants unless you are in an organized tenants’ association that is part of the union.

If you have a conflict with your neighbor, we recommend that you first try to speak to your neighbor directly. If they don’t respond, you can try to speak to other tenants and approach them as a group.

If the issue is very serious and cannot be resolved amicably, and you report the neighbor to the manager or landlord, your neighbor could face eviction. As a tenants’ union, we believe every eviction is wrong, and we never help tenants get other tenants evicted.

general tips:

• Don’t let anyone pressure you to make quick choices. Never sign what you don’t understand. Say: “I have no obligation to sign this and I need time to learn my rights and get advice.”

• Communicate with your landlord and property manager in writing: by email, letter, or text. They may lie to you, but are less likely to do so in writing, and you want proof of everything they say.

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DOWNLOAD THE HANDBOOK

get the Know YOUR RIGHTS HANDBOOK

In this SVTU handbook, you will find an overview of the legal rights you have as a tenant to seek repairs, fight evictions, contest rent increases, organize with your neighbors, and more.

When the law fails——as it often does——organizing with neighbors and comrades gives us the power to stop landlord harassment, win our fair demands, and secure safe homes for ourselves and all of our neighbors.

A better world is possible, one free from landlord exploitation, and together we can build it.

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