New CA Real Property Case

 

 

 

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To get my free summaries of the 22 new civil cases published by the California Supreme Court in 2021, click here.

Below is a discussion of a new CA civil case published last month.

Property Rights Re Short-Term Rentals

Does a property owner have a vested right to offer short-term rentals when a city changes its short-term rental policies? Last month, the Sixth District Court of Appeal published a decision addressing this issue. To find out what they decided, watch the video above and read my summary of the case below.

New CA Real Property Decision  

Hobbs v. City of Pacific Grove (2022) _ Cal.App.5th _ , 2022 WL 16921175: The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s order denying plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment as to their second claim alleging that defendant city’s Ordinance No. 18-005 violated plaintiffs’ right to due process by arbitrarily limiting the number of homes that could be offered as short-term rentals and by subjecting them to random selection for nonrenewal of licensure. Although the two plaintiffs no longer had standing, the Court of Appeal retained jurisdiction to decide the issue because the case presented an issue of substantial and continuing public interest that was capable of repetition. The Court of Appeal concluded the plaintiffs failed to establish that their economic interest in renting their vacation homes exclusively for transient visitors was an entitlement subject to state or federal constitutional protection as a matter of law. To the extent they asserted a “vested right” in that particular economic use of their real property, they established neither right—beyond the expressly defined terms of their license—nor vesting on the record. Nor did they establish that defendant’s curtailment of short-term rental licenses was so unrelated to legitimate state interests that it could be said to infringe on substantive due process. (C.A. 6th, filed October 14, 2022, published November 14, 2022.)