Exclusive Interview with Legal Advisor of SSA Legal Network

Insights

Mar 2

Legal Updates California State Edition With special guest: Carlos Kaslow.

AI Lean partners with the self-storage industry’s legal experts to provide you updates on changes to the law that may affect your operations.

In this newsletter Carlos Kaslow, Legal Advisor of SSA Legal Network, provides our community with an update on Lien Law changes that have happened or will happen soon in CA.

AI Lean partners with the self-storage industry’s legal experts to provide you updates on changes to the law that may affect your operations.

In this newsletter Carlos Kaslow, Legal Advisor of SSA Legal Network, provides our community with an update on Lien Law changes that have happened or will happen soon in CA.

What’s new with regards to California State Laws for Self-Storage – Carlos Kaslow Interview

AI Lean:

Carlos, can you inform our community of self-storage operators and their internal legal teams about changes in the California Lien law that have occurred in Q1-2023?

Carlos Kaslow:

There are two bills pending that directly impact self storage. First, there is a bill that would reduce the number of newspaper ads from 2 to 1. This change will have immediate impact on storage operators’ lien sale expenses. The newspaper ad is often the single greatest expense that is incurred and this reduction will reduce the cost. Since this cost is passed onto the tenant it can make it difficult to resolve payment problems. This change may help.
The second bill makes changes to the state’s price gouging law. This law caused storage operators significant problems during COVID and after the 2018 wildfire season. Emergencies were declared in several countries and rates were frozen in some instances for over two years. It was very difficult for owners to even put into effect planned rent increases.

AI Lean:

What changes do you think could potentially happen in the next 3 months? Any changes that you can see coming to fruition in Q2 2023?

Carlos Kaslow:

California can be a difficult state for smaller operators to stay on top of regulations that impact their business. For example, California wage and hour laws are very complex and it is easy to make mistakes on required rest and meal breaks. Calculating overtime can also be complicated when employee pay includes bonus payment.

New California privacy regulations were recently issued. The target of these regulations are not small self storage, but again, the law and its regulations can impact a storage operator with 5 or 6 facilities.
As owners use more online rental technology, they need to make sure that they are able to comply with laws affecting electronic contracting, protection of tenant data, and how to respond to a data breach. In short, when storage operators adopt new technology, they need to be aware that both state and federal laws may require new procedures.

One example is the operator’s website. If the operator uses software to record a user’s movements of chat sessions, that could trigger the wiretap law in ten states. California, Florida, and New York are states that require the consent of all parties for an electronic communication. Plaintiff’s lawyers are bringing class action lawsuits claiming violation of state wiretap laws. One major self storage operator in Florida was sued for alleged violations. This type of suit can be avoided by simply warning users that web sessions may be recorded for quality control purposes.

AI Lean:

Any other risks or opportunities you would like to see operators plan for or at least pay attention to for the near future when it comes to the lien law or other aspects of the law in general?

Carlos Kaslow:

One risk that self storage operators need to stay on top of are email business scams. Any business that may send large wire transfers and other online funds transfers are targets. Real estate sales transactions are viewed as a rich target by scamsters. The FBI has sent out a number of warnings. Private companies are developing automated solutions to these attacks.