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The Berkeley Rent Board receives more than 300 inquiries a week ranging from very specific questions about individual units, to broader questions about rent control in general. In this column we will reproduce some of the more interesting questions and answers. Our topics will include permissible rent ceilings, the effects of vacancy decontrol, permissible grounds for eviction, habitability of units, the rules concerning security deposits and other issues of interest to renters and property owners. You can e-mail the City of Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board at rent@ci. berkeley.ca.us with your questions, or you can call or visit the office at 2125 Milvia Street, Berkeley, CA. 94704 (northeast corner of Milvia/Center Streets) Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, between 9 a.m. and 4:45 p.m., and on Wednesday between noon and 4:45 p.m. Our telephone number is (510) 644-6128. Our Web site address is www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/rent/. 

Question: 

A year ago I signed a one-year lease that said my first month’s rent was free, and my monthly rent thereafter was $1000. My landlord reported my rent to you as $1000, which I found out is listed in your database as the rent ceiling. But since I paid only $11,000 during the term of my lease, that works out to just $916.67 a month. Should my rent ceiling be $1000 or $916.67? 

Answer: 

Your rent ceiling is $916.67. For tenancies beginning on or after January 1, 1999, the Rent Stabilization Board considers the rent ceiling the average monthly rent paid during the lease term. This prevents built-in increases in subsequent years; for example, if you paid $11,000 total rent in the first year, and you continued to pay $1000 per month the next year, you would pay $12,000 total during your second year. This would mean your rent increased by $83 per month in the second year, without authorization from the Rent Board. So, at the beginning of the second year, your monthly rent should be $916.67. You should write to the Rent Board, and attach a copy of your lease, asking to have your rent ceiling lowered. We will notify the landlord that the ceiling appears to be $916.67, giving him a chance to dispute the facts. If we revise the ceiling and your landlord still demands $1000 per month after the first year, you may file a petition with our office alleging your landlord is charging illegally high rent. 

Question: 

I don’t understand why I am paying $350 more in rent than my neighbor, when our apartments are virtually identical. 

Answer: 

No law states that a landlord must charge comparable rents for comparable apartments, even for tenancies beginning at the same time, except that a landlord may not charge a tenant a higher rent for discriminatory reasons. The discrepancy probably results from the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, which implemented full vacancy decontrol beginning in 1999, allowing landlords to charge a “market” rent (whatever rent they can get) when a new tenancy begins. For three years before that, rents for new tenancies were tied to the amount the previous tenants paid. Thus, if your tenancy began in or after 1999, and your neighbor moved in before 1999, the disparity in rents is not surprising.