A San Francisco man is facing a shockingly high rent hike of more than 300% for his apartment in the Bay Area.
Neil Hutchinson, 47, has lived at the intersection of Columbus and Scotland streets in North Beach for six years and, without reason, his rent increased on June 1 from $1,800 to $8,000 per month.
The giant hike is being called one of the largest ever by the San Francisco Tenant’s Union.
“I can’t remember an increase this huge,” Scott Weaver of the Tenant’s Union told the Daily News.
“I can remember increases that are four times the rental amount, but the rental amounts then were a lot less than today.”
His attorney Mary Catherine Wiederhold told the Daily News that in January 2016 the rent board decided that Hutchinson’s landlord had overcharged him for several years and imposed multiple rent increases.
He was then informed in March that his rent would be increased on June 1.
Wiederhold added that it was one of the highest hikes she has ever seen in her 15 years working with residential tenants.
“This is an unfair increase in what appears to be many housing code violations in Neil Hutchinson’s home and in his building,” she told the News.
The three bedroom pad is located in a building made famous by the 1988 Clint Eastwood flick “The Dead Pool,” in which various scenes of the interior were used.
Hutchinson is trying to fight the price gouging by appealing to the San Francisco Rent Board, but the landlord sent him an eviction notice stating he would have to be out by July 21.
“I could be evicted before that decision comes through,” he told local station KGO-TV. “So, I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m struggling here.”
However, it can take the rent board nearly two months to come up with a decision, according to Weaver.
“The rental upsides for landlords is so significant in the city now, that it’s hard for some of them to resist stretching the law beyond any reasonable boundaries,” Weaver added.
Good Earth Realty, which manages Hutchinson’s apartment, did not return a Daily News request for comment.
The longtime resident is a video engineer who belongs to a union and works at various San Francisco conventions. He noted that living in the city is crucial to his career.
“He found a home up here in San Francisco,” Wiederholder said. “If he’s forced to leave North Beach, he’s uncertain where he is going to go.”
While $8,000 might seem crazy, the median rent for everything from a studio to three bedrooms in North Beach is around $6,850 per month, according to Trulia.
“The amount is pretty extraordinary,” Weaver said.
“But the fact that landlords are doing what this landlord is doing is not uncommon.”
This isn’t the first time a tenant has made headlines for a wild increase in the Bay Area, in 2015 Deb Follingstad learned her increase would jump from $2,145 to $8,900, slightly beating out Hutchinson’s hike.
