Photo:Getty
Getty
An Airbnb guest has reportedly been living rent-free in the guest house of a luxury home in Los Angeles for more than a year and a half.
The reason for the bizarre situation is Los Angeles housing laws. A judge has ruled that Jovanovic has no legal reason to evict Hirschhorn from the home, located in the Crestwood Hills neighborhood of Brentwood, due to the city’s rent stabilization laws. (Jovanovic is appealing the ruling.)
The city recently introducedJust Cause Ordinance, which requires a landlord to have a legal reason to evict a tenant, or else pay for relocation assistance.
Jovanovic’s attorney, Sebastian Rucci, called Hirschhorn “the tenant from hell,” adding, “If she’s right, the theory is that if a landlord has something that isn’t permitted, then you can stay in it rent-free forever.”
“This is a malicious smear campaign about a tenant who did not do the things Jovanovic is telling the public she did,” he continued. “[Jovanovic has] not disclosed that he agreed to a long-term lease with the tenant outside of the Airbnb platform. It was never a 6 month lease.”
In a statement to PEOPLE, Rucci called Hirschorn’s arguments in court “totally false.”
“Los Angeles is undergoing a housing crisis,” Rucci added. “Well-intended landlord with beautiful units, like Sascha, offer their units as a way of helping the problem. Elizabeth Hirschhorn sends a wrong message: if she is correct (she’s not), renting to her and others like her will force many well-intended persons to question renting expensive units on Airbnb because of fear that others like her exist. Sascha is committed to having her evicted legally and having her owe him a judgment so she never does this again to anyone.”
Jovanovic, 61, has owned the property since 1995, commissioning architect Lorcan O’Herlihy to design his dream home in 2010. He began renting the guest house on Airbnb in 2019.
Lorenzo Di Cola/NurPhoto via Getty
Jovanovic told theTimeshe approved a six-month stay for Hirschhorn at a rate of $105 per night.
According to Jovanovic’s complaint, per theTimes,the pair had an informal agreement for her to find another place to live after April 12, 2022 — but Hirschhorn, who stopped paying rent after that date, never vacated the property, according to Jovanovic.
According to Jovanovic’s complaint, Hirschhorn wouldn’t allow him inside the guest house to make the repairs necessary for removing the code violations.
“I can never go into my home and know that I’m safe when a potentially hostile person is living there,” Jovanovic told theTimes. “I’m thinking about it at all times.”
source: people.com
