2
The parties filed a joint statement of stipulated facts for the nonjury trial.5 The
stipulation provided as follows: plaintiff owned the property; Milton Reyes was the original
tenant whose rent was $666 per month; defendant had lived in the unit with Milton Reyes for at
least one year before they married on February 26, 2022; Milton Reyes died on September 8,
2023; defendant never paid rent to Milton Reyes, and they never entered into a written, verbal
or implied agreement for Milton Reyes to transfer his leasehold interest to defendant; defendant
continued to occupy the premises after Milton Reyes’s death; the City determined that the
maximum allowable rent for the unit permitted under the SMRCCA was $669 per month; on
November 15, 2023, plaintiff served defendant with a Notice of Change of Tenancy increasing
the rent to $3,500 per month; on March 5, 2024, defendant was served with the three-day notice
to pay rent or quit, and defendant did not tender payment after service of the notice.
Both parties filed trial briefs. Plaintiff argued that following the death of Milton Reyes,
the month-to-month tenancy terminated upon notice of his death, or 30 days after the date of his
last rent payment he made while alive. (§ 1934; Miller & Desatnik Management Co. v. Bullock
(1990) 221 Cal.App.3d Supp. 13, 17-18 (Miller).) Plaintiff further posited that pursuant to
section 1954.53, subdivision (d)(2),6 it was authorized to impose any rent increase upon
defendant as a subtenant, and that to the extent defendant was arguably protected under the
SMRCCA, the latter was preempted by the former. Defendant argued that because she resided
in the unit as a lawful occupant and then as a surviving spouse of Milton Reyes, she was a
tenant and not a subtenant, the SMRCCA prohibited the 425% rent increase and was not
preempted by section 1954.53, and the three-day notice to pay rent or quit was defective.