Well-heeled bidders should head to City Hall’s steps on Oct. 17 to buy one of Kihagi’s properties
Anne Kihagi’s brazen wave of tenant evictions and documented persecution earned her the consensus title of San Francisco’s cruelest landlord. But, following a series of court rulings against her, she is facing yet another legal setback: One of her foreclosed properties is slated to be auctioned off on the City Hall steps later this month.
Kihagi burst onto the San Francisco real-estate scene in 2013, purchasing some 11 buildings over three years, shelling out more than $30 million. In an all-but-choreographed pattern, later painstakingly documented by several court rulings, she targeted properties inhabited by rent-controlled tenants — who were often elderly or infirm — purchased them at artificially low prices due to the rent-controlled buildings’ limited income potential, and then methodically squeezed out her low-income renters.
Last year, a city jury leveled a state-record penalty against her in a case waged by just the first of several lawyered-up former tenants — and a number of other cases are pending. The city itself, in 2017, won a multi-million dollar judgment against her for more than 1,600 separate violations — a penalty that continues to swell past $6 million, considering interest payments and burgeoning legal fees brought on by Kihagi’s legal war of attrition.
This strategy of legal trench warfare was effective for Kihagi against individual tenants of limited means. It has proven less successful in battling a city with essentially infinite means and no external time pressures.
And the scheduled Oct. 17 auction of the six-unit structure at 3947 18th St., which Kihagi purchased for some $2.8 million in 2013, might be the first of several dominos to fall.
A scheduled Oct. 12 hearing could determine whether three more of Kihagi’s properties will be sold off to the highest bidder: 195 Eureka St., 1000-1022 Filbert St., and 4018-4022 19th St.
Manufacturers Bank declared Kihagi in default regarding the 3947 18th St. property all the way back in April. The bank accused her of transferring the property without permission; “unconsented encumbrances” on the building stemming from injunctions from the city; failing to adhere to “laws, ordinances, regulations, and standards” relating to the structure; and, to top it off, neglecting to pay property taxes.
Failure to remedy all of the above, Kihagi was warned, “may result in the Bank’s exercise of its rights and remedies under the subject loan documents, including foreclosure.”
That happened. And, barring unforeseen lunacy, the property will now be auctioned off, in open air, Oct. 17.
Its refreshing to see justice carried out with all these foreclosures. Kihagi has finally met her match in San Francisco after getting away with her reign of terror in LA & West Hollywood. Its pretty simple…you break the law repeatedly….you will pay.
sh/b “compelled to sue”
As one of those tenants I would have to say that I’ve never been inclined to sue, nor sued anyone before in my life. We sued because these were civil statutes she was breaking, not criminal, and a civil lawsuit was our only recourse for the harm that she caused by not following the law.
Sir or madam —
Inclined to sue doesn’t imply a negative. It only means someone is inclined to sue. If your landlord is breaking the law, then one would understandably be inclined to sue.
Best,
JE
It doesn’t seem fair to call the tenants in this case litigious, which implies that they bring lawsuits often. I know one of the tenants and he’s a very kind and reasonable person.
This is a good point. I meant to state that they are inclined to sue, not that they are “unreasonable,” which is implied in that term. I will make the change. I agree with you; I’ve talked to most all of them and they seem to be good and decent people.
Best,
JE