The California Department of Justice is running an open call for rental horror stories, and it is not doing it quietly. Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office is asking tenants across the state to file formal written complaints against landlords who let units fall apart, raise rent past what state law allows, or shut out renters who use housing vouchers. The ask comes straight from an official statement from the Attorney General’s office, which frames every complaint as potential evidence the office can use against property managers statewide.
Key Points
- Where to file: Renters can submit details in English at oag.ca.gov/report or in Spanish at oag.ca.gov/reportar, per the Attorney General’s office.
- What counts: Unsafe or unsanitary conditions, deceptive lease language, unlawful rent hikes, discrimination against Section 8 voucher holders, and landlords who conduct leasing in Spanish but never provide a Spanish translation of the lease itself.
- The case behind it: The office had already sued property manager Swaranjit “Mike” Nijjar, whose companies control more than 22,000 rental units across Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, Kern, Sacramento, and San Joaquin counties.
“California tenants have the right to live in a safe house or apartment — no matter the language they speak or their immigration status or income level,” Bonta’s office said in its written statement announcing the effort. That line is doing real work: it signals the office wants complaints from renters who might otherwise stay quiet out of fear that reporting a landlord could expose their immigration status or jeopardize a voucher.
The Case That Set This Off
The complaint push did not appear out of nowhere. It follows a lawsuit Bonta’s office filed against Nijjar and a web of companies operating under names like PAMA Management, Equity Management, and Bridge Management, according to the Department of Justice’s own filing announcement. Investigators allege cockroach and rodent infestations, leaking roofs, sewage overflow, and rent increases piled on top of more than 2,000 units — some reaching 20 percent in total hikes. The suit followed a three-year investigation and seeks penalties, tenant restitution, and disgorgement of profits. Local coverage from Bakersfield’s KERO-TV put a number on just one slice of that portfolio: more than 1,800 properties in Bakersfield alone operate under the Equity Management name tied to Nijjar.
What Counts as a Complaint
You do not need a lawyer to submit something. If a landlord ignored a leaking ceiling for months, handed you a lease full of terms that quietly waive rights you actually have under state law, or raised your rent well past the statewide cap without explanation, the office wants that documented directly rather than vented on social media. The press release specifically calls out landlords who lease apartments in Spanish but never hand over a Spanish-language copy of the lease itself, along with landlords who reject applicants over Section 8 vouchers, which is illegal under state law.
Where the Reports Actually Go
Complaints filed through the portal feed the DOJ’s Housing Justice Team, the unit that built the Nijjar case and has pursued other landlord settlements in recent months. Tenants who need more than a place to report harm can also find help through lawhelpca.org‘s legal aid directory, the California State Bar’s lawyer referral service, or the California Courts’ eviction assistance pages, all of which the Attorney General’s office lists alongside the complaint form. None of that guarantees a lawsuit follows any single report. What it does is widen the pool of documented incidents an office already building enforcement cases can draw from, and it puts a public, official number for landlords to worry about, since a report filed with the Attorney General carries different weight than a complaint left in a rental listing’s review section.
Nothing about the complaint portal has an expiration date attached to it. The oag.ca.gov/report form is the office’s standing consumer-complaint channel, not a one-time intake tied to a single press conference, which means California renters can treat it as a place to document a bad landlord any time a violation happens, not just this month.
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