Fraud and Bad Rental Agreements

What Happened

In 2016, a man named Jonathan and his daughter Sarah bought a three-unit home in Los Angeles. They planned to fix up the top and middle units for Sarah to live in. While they waited for permits, they decided to rent out the middle unit for one year to help with costs. They found a renter named Shokrian on Craigslist.

They agreed that Shokrian would stay for just one year and then leave. They even signed extra paperwork saying this was only a temporary rental, and that she would move out when told with 60 days’ notice.

The Problem

Shokrian moved in and was allowed to use extra things like parking, the laundry room, and the garden—even though none of this was promised in the lease. Later, when construction started, she lost access to those extras. Shokrian got upset and complained to the City of Los Angeles. The City said she should get a rent discount for losing those extras, but Jonathan didn’t agree or lower the rent.

The relationship between the renters and landlords went downhill. Shokrian didn’t move out after one year even though she had promised she would. The landlords gave her a 60-day notice, but she stayed anyway. Then both sides sued each other.

The Court Case

• The landlords said Shokrian lied when she promised to leave after one year.

• They said they lowered her rent because she agreed to move, but she never meant to.

• Shokrian said the lease was illegal because it tried to get around renter protection laws in Los Angeles (called the RSO).

• She also said the landlords couldn’t sue her for breaking the lease since the lease itself was not valid.

What the Court Decided

• The court said that the lease and the extra agreement (Addendum) were not valid, because they went against the law by trying to take away renter protections.

• But the court also said Shokrian still lied, and that lying to get a lower rent was fraud, even if the lease itself couldn’t be enforced.

• The jury agreed that Shokrian never planned to leave after one year and had tricked the landlords.

• She stopped paying rent in 2019 but kept living there.

• The jury said she had to pay over $150,000 in damages for unpaid rent and fraud.

Other Issues

• The jury said Shokrian didn’t have a right to the parking, laundry, or garden, because those weren’t in the lease.

• Even though the City said she should get a rent reduction when she lost those services, the jury didn’t award her anything, because they believed she never had a legal right to them.

Final Result

• The landlords won the case for fraud and were awarded money.

• Shokrian lost on all her claims.

• The court agreed with the jury’s decisions and kept the judgment in place.

• Each side had to pay for their own lawyers since the lease was found to be illegal.

Let me know if you want a visual diagram or animation-friendly summary for YouTube or client education. (Lehrer-Graiwer v. Shokrian (May 15, 2025, No. B326283) ___Cal.App.5th___ [2025 Cal. App. Unpub. LEXIS 2983, at *1].)