Bornstein Law

Bornstein Law is a boutique San Francisco firm that practices landlord-tenant law and nothing else, acting for rental property owners, property managers, and real estate professionals across the Bay Area. It says it has done this work for over three decades and has resolved thousands of conflicts, with a particular focus on smaller owners most exposed to procedural mistakes in a complicated regulatory regime.

The work covers evictions for nonpayment and for other lease breaches — nuisance or criminal activity, subletting without permission, unauthorized alteration, denying lawful entry — along with tenant buyout agreements, which in San Francisco, Oakland, Richmond, and Berkeley are heavily regulated rather than a handshake. The firm also advises on how much and how often rent can be raised under state and local limits and on serving proper notice, removes occupants who are licensees rather than tenants through forcible detainer, and reviews and drafts leases that have gone stale against current law.

The firm's stated approach is commercial. It describes its attorneys as real estate investors themselves who weigh legal strategy against cost, risk, and long-term financial impact, prefers a negotiated resolution to a court fight, and refers matters outside landlord-tenant law to specialists in those fields.

It runs a resource center of articles, webinars, and regulatory analysis for housing providers, and lists two offices: 507 Polk Street in San Francisco and 410 7th Street in Oakland. The site publishes no fee schedule, and its practice is described in Bay Area terms rather than statewide, so confirm coverage for a property elsewhere in California.