Actually, no. Charging existing tenants more than the market rate in order to evict them and so avoid your obligations under the OMI regulations is not something that you are allowed to do. If you want to do an OMI, then do the OMI. File the paperwork, compensate the tenant, wait the required period, and do the owner move in properly.
Nothing forces you to be a landlord -- in this case the owner inherited a house with tenants. They can always sell the asset to someone who is familiar with the laws and is able to comply with them. Given the high prices in SF, this should be easy to do.
But owning property with an existing tenant makes you a landlord -- you are choosing to be in this highly regulated line of work. It used to be case that landlords could do whatever they wanted to tenants, but the law has since changed. Now being a landlord requires that you maintain the property, that you give proper notice for things like rent increases, that you file paperwork when you want to do the OMI, and that you compensate the tenant for evicting them due to no fault of their own (such as what happens with an OMI). So please do your homework instead of arguing that you should be able to do whatever you want to your tenants.
Nothing forces you to be a landlord -- in this case the owner inherited a house with tenants. They can always sell the asset to someone who is familiar with the laws and is able to comply with them. Given the high prices in SF, this should be easy to do.
But owning property with an existing tenant makes you a landlord -- you are choosing to be in this highly regulated line of work. It used to be case that landlords could do whatever they wanted to tenants, but the law has since changed. Now being a landlord requires that you maintain the property, that you give proper notice for things like rent increases, that you file paperwork when you want to do the OMI, and that you compensate the tenant for evicting them due to no fault of their own (such as what happens with an OMI). So please do your homework instead of arguing that you should be able to do whatever you want to your tenants.