Comment by jimmywanger

I don't think that's what happened in this case.

They removed an illegal (that's the key word) in-law unit, making the unit a single family home.

That single family home was no longer under the rent control laws, enabling the owner to jack up the rent.

If they had gone by the book, they would have just had to pay the tenant 9.5k to go away, which is what (in retrospect) the owner should have done.

400k seems egregiously high, and designed to pander to populist opinion rather than any reasonable interpretation of the law.