The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously on Nov. 8 to direct the city attorney to draft an ordinance that will require landlords to give tenants their rights before subjecting them to buyout offers.

The ordinance will be designed to crack down on “cash for keys” abuses, in which some landlords have been accused of ousting tenants by exploiting their Ellis Act rights.

“This is a problem that continues to go on,” said Councilman Paul Koretz, 5th District, who is vice chair of the housing committee. “It is urgent we finalize this ordinance.”

The Ellis Act was meant to allow landlords to leave the landlord business if they were losing money, according to Koretz’s office. Their tenants were supposed to receive a monetary settlement and a fair amount of time to move out.

But tenant advocacy groups say some landlords have been offering evicted tenants less money than they were entitled to under the Ellis Act, and may not have given them enough time to move out as required by law. They have used these tactics to evict rent-controlled tenants in order to raise rents or build luxury housing.

This exploitation has victimized “hundreds, if not thousands” of tenants in Los Angeles, according to Koretz.

The housing committee developed the ordinance with input from members of tenant and landlord advocacy groups, some of whom were in attendance during council’s Tuesday morning session.

“Many tenants don’t know their rights,” said Carlos Aguilar, director of organizing and tenant/healthy homes outreach of the Coalition of Economic Survival. “And we believe this problem is more widespread.”

Mark Simon, of the Los Angeles Tenant’s Union, said the lack of documentation hurts tenants when they try to seek legal recourse.

“Every single week I see such flagrant abuse by this ‘cash for keys,’” he said.

While the council waits to approve the tenant notification ordinance, the housing committee will also initiate motions or recommendations that stipulate that new housing developments that replace rent-controlled housing must offer at least the same number of rent-controlled units that it is displacing. They also hope to initiate new regulations that define the terms landlords can apply to units that have been vacated through the Ellis Act.

“These recommendations are just a start in terms of what we need to do to protect vulnerable renters,” Koretz said in a statement released after this month’s housing committee meeting.