Who is the flesh-and-blood landlord with a city-spanning portfolio of apartments concealed behind an obscurely-named limited liability company? Who is the proprietor of a local restaurant, hotel or regional car wash chain shrouded beneath a corporate veil?
Who actually owns what in California?
For three years a coalition of anti-eviction advocates, unions, legal aid organizations, affordable housing boosters, workers rights groups and pro-transparency activists have been demanding that the state make it easier to answer those questions.
And for three years, those efforts have failed in the Legislature.
About the new bill
Supporters of this year’s version, Senate Bill 1201 authored by Sen. María Elena Durazo, a Los Angeles Democrat, now worry that their fourth effort will soon meet a similar fate.
Businesses operating in California must regularly submit documents with the Secretary of State that list the company’s name and address, along with those of its top managers and anyone responsible for receiving legal filings on the company’s behalf. That information is publicly available on the Secretary of State’s website.
Durazo’s bill would add an additional disclosure requirement: The names and home or business addresses of “beneficial owners” — defined as anyone who “exercises substantial control” or owns at least 25% of a company.
As Durazo explained at a recent Senate committee hearing, the bill is “simply adding one line on the forms that anybody fills out…It’s not asking for any more.”
What it will cost
Yet last week the Senate Appropriations Committee, tasked with putting a fiscal price tag on pending…
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