A unanimous Supreme Court held the courts must hear a challenge to a San Francisco ordinance forcing land owners to provide lifetime leases to tenants, overturning a ruling by the often-reversed U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. The case, Pakdel v. City and County of San Francisco, court file 20-1212, was disposed of without oral arguments on June 28 in an unsigned opinion. A businessman had been suing San Francisco over a local rule his lawyers say punishes him for trying to convert his residential rental property into a condominium. The man and his wife had purchased the property in 2009 as an investment, intending to move in when they retired. The ordinance required him, in order to move forward with the conversion, to allow his tenant to remain in the property for life in what is probably the tightest real estate market in the country. Along the way, the landlord offered to buy out the …