The Nightfall Group Lawsuit: How a Beverly Hills Luxury Rental Empire Became Los Angeles’s Biggest Party House Problem

Cars parked three deep on narrow canyon roads, music resonating through expensive walls long after midnight, and the occasional LAPD cruiser pulling up to a house that has no permanent residents but somehow always has a crowd are all familiar enough to the neighbors to no longer be shocked by them on any given weekend in the Hollywood Hills or Bel-Air. This was just the way of life in the vicinity of a Nightfall Group property for many years. After deciding she had had enough, Los Angeles City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto filed a civil enforcement action in August 2023, naming Ultimate Host, LLC, doing business as The Nightfall Group, its owner Mokhtar Jabli, and a number of related property owners as defendants.

Operating out of Beverly Hills, the Nightfall Group’s business model appears simple on paper, but it directly violates Los Angeles’ housing regulations. Homeowners’ properties would be leased by the company under long-term rental agreements, after which they would be subleased as short-term rentals marketed as upscale luxury “villas” with advertising rates reportedly as high as $16,000 per night. The properties were marketed as high-end substitutes for five-star hotels on luxury booking platforms, appealing to clients in the entertainment industry, affluent tourists, and anyone seeking the privacy and scale that a typical hotel suite cannot provide. The luxury wasn’t the issue. The issue was that a person could only operate one short-term rental property at a time, and it had to be their primary residence, according to the city’s Short-Term Rental Ordinance. It wasn’t run by Nightfall. It was running hundreds of times.

The Los Angeles Police Department received over 250 calls to properties connected to Nightfall during the two years prior to the lawsuit. Feldstein Soto’s office filed a complaint outlining the specific repercussions, which included excessive noise throughout the night, disruptive behavior, obstruction of public rights of way, litter, and vandalism. Blocking those roads with partygoers’ cars is more than just a hassle in areas like Bel-Air and the Hollywood Hills, where small roads serve as evacuation routes during fire season. It is a direct threat to public safety, according to the city attorney. These weren’t isolated occurrences; in fact, the pattern was so consistent that the filing mentioned particular Bel-Air properties on Chantilly Drive and Donella Circle.

As is common with civil enforcement actions, the case proceeded slowly. The City Attorney’s Office announced partial settlements with three of the named defendants in September 2025, two years after the initial filing. Kirill “Kirk” Ayzenberg consented to pay $215,000 in civil penalties both personally and as a trustee of the Gabriel Mark Trust. $45,000 was the settlement reached by 5554 Green Oak LLC. Jungle Kerry Inc. reached a $20,000 settlement. Additionally, all of those defendants were forbidden from participating in any kind of short-term rental activity in Los Angeles that would violate the Home-Sharing Ordinance, and they were all required to inform visitors to their properties that loud or disorderly parties are not permitted. The settlements increased the partial amount to about $280,000. They also brought with them a set of injunctive conditions that make it much more difficult for those particular operators to covertly revert to the same business model, which may have greater significance than money.

As of the most recent records available, litigation with the remaining defendants, including Mokhtar Jabli and the company itself, was still ongoing. It’s an important detail. The property owner side of the dispute was settled by the settlements, but the core operator and the city have yet to come to a definitive agreement. Feldstein Soto’s office clarified that the Nightfall Group enforcement was not a one-time event but rather a part of a larger crackdown. A separate settlement with MC Pico Properties and Monem Corporation, the owners of a rent-stabilized apartment building on Franklin Avenue in Hollywood where at least ten units had allegedly been taken off the long-term rental market and covertly converted into short-term rentals for more than 3,000 nights since late 2020, was also announced in September 2025. After paying $150,000, the defendants had to put up signs on the property stating that short-term rentals are not permitted and return ten units to the long-term rental market.

As this case progresses, it seems as though the city is attempting to establish a boundary that it has found difficult to maintain for years. Los Angeles, like New York, Miami, and every major urban market with a housing shortage, has been struggling with the effects of short-term rental platforms, which have made it truly profitable to turn residential housing into commercial hospitality operations. Entire structures are discreetly transformed into underground hotels. The noise and disturbance of a revolving door of strangers is absorbed by the neighborhoods. Rent-stabilized apartments that were meant to safeguard working-class renters are vanishing from Airbnb’s inventory. Although the Nightfall Group case is the most well-known enforcement action the city has taken, it represents a larger conflict that has not yet been settled.

The company’s primary business strategy, which involves leasing properties for an extended period of time and turning them into upscale short-term experiences, isn’t particularly innovative. Cities across the nation have experimented with similar models. The scope and visibility of the disruption that Nightfall caused were what set it apart. It is not a minor compliance oversight to have 250 police calls in two years. A lawsuit with that type of record is likely to change from being a regulatory dispute to something more akin to a public nuisance case, which is exactly what the city described it as.