Everything you're responsible for as a landlord in California

California Rental Screening Fee Rules 2025: No Screening Fee When No Unit Is Available

An applicant who pays a screening fee for a unit that was never really available, or who never hears back about whether they got the place, has been a recurring complaint in California rental markets. AB 2493, in force since January 1, 2025, targets exactly that gap by tying screening fees to actual unit availability and adding a hard deadline for refunds and credit report disclosure.

California Bundled Internet Law 2026: Tenants Can Opt Out of Landlord-Arranged Internet and Cellular Services

A tenant signing a new lease in California can no longer be required to pay for whatever internet, cellular, or satellite service the landlord has arranged for the building. Starting January 1, 2026, AB 1414 gives tenants in covered tenancies the right to decline that bundled subscription.

California Eviction Defense Law 2026: New "Social Security Hardship" Defense in Nonpayment Cases

A tenant who lives on Social Security and misses rent because a federal payment got delayed, not because they chose not to pay, now has a specific legal defense to raise in court. AB 246, the Social Security Tenant Protection Act of 2025, took effect January 1, 2026 and gives that tenant a way to pause an eviction rather than lose the case outright.

California Security Deposit Refunds 2026: Electronic Refund Required if Rent or Deposit Was Paid Electronically

A tenant who's paid rent through a bank app for two years and then gets their security deposit back as a mailed paper check has run into exactly the gap AB 414 was written to close. As of January 1, 2026, California landlords who received a deposit or rent electronically generally have to return what's left of that deposit the same way.

California Eviction Summons Service Law 2027: What AB 747 (the SPARE Act) Requires Starting January 1, 2027

A landlord who wins an eviction by default, because the tenant never showed up, is about to face a higher documentation bar for proving that tenant was actually served. AB 747, known as the Service of Process Accountability, Reform and Equity Act, is already signed into law in California. It just isn't operative yet.

Los Angeles RSO Rent Increase Rules 2026: Formula Cut to 90% of CPI, With a 1%-4% Range

Los Angeles has changed how it calculates the annual rent increase allowed under its Rent Stabilization Ordinance, moving from 100% of CPI to 90% of CPI and narrowing the range from 3%-8% down to 1%-4%. The change rolled out in two separate steps rather than all at once, and the new formula itself doesn't govern a cycle until July 1, 2026.

San Francisco Sets Allowable Rent Increase at 1.6% for 2026-2027

San Francisco's Rent Board has set the allowable annual rent increase at 1.6% for rent-controlled units, applying to increases that take effect between March 1, 2026 and February 28, 2027. This figure comes from San Francisco Rent Ordinance section 37.3(a)(1), and it applies only to units actually covered by the city's rent control rules, which have more layers than a simple citywide cap.

Oakland Sets Allowable Rent Increase at 2.3% for 2026-2027

Oakland's Rent Adjustment Program has set the allowable annual rent increase at 2.3% for covered units, applying to increases that take effect between August 1, 2026 and July 31, 2027. This is a city rule under Oakland Municipal Code 8.22, separate from California's statewide rent cap.

Tenant Information in San Francisco: Collection, Sharing and Retention

A landlord assumes San Francisco's Fair Chance Ordinance governs every rental screening decision citywide, then builds a policy around that. The actual scope runs the other way: those protections apply specifically to covered affordable housing, while a statewide law most landlords have never heard of, AB-1418, is the one that reaches every California rental. This guide untangles which system actually governs a given unit, walks through the disparate-impact fair housing framework replacing blanket criminal-history bans, and covers the statewide $30 application fee cap and 7-day credit-report delivery rule that apply regardless of which local ordinance is in play.

San Francisco Rental Maintenance and Safety: The Local Layer

A landlord takes a shared storage room offline for a plumbing repair, expecting the usual code-enforcement complaint if a tenant objects. Instead, a Rent Board petition arrives, and it isn't about the plumbing, it's about losing access to the storage room itself, a "housing service" the Rent Board treats as its own category. This guide maps the three systems that can apply to a single San Francisco maintenance issue: California's statewide habitability standard, DBI's building-code enforcement, and the Rent Board's decreased-housing-services process, a rent-controlled-only remedy that can reduce rent but can't actually force a landlord to restore what was lost.