San Francisco Landlord Compliance
Everything you're responsible for as a landlord in San Francisco
Rent control, just-cause eviction, deposits, entry, repairs and recordkeeping, written for people who own or manage a few units, checked against the official sources, and kept current when the rules move.
Jurisdiction
key details
Rent cap · Detail
Tenant Protection Act: max 5% + regional CPI or 10% (lower) per 12 months, max 2 increases/yr; exempts housing <15 yrs old, most single-family homes not owned by corporations/REITs, and rent-controlled units. Sunsets 2030-01-01.
Deposit cap · Detail
Max 1 month's rent (since 2024-07-01, AB 12). Natural-person/LLC owners with ≤2 rental properties totalling ≤4 units may take 2 months, except from service members.
Rent increase notice · Detail
Month-to-month: 30 days' written notice if the increase (with all increases in prior 12 months) is ≤10%; 90 days if >10%. Fixed-term rent can only change per the lease.
City rules · Detail
Costa-Hawkins allows local rent control but exempts units with certificate of occupancy after 1995-02-01 and single-family homes/condos, and requires vacancy decontrol. Ordinances in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Berkeley.
Just cause · Detail
After 12 months' continuous lawful occupancy (24 if adults added), landlord may terminate only for stated at-fault or no-fault just cause; no-fault requires relocation assistance. Same exemptions as §1947.12 (new construction, some single-family).
Return deadline · Detail
Refund and itemized statement no later than 21 calendar days after the tenant vacates; landlord must photograph unit before/after (2025 amendments).
Nonpayment notice · Detail
3-day written notice to pay or quit, excluding Saturdays, Sundays and judicial holidays, before an unlawful detainer may be filed.
What are you trying to do?
Start from the task. Each route gathers the guides, checklists and forms that apply to it in San Francisco.
Essential local guides
If you're new to owning here, these five cover most of what will come up in your first year.
View All GuidesWhen a Tenant Breaks Condo Rules in Edmonton, Is the Landlord Responsible?
An Edmonton owner opens a notice addressed to their tenant. It alleges a bylaw breach for a loud Saturday night, names a possible $500 sanction, and gives three days to respond. Can the corporation do that, will the owner end up paying, and can the lease push the cost back? Each has its own answer.
Guide
Can an Edmonton Condominium Corporation Require Tenant Approval or Registration?
An Edmonton owner signs a lease and the condo manager sends a "tenant registration package": photo ID copies, proof of income, a credit check, and a processing fee, with fob activation to follow board approval. The tenant is already paying rent. The owner has to decide whether any of this is something the corporation can actually require.
Guide
Can an Edmonton Condominium Corporation Restrict Long-Term Rentals?
An Edmonton owner is about to list a one-bedroom and finds a bylaw saying no more than 20 percent of units may be rented. A neighbour says the board will enforce it. The property manager says it can't. Alberta's Condominium Property Act backs the manager for ordinary leases, yet an Edmonton court decision shows where the protection stops.
Guide
When a Tenant Breaks HOA or Condo Rules in Tampa, Is the Landlord Responsible?
A tenant plays music too loud after a pool party, parks a second car in a visitor spot overnight, or lets a dog off-leash past the clubhouse, and the violation letter that shows up a week later has the tenant's name on it, not the owner's. Florida allows that. What it doesn't do is treat a Tampa condo and a Tampa HOA the same way once that letter turns into an actual fine, and the gap between the two has only widened since a 2024 change to the HOA statute.
Guide
Renting in an HOA or Condo in Tampa: What Move-In Rules Can the Association Require?
A tenant's car gets towed from a Tampa HOA street the first week of the lease, and the landlord's first question isn't about the tow fee. It's whether the association even had the authority to order that tow in the first place, and the answer turns on a fact most people never check: whether that particular street is actually private property the association controls, or a public road the county or city owns underneath the HOA's landscaping and signage.
Guide
Recent changes
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Full San Francisco collection
Filter by what you're doing or by the kind of resource you need.
| Resource | Type | Task | Reviewed |
|---|---|---|---|
When a Tenant Breaks Condo Rules in Edmonton, Is the Landlord Responsible? An Edmonton owner opens a notice addressed to their tenant. It alleges a bylaw breach for a loud Saturday night, names a possible $500 sanction, and gives three days to respond. Can the corporation do that, will the owner end up paying, and can the lease push the cost back? Each has its own answer. | Guides | Keep the right records | Oct 6, 2026 |
When a Tenant Breaks HOA or Condo Rules in Tampa, Is the Landlord Responsible? A tenant plays music too loud after a pool party, parks a second car in a visitor spot overnight, or lets a dog off-leash past the clubhouse, and the violation letter that shows up a week later has the tenant's name on it, not the owner's. Florida allows that. What it doesn't do is treat a Tampa condo and a Tampa HOA the same way once that letter turns into an actual fine, and the gap between the two has only widened since a 2024 change to the HOA statute. | Guides | Keep the right records | Oct 6, 2026 |
When a Tenant Breaks HOA or Condo Rules in Seattle, Is the Landlord Responsible? A tenant leaves a bike blocking the hallway for the third time, and the violation letter that follows is addressed to the owner, not the renter. That surprises a lot of landlords who assumed the association would deal with the tenant directly. It generally won't, and understanding why changes how a lease should be written before the first violation ever happens. | Guides | Keep the right records | Oct 6, 2026 |
When a Tenant Breaks Condo Rules in Calgary, Is the Landlord Responsible? A Calgary owner gets a copy of a notice addressed to their tenant: a bylaw breach for a Friday-night noise complaint, a $500 sanction, and three days to respond. Can the corporation really do that, can it bill the owner instead, and can the lease push the cost back? The answers are more specific than most owners expect, and they changed in 2026. | Guides | Keep the right records | Oct 6, 2026 |
When a Tenant Breaks HOA or Condo Rules in Miami, Is the Landlord Responsible? A tenant racks up three noise complaints in a Miami condo, and the fine notice that follows names both the owner and the tenant directly. That's not a clerical oversight. Florida is one of the few states where an association can pursue a tenant by name, in addition to the owner, something that isn't true in most of the jurisdictions this series has covered so far. It changes what a landlord actually needs in a lease, and what a tenant should expect if their own conduct triggers the notice. | Guides | Keep the right records | Oct 6, 2026 |
When a Tenant Breaks Strata Rules in Vancouver, Is the Landlord Responsible? A Vancouver owner gets an email saying the strata has fined their tenant for a noise complaint, no hearing, no warning, just a charge on the next bylaw-infraction notice. That fine may not actually hold up. BC law lets a strata fine a tenant directly, but only after a specific process runs first, and skipping that process is one of the more common ways a strata's own enforcement gets thrown out. | Guides | Keep the right records | Oct 6, 2026 |
When a Tenant Breaks HOA or Condo Rules in Orlando, Is the Landlord Responsible? A tenant leaves the trash bin at the curb a day early, racks up a noise complaint, or lets a dog off-leash near the pool, and the violation notice that follows names the tenant directly, not just the owner. That is not an error. Florida lets both condo associations and HOAs pursue a tenant by name, and since 2024 the two statutes that allow it have started to pull apart. An Orlando HOA board now works under meaningfully different fine timelines and protections than an Orlando condo board, something most general guidance on this topic still treats as one rule. | Guides | Keep the right records | Oct 6, 2026 |
When a Tenant Breaks HOA, Condo, or Co-op Rules in New York City, Is the Landlord Responsible? A tenant blasts music past midnight, a neighbor complains three times, and the board's letter arrives addressed not to the tenant but to the owner. That's not a mistake. In both co-ops and condos, the association's relationship is with the owner or shareholder, not the person actually living in the unit, and that single fact decides who answers for a tenant's conduct, who gets fined, and who ends up in front of a judge if it escalates. | Guides | Keep the right records | Oct 6, 2026 |
When a Tenant Breaks Condo Rules in Toronto, Is the Landlord Responsible? A Toronto owner gets a letter saying their tenant's dog has triggered three noise complaints, and the first question is usually whether the board can just fine the tenant and move on. It can't, not in the way that word implies elsewhere. Ontario condos work through compliance orders and cost chargebacks, and the difference changes who ends up paying and how fast. | Guides | Keep the right records | Oct 6, 2026 |
When a Tenant Breaks Condo Rules in Montréal, Is the Landlord Responsible? A Montréal owner opens a letter from a lawyer retained by the syndicate. Their tenant's parties have drawn complaints on four weekends, and the letter claims a set amount for each one under a clause in the declaration. The owner never agreed to anything with the tenant's guests, and the tenant has never signed the declaration. Who actually owes the money is not the obvious answer. | Guides | Keep the right records | Oct 6, 2026 |
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