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5 California Laws for 2020 That All Landlords Need to Know

These five laws are important for all landlords to know in 2020.

With all the new laws going into effect this year, it can be a challenge to keep track of which ones affect you and your rental property. These five laws are a must-know for all landlords and property management companies.

AB 1110

This bill changes the amount of time required to notify a month-to-month tenant of a rent increase over 10%. Prior to January 1, 2020 a 60-day notice was required. AB 1110 changes that to a 90-day notice.

AB 2343

AB 2343 changes some of the stipulations of the 3 Day Notice to Perform or Quit. This refers to when the tenant is past the grace period for paying rent or is found to be violating a term of the lease (that can be corrected). Starting in 2020, the 3 day notice period does NOT include weekends or judicial holidays.

For example, let’s say your grace period ends on the 4th of every month, meaning that on the 5th, you send out the notices to perform or quit. In this example, the 5th falls on a Friday. You would count Friday as day one, skip Saturday and Sunday, and count Monday and Tuesday as days two and three.

SB 222

The current law states that housing discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, ancestry, familial status, source of income, disability, or genetic information is against public policy. SB 222 declares that veterans and military personnel are now added to that list and are considered a protected class.

The bill also states that a voucher from the Department of Housing and Urban Development Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing is classified as accepted income.

AB 1482

AB 1482, also called the Tenant Protection Act of 2019, was passed in October and applies rent control to specified properties in California. The new law affects both rent increases and just cause evictions and has exemptions which many single-family homeowners will fall under. Properties that are most affected are multifamily properties that are over 15 years old and properties that are wholly or partly owned by a corporation. There are many exemptions to this new law, so be sure to read the bill and check with your attorney on whether or not your property is affected.

AB 1482 limits the amount that rent can be increased each year. Increases cannot exceed 5% + percentage change in the cost of living over the previous year’s Consumer Price Index for a 12-month period and cannot exceed 10% total. Currently the allowed percentage for San Diego is around 7.21%.

The bill also impacts just cause eviction rules. Beginning on January 1st, 2020, California Civil Code 1946.2 states that after 12 months, a tenancy can only be terminated for a specific set of reasons. These reasons are divided into two categories: At Fault and No Fault.

At Fault reasons include default in the payment of rent, breach of a material term of the lease (lease violation), nuisance activity, waste, criminal activity, assigning or subletting, refusal to provide access, failure to vacate and deliver possession, refusal to sign lease under similar provisions, and unlawful purpose.

No Fault reasons include intent to demolish or substantially remodel, withdrawal from the rental market, owner or relative occupancy, or government order.

Something to note: if your city already has a local ordinance in place (which the city of San Diego does), the ordinance that is MOST protective takes precedence. We encourage you to consult with your attorney regarding which ordinance your property falls under.

SB 329

SB 329 deals with source of income discrimination. Previously, properties were not required to accept people that had section 8 or rental assistance vouchers. Beginning August 1, 2019, properties in the city of San Diego had to accept those vouchers as a source of income. All advertising materials for the property cannot say “Section 8 not accepted” or a version of that statement. Materials must be revised by January 1, 2020.

For more 2020 laws that might affect your property, check out our blog below!

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Olivia

Content Marketing Manager at Good Life Property Management

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Hello fellow good lifeers property managers and landlords out of Manly here business development manager at good life property management. Bringing you another part in our video series to keep you as informed as possible with all these new laws going into effect in 2020. In this video we’re going to be specifically talking about the five rental laws that you must know to stay in business this year. So let’s jump right into it. The first one is AB 1110, a little bit of a mouthful there but this one specifically addresses landlords who have tenants that are on a month to month lease and it addresses the rent increases that these landlords can give these tenants. So if you plan on giving your month to month tenant over a 10% rent increase you now need to give them 90 days instead of a 60 day notice. So that is a very big change coming into effect this year and you need to make sure you’re giving your tenants the proper notice or that will not be valid. So jumping right into number two this is a AB 2343 and this is also a very important new law that’s affecting how notices are served to tenants by landlords or property management companies. And this law specifically addresses the three day notice period so previously before 2020 weekends were counted as part of the three day notice period and moving forward in 2020 weekends and judicial holidays will no longer be included in part of that three day notice period. So that is a very important thing to keep in mind and specifically if you’re delivering notices before a holiday or before a weekend that’s going to significantly increase the notice period so something very important to keep in mind for landlords. So for example let’s say you served a notice a three day notice on a Wednesday under the new law that notice would now expire on Tuesday where previously weekends were counted inside of that notice period. So again just a little short example of how the AB 2343 is going to affect the way that you serve three day notices to perform three day notices to pay rent or quit or whatever that notice period may be. So the next law we’re going to talk about is SB 222 and this law pretty is pretty straightforward it basically just adds veterans and active duty military as a protected class so there’s a long list of them here in California basically what SB 222 does is adds veterans and military active duty to this list of protected classes here in California. So moving right along to the big one AB 1482 we’ve done a ton of content on this so if you guys are really looking to take a deep dive into AB 1482 we’ve done a ton of content and blogs check out our full blog to get all the details on 1482 but what you need to know here is AB 1482 specifically addresses the amount of a landlord can increase the rent year over year. So moving forward a landlord cannot increase the rent more than 5% plus the cost of inflation but no more than 10% within a given year and it also addresses the just cause eviction laws and some additional rules behind that as well. So like I said check out our full blog for all the details on 1482 but definitely a law you need to know to stay in business or just continue to be a great landlord in 2020. Really the last law we’re going to touch on here in this video is SB 329 and that specifically addresses income discrimination for section 8 tenant so you can no longer not accept section 8 as a form of income for your tenants so basically now every landlord in San Diego is going to be participating in that section 8 program and we can no longer essentially say no to section 8 tenants because that is their form of income. So those are the top five laws that you need to know to stay in business or just continue to be a great landlord here in 2020. Stay tuned for a lot more content about new laws and thanks for watching.