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The RentCeiling blog Plain-English explainers for the small landlord trying to read a rent-control ordinance without a lawyer in the room.

Each post breaks down one cap, one statute, or one notice-period gotcha across the ten jurisdictions we cover today. We cite the controlling code section, link the official rent-board source, and explain the math the calculator does — so you can audit your own notice before you send it.

· ~12 min read · California · Berkeley

Why Berkeley's 2026 rent cap is just 1.0% — the lowest in the country, and what landlords need to know about the AGA-denial gate

Berkeley's 2026 Annual General Adjustment of 1.0% is the lowest rent-cap percentage in the entire RentCeiling catalogue — beating San Francisco's 1.6%, AB 1482's 8.8% statewide, and every other jurisdiction we model. We unpack the formula (Rent Board Regulation 1271: sixty-five percent of the BLS CPI-U for the SF-Oakland-Hayward MSA, July to June), the four-condition AGA-denial gate at BMC §13.76.110(B)(2), the eligibility-deferral rule at §13.76.110(B)(1) that can defer a covered unit's increase by up to a full calendar year, and how Berkeley's rent-ceiling- accumulation banking model differs from San Francisco's stacked banking with hard 7%/year and 10%/notice ceilings.

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More posts coming weekly

Next up on the queue: a head-to-head on the four California jurisdictions we cover (statewide AB 1482, Los Angeles RSO, San Francisco, and Berkeley); a deep-dive on Cal. Civ. Code §827(b)'s 30-day vs. 90-day delta-driven notice rule; and a primer on the rolling first-certificate-of-occupancy exemption that exists in four of the ten jurisdictions we model.

Want a specific jurisdiction or statute covered? Email us at hello@rentceiling.com.