Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act The state-preemption framework that defines what every California local rent-control ordinance can and cannot reach. Three exemptions, vacancy decontrol, and the line where AB 1482 picks up.

What Costa-Hawkins does, in one paragraph

Costa-Hawkins is the legal floor under every California local rent-control ordinance. It carves three categories of housing OUT of local rent-cap reach: single-family homes with tenancies that commenced on or after January 1, 1996 (§1954.52(a)(3)); condominiums lawfully separable when sold to a bona fide purchaser (§1954.52(a)(2)); and any building whose first certificate of occupancy issued after February 1, 1995 (§1954.52(a)(1)). It also authorizes vacancy decontrol on EVERY unit subject to local rent control under §1954.53(a) — when a tenancy lawfully ends, the landlord may reset the rent to market for the next tenant, regardless of what the local ordinance might say. Costa-Hawkins is narrowly drawn: it preempts ONLY the rent-cap subset of local ordinances, leaving just-cause-eviction, anti-harassment, registration, security-deposit-interest, and habitability provisions intact. And it does NOT preempt AB 1482's statewide 8.8% (2026) cap, which still reaches most Costa-Hawkins-exempt units through its own narrower exemption regime.

The three Costa-Hawkins exemptions under §1954.52(a)

Cal. Civ. Code §1954.52(a) lists three categorical exemptions from local rent-cap ordinances. Each exemption operates independently — a unit must satisfy any one of the three to be exempt:

§1954.52(a)(1) — Buildings with first CoC after February 1, 1995

The cleanest of the three exemptions: any unit in a building whose first certificate of occupancy issued after February 1, 1995 is exempt from every local rent-cap ordinance. The anchor date is the building's CoC, not any individual unit's rehabilitation date or any individual tenancy's commencement. A 1996-built apartment complex in San Francisco is exempt from SF's §37.3 rent-cap regime; a 2010-built complex in Berkeley is exempt from BMC §13.76; a 2018-built building in LA is exempt from LA RSO §151.06. The audit trail is the building department's CoC issuance record, which is publicly available in every California jurisdiction. The exemption is permanent — once a building qualifies, it is never reabsorbed into the local rent-cap regime, even when it crosses age thresholds that would bring local ordinances into play in other states.

The Feb 1, 1995 anchor date traces directly to the AB 1164 (1995) legislative compromise that became Costa-Hawkins. The bill was signed October 11, 1995, with effective dates phased over 1996-1999; Feb 1, 1995 was the chosen freeze point for new construction to give cities a clean dividing line between pre-Costa-Hawkins and post-Costa-Hawkins inventory. The result: every California city with rent control today has a fixed, never-shifting cohort of covered buildings that depends only on what was built before Feb 1, 1995.

§1954.52(a)(2) — Condominiums

Any unit that is a condominium lawfully separable when sold to a bona fide purchaser is exempt from every local rent-cap ordinance, regardless of construction date. The threshold test is the condominium plan recorded with the County Assessor — if the unit has its own assessor's parcel number, its own legal description, and was sold or is salable to a third-party purchaser without reference to any other unit, it qualifies. A 1970s-built apartment complex that was condominium-converted in 1985 has all its units exempt from §1954.52(a)(2) starting from the condominium recordation date — even though the building's first CoC predates Feb 1, 1995.

The condo exemption is the most common path for landlords to take a unit out of local rent control: a multi-unit building condominium-converted by the owner becomes an inventory of Costa-Hawkins-exempt units, salable individually, each free of the local rent-cap. Local ordinances can impose conversion-process requirements (TIC-to-condo windows, anti-displacement provisions, relocation assistance to displaced tenants) but cannot block the eventual §1954.52(a)(2) exemption once the conversion is complete. SF's TOPA-like ordinances and Berkeley's inclusionary requirements impose conversion costs but do not preempt the exemption.

§1954.52(a)(3) — Single-family homes with post-1996 tenancies

The most-litigated and most-tactical of the three exemptions. A unit that is a single-family home — technically defined as "separately alienable from the title to any other dwelling unit" — is exempt from every local rent-cap ordinance, BUT the tenancy must have commenced on or after January 1, 1996. A tenancy that was in place on Jan 1, 1996 stays under local rent control until lawful vacancy; only after the next vacancy does the §1954.52(a)(3) exemption kick in for the new tenancy.

The "separately alienable" test is what makes this exemption tactical. A true detached SFR on its own lot, with its own APN and its own deed, qualifies. One half of a duplex sharing an APN with the other half does NOT qualify — even though physically detached. A unit in a 4-plex sharing one APN with three siblings does NOT qualify. The statutory phrase explicitly excludes any unit whose title is bound to another unit's title.

Local ordinances and AB 1482 can impose tenant-notice requirements as a precondition to the exemption. AB 1482 at Cal. Civ. Code §1947.12(d)(5)(B)(i) requires the landlord to give the tenant a verbatim written notice ("This property is not subject to the rent limits imposed by Section 1947.12...") at lease inception to invoke the AB 1482 §1947.12(d)(5) SFR exemption. Local ordinances (SF, LA RSO, Berkeley) have analogous notice requirements built into their registration/eligibility regimes. The default — without notice — is COVERAGE, not exemption: the landlord bears the burden of opting out via the statutory notice. The Costa-Hawkins §1954.52(a)(3) exemption itself does not require notice for the local-ordinance preemption to apply, but the AB 1482 §1947.12(d)(5) exemption (a separate, narrower provision) does.

Vacancy decontrol under §1954.53(a)

Cal. Civ. Code §1954.53(a) authorizes the landlord to set the initial rent for a new tenancy at market on every unit subject to local rent control, regardless of what the prior tenancy's rent was or what the local ordinance might otherwise provide. The 12-month one-increase clock and the local AGA then apply going forward to the new tenancy starting from the new market rent. Vacancy decontrol is the structural reason why California's local rent-control jurisdictions show such wide rent dispersion within the same building — a pre-1996 long-tenancy unit can be paying 40% below market while the unit next door, just turned over, is paying market.

The vacancy-decontrol authorization does NOT apply when the vacancy was caused by:

• Unlawful eviction — any eviction that failed its statutory predicate (untimely notice, missing good-cause documentation, defective service, retaliatory motive). The Rent Board can order the rent rolled back to the prior tenancy's lawful rent and recover the difference for the new tenant.
• Tenant harassment under the local anti-harassment ordinance — SF Admin. Code §37.10B, Berkeley BMC §13.79, LA RSO §151.30, Oakland OMC §8.22.640. A vacancy obtained through harassment is ineligible for §1954.53(a) reset.
• Owner-move-in evictions that fail their statutory requirements — including the move-in window, the family-member eligibility test, and the relocation-assistance payment. SF Admin. Code §37.9(a)(8), Berkeley BMC §13.76.130(A)(8), and LA RSO §151.09(A)(8) all impose strict OMI requirements; a defective OMI eviction loses the §1954.53(a) reset.
• Ellis Act re-rental restrictions (Cal. Gov. Code §7060.2) — a 5-year ban on re-renting at higher than the prior rent for landlords who invoked Ellis withdrawal under Cal. Gov. Code §§7060-7060.7. The Ellis Act overrides Costa-Hawkins vacancy decontrol for the 5-year window post-withdrawal.

Note that NYC, DC, Saint Paul, Montgomery County MD, and Oregon do NOT have a Costa-Hawkins-style vacancy-decontrol rule — the statute is California-specific. NYC's RGB-Order framework binds the renewal cap to the unit, not the tenancy, so a vacancy does NOT reset the rent. DC's §42-3502.08 likewise has no vacancy reset. The structural rent dispersion within California rent-controlled buildings is therefore quite different from the dispersion in NYC stabilized inventory.

How Costa-Hawkins interacts with AB 1482

Costa-Hawkins preempts only the LOCAL rent-cap ordinances, not the statewide AB 1482 cap (Cal. Civ. Code §1947.12). The two operate in series:

1. Step 1 — Costa-Hawkins exemption check. Is the unit exempt from local rent control under any one of §1954.52(a)(1) (post-Feb-1-1995 building), §1954.52(a)(2) (condo), or §1954.52(a)(3) (post-1996 SFR tenancy)? If exempt, the local ordinance's rent-cap does NOT apply. The local ordinance's just-cause-eviction and anti-harassment provisions may still apply.
2. Step 2 — AB 1482 coverage check. Even if Costa-Hawkins exempts from local rent control, AB 1482 (the 2019 statewide rent cap) can still cover the unit. AB 1482 has its own narrower exemptions at Cal. Civ. Code §1947.12(d): subsidized housing, owner-occupied buildings with two or fewer units, certain dormitories, certain non-corporate-LLC SFRs with proper §1947.12(d)(5)(B)(i) tenant notice, buildings with first CoC less than 15 years before the increase's effective date.
3. Step 3 — Apply the controlling cap. If AB 1482 covers, the statewide 8.8% cap (2026 figure for the LA-Long Beach-Anaheim CPI region) applies. If neither AB 1482 nor the local ordinance covers, the unit is uncapped — pure market rent applies, subject only to Cal. Civ. Code §827(b) notice rules and any private contractual lease terms.

The practical sequence: a Berkeley landlord with a detached SFR (post-1996 tenancy) is Costa-Hawkins exempt from BMC §13.76's 1.0% AGA, but is bound by AB 1482's 8.8% statewide cap unless the landlord is a non-corporate-LLC and has served the §1947.12(d)(5)(B)(i) tenant notice — in which case the unit is uncapped. A San Francisco landlord with a 1985 condo (lawfully separable when sold) is Costa-Hawkins exempt from SF §37.3's 1.6% RY 2026-27 cap, but is bound by AB 1482's 8.8% unless it qualifies for the AB 1482 §1947.12(d) exemptions. A Los Angeles landlord with a 2010-built apartment is Costa-Hawkins exempt from LA RSO §151.06 (which only reaches pre-Oct-1-1978 buildings), and is also AB 1482-exempt under the rolling 15-year first-CoC carve-out at §1947.12(d)(4)(A) until 2025 — when the building turned 15.

What Costa-Hawkins does NOT preempt

Costa-Hawkins is narrowly drawn: it preempts the rent-cap subset of local ordinances, leaving every other landlord-tenant rights provision intact. The carve-outs that remain in force regardless of Costa-Hawkins exemption:

• Just-cause-eviction provisions. Local just-cause lists at SF Admin. Code §37.9, LA RSO §151.09, Berkeley BMC §13.76.130, Oakland OMC §8.22.300, Santa Monica Charter Article XVIII §1806 still apply to most Costa-Hawkins-exempt units. Independently, AB 1482's statewide just-cause regime at Cal. Civ. Code §1946.2 covers any unit subject to AB 1482's rent cap. The §1946.2 framework reaches more units than any pre-AB-1482 local just-cause ordinance, including tenancies that have been in place for at least 12 months (or where any of the tenants has occupied for at least 24 months in a multi-tenant unit).
• Anti-harassment ordinances. Berkeley BMC §13.79, SF Admin. Code §37.10B, LA RSO §151.30, Oakland OMC §8.22.640 prohibit landlord conduct (retaliation, denial of services, unilateral lease changes) intended to drive a tenant out. These apply to most Costa-Hawkins-exempt units in the same jurisdiction.
• Relocation-assistance requirements. LA RSO §151.09(G), SF Admin. Code §37.9C, Berkeley BMC §13.76.130(A)(8) and (E), and the AB 1482 §1946.2(d) one-month relocation requirement all impose payment to displaced tenants. Costa-Hawkins does not preempt these requirements.
• Registration and rent-roll requirements. Berkeley BMC §13.76.080, LA SCEP §161.352, SF Admin. Code §37.10A all impose registration and annual rent-roll filing requirements. Costa-Hawkins-exempt units are still subject to registration in most jurisdictions — the exemption only removes the rent-cap, not the unit's status as a rental property on the local roll.
• Security-deposit-interest requirements. Berkeley BMC §13.76.070, SF Admin. Code §49 require landlords to pay annual interest on security deposits. These apply to Costa-Hawkins-exempt units in those jurisdictions.
• Habitability standards. Cal. Civ. Code §1941, §1942 and local building codes apply regardless of Costa-Hawkins status — every California rental unit must be tenantable, regardless of rent-cap exemption.

Failed repeal attempts: Props 10, 21, and 33

Tenant-advocacy groups have placed three Costa-Hawkins repeal/expansion measures on the California ballot, all of which failed:

• Proposition 10 (November 2018). Sought to repeal Costa-Hawkins entirely, restoring unfettered local rent-control authority. Failed with approximately 41% Yes / 59% No statewide.
• Proposition 21 (November 2020). Sought to permit local rent control on (a) any unit with first CoC at least 15 years before the increase, (b) any single-family home owned by a corporate or non-natural-person landlord, while preserving vacancy decontrol with a soft cap. Failed with approximately 40% Yes / 60% No statewide.
• Proposition 33 (November 2024). The Justice for Renters Act. Sought to allow cities to enact rent control on any housing — repealing all three Costa-Hawkins exemptions and authorizing vacancy control. Failed with approximately 38% Yes / 62% No statewide, the widest margin of the three.

A legislative repeal would require majority votes in both California Assembly and Senate plus the Governor's signature. The Legislature has not advanced Costa-Hawkins repeal; politically, expanding local rent-control authority faces opposition from real-estate trade associations (California Apartment Association, California Association of Realtors) that have outspent tenant-advocacy organizations in the three ballot fights. Until repealed, Costa-Hawkins remains the binding state-preemption framework. Local ordinances enacted in tension with Costa-Hawkins (e.g. Berkeley Measure MM in 2024, which sought to extend the rent cap to detached SFRs) face preemption challenges and have been struck down before reaching effect.

How RentCeiling applies Costa-Hawkins for you

Every California-jurisdiction calculator in the RentCeiling catalogue runs the Costa-Hawkins exemption check first. The Berkeley calculator, SF calculator, and LA RSO calculator each take (building first-CoC date, unit type, current tenancy commencement date) and return the appropriate exemption status with the §1954.52(a) subsection citation. Where the unit is Costa-Hawkins-exempt from the local cap but covered by AB 1482, the calculator returns AB 1482's 8.8% statewide cap with the §1947.12 citation. Where both exempt, the calculator returns the no-cap status with the controlling §1947.12(d) and §1954.52(a) sub citations and a note that pure market-rent applies subject to Cal. Civ. Code §827(b) notice rules. The AB 1482 single-family rental exemption explainer covers the §1947.12(d)(5)(B)(i) tenant-notice path. The four-California-rent-caps explainer walks the AB 1482 / SF / LA RSO / Berkeley ladder and where Costa-Hawkins fits at each rung. The /compare hub shows where each California jurisdiction sits relative to the Costa-Hawkins floor. Open rule-set at /rules/index.json.

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