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7 guides
During a tenancy
- Rent increases and the statewide rent capHow the Tenant Protection Act limits increases, which rentals it covers, and required notice periods.
- Security depositsHow much a landlord can collect, what can be deducted, and the 21-day return rule.
- Repairs, living conditions and landlord entryWhat makes a rental habitable, how repair requests work, and notice rules for entry.
Notices and evictions
- Eviction notices explainedThe common notice types, how just-cause rules affect them, and what a notice does and doesn’t do.
- How tenants respond to an eviction caseThe Summons and Complaint, the 10-court-day response period, and what happens after.
- The eviction process for landlordsNotices, filing an unlawful detainer, and the steps from judgment to sheriff enforcement.
Words to know
- Court days
- Days the court is open. Saturdays, Sundays and court holidays are not counted.
- Default
- A judgment entered when the person who was sued does not respond in time.
- Habitability
- The basic condition a rental must meet to be fit to live in.
- Just cause
- A reason the law accepts for ending a tenancy, required for many tenancies after 12 months.
- Tenant Protection Act
- The 2019 California law (AB 1482) that set a statewide rent cap and just-cause rules for many rentals.
- Unlawful detainer
- The legal name for an eviction case.
- Writ of possession
- The court document that allows the sheriff to return a property to the landlord after a judgment.