The Tenant Protection Act of 2019 — California's AB 1482, codified as Cal. Civ. Code §§ 1946.2 and 1947.12 — does two things to most California residential rentals. It caps annual rent increases at 5% plus regional CPI, hard-capped at 10%. And after a tenant has lived in the unit for 12 continuous months, it requires the landlord to have a statutorily defined "just cause" to terminate the tenancy.
Both provisions apply by default. Exemptions exist, but each one requires specific lease language to claim. Without that language in the lease, the unit is treated as covered regardless of whether it would otherwise qualify for an exemption.
Who is covered
The rule of thumb: most multi-family residential rentals in California are subject to AB 1482. Specifically, the law reaches:
- Apartments in buildings of any size.
- Most condominiums when rented out.
- Single-family homes and condos owned by a corporation, REIT, or LLC where any member is itself a corporation or REIT.
- Mixed-use buildings whose residential portion exceeds 50%.
The "newer construction" exemption is rolling. A building loses the exemption on the 15th anniversary of its certificate of occupancy — and the cutoff advances every January 1, not on each individual building's anniversary. So a building completed in 2010 became covered on January 1, 2025, regardless of when in 2010 it was finished.
Who is exempt
AB 1482 lists five exemption categories. Each one has a specific written-disclosure requirement (Cal. Civ. Code § 1947.12(d)(5) and parallel sections). The disclosure must be in the lease at signing. A landlord who would otherwise qualify for an exemption but omits the disclosure forfeits the exemption — the unit is treated as covered.
- Newer construction. Certificate of occupancy issued within the last 15 years (rolling).
- Single-family homes and condos, but only when (a) owned by a real person, an LLC of real persons, or a similar non-corporate entity, AND (b) the lease includes the statutory exemption notice.
- Owner-occupied duplexes. The owner must occupy one of the two units as a primary residence, both units in the same structure.
- Affordable housing with deed-restricted rents tied to income limits.
- Hotels, motels, dormitories, and hospitals — short-term housing not covered by the statute.
Each category has its own disclosure clause; the LLC-of-real-persons exemption in particular requires near-verbatim language about the ownership structure.
What landlords must do
Three operational obligations follow from coverage:
Cap rent increases at the lesser of 5% + CPI or 10%
The cap is computed against the lowest gross rental rate charged in the prior 12 months, not against current rent. CPI is the regional all-items index for the metropolitan area where the property sits. For most California metros in 2026 the practical cap will land between 8% and 10% — and the 10% absolute ceiling controls in high-CPI years.
Increases must come with proper notice (30 or 90 days, depending on the size of the increase per Cal. Civ. Code § 827).
Justify any termination after the 12-month mark
After the tenant has continuously occupied the unit for 12 months, the landlord can terminate only for a cause listed in Cal. Civ. Code § 1946.2(b). The list divides into two buckets:
- At-fault causes — non-payment of rent, breach of a material lease term, nuisance, criminal activity, refusing access, etc. These don't entitle the tenant to relocation assistance.
- No-fault causes — owner move-in, withdrawal from the rental market under the Ellis Act, government order to vacate, substantial remodel. Most no-fault terminations require one month's rent in relocation assistance (or a rent waiver of equivalent value).
Reasons not in the statutory list — "I want to charge market rent," "the tenant is annoying," "I'd rather have someone else" — are not valid bases for termination of a covered tenancy.
Bake the disclosure into the lease
AB 1482 requires the landlord to give the tenant written notice of the law's coverage. Whether the unit is covered or exempt, the lease needs the right disclosure language. For exempt units, the disclosure language is what claims the exemption; for covered units, the disclosure tells the tenant about their rights under the cap and just-cause provisions.
Free-form templates rarely contain the right language. The disclosures have been amended several times since 2019 (most notably by SB 567 in 2024); copying old language into a new lease can leave both the landlord and tenant in an ambiguous position.
Common mistakes
Three patterns we see come up repeatedly:
Assuming "single-family" automatically means exempt. It doesn't. The exemption only applies when the ownership structure qualifies AND the lease contains the disclosure. A single-family rental owned by an LLC where one member is a corporation does not qualify, regardless of how the property is described.
Treating month-to-month tenancies as month-by-month escape hatches. AB 1482 looks at continuous occupancy, not lease length. A tenant on month-to-month who has been in the unit 13 months is in a covered tenancy under the just-cause provisions — the landlord can't simply terminate the month-to-month lease without a statutory cause.
Banking skipped increases. The cap applies per 12-month period. A landlord who didn't raise rent for two years can't compound back-to-back to "catch up"; the next increase is still capped at the current period's allowable amount.
How to stay compliant
The disclosure language is statutorily prescribed and changes with each amendment. Pulling it from a free template — even one labeled "California" — is a real risk: most free templates haven't kept pace with the SB 567 clarifications or the latest CPI reference dates.
A correctly-built California lease names the law, surfaces the right exempt-vs-covered branching based on your ownership entity and build year, and pulls in the current statutory disclosure language. That's what we ship at BuildMyLease — generated from your wizard answers, citing the specific Civil Code section behind every clause.
The federal E-SIGN Act (15 U.S.C. § 7001) and California's Uniform Electronic Transactions Act both treat typed-name signatures with audit trail as legally equivalent to wet ink, so you can sign and send the lease for tenant signature without printing anything.
Build a compliant California lease — $29 one-time, generated in 5 minutes, with the AB 1482 disclosure baked in at signing.
Statutory references
- Cal. Civ. Code § 1947.12 — annual rent-increase cap (5% + CPI, max 10%).
- Cal. Civ. Code § 1946.2 — just-cause-for-termination requirements after 12 months.
- Cal. Civ. Code § 1947.12(d)(5) — single-family / condo exemption disclosure requirement.
- SB 567 (2023, eff. April 1, 2024) — clarifications to the no-fault termination rules and relocation assistance.
- Cal. Civ. Code § 827 — minimum notice for rent increases (30 days for ≤10%, 90 days for >10%).