End-of-Year Lease Renewals: A California Landlord Checklist

For California landlords with anniversary-month tenancies, November and December tend to be heavy lease-renewal months. Renewals are also the cheapest time to update a lease — the document is open anyway, the tenant is already engaged, and small fixes that would otherwise sit around as risk for another year can be made now.

Below is a practical checklist of what to look at on a typical California residential lease before sending the renewal. None of this is exotic; it is a tour of the items the firm flags most often when reviewing existing leases.

1. Re-run the AB 1482 cap on the proposed increase

If the unit is covered by AB 1482, the increase has to fit within the lesser of (i) 5% plus regional CPI for the prior April-to-April period, or (ii) 10%. The firm covered this calculation in an earlier post. The check at renewal is to actually run the math, not to assume the prior year's number still applies — CPI moves annually and the number changes with it.

A short calc memo in the property file (date, base rent, prior twelve-month increases, CPI input, resulting cap) is a better defense than any clever lease language if the increase is later challenged.

2. Confirm AB 1482 exemption notice if exempt

For single-family homes and condominiums owned by natural persons (and certain other exempt categories), AB 1482 only stays inapplicable if the lease contains the specific written notice required by Civil Code § 1947.12. A renewal that re-papers an exempt unit is the moment to confirm that notice is in the lease and is in the form the statute requires. If it is missing, the cleanest fix is to add it now rather than discover the gap during a contested termination later.

3. Confirm the security deposit complies with AB 12

As of July 1, 2024, security deposits on most California rentals are capped at one month's rent under amended Civil Code § 1950.5. If the deposit on the renewing lease exceeds one month and the small-landlord exception does not clearly apply, two options: refund the excess at renewal, or convert to compliance going forward. Holding an excess deposit on a renewing lease is the kind of avoidable issue that produces small-claims actions at the end of the tenancy.

The firm covered AB 12 in detail in a prior post.

4. Review the late-fee provision

California courts routinely treat late fees as a liquidated-damages provision and require them to bear a reasonable relationship to the landlord's actual loss from the late payment. Aggressive percentages, escalators, and "per day" fees that compound quickly are often unenforceable if challenged in small claims or as a defense to an unlawful-detainer. A modest, defensible late fee with a defined grace period is better than a tougher one that gets struck down at the worst moment.

5. Update the entry-notice and electronic-notice provisions

Civil Code § 1954 sets the rules for landlord entry: 24-hour written notice for non-emergency entries, with limited exceptions. Confirm the lease's entry-notice provision matches the statute and identifies the channel (email, text, written) the landlord and tenant will use for routine communications. If the lease allows electronic notice, having the tenant's confirmed email and mobile number on the renewal is part of the value; a disputed termination notice that turns on whether email was a valid channel is a frustrating place to litigate.

6. Refresh the assistance-animal and pet provisions

A pet provision and an assistance-animal accommodation policy should be separate, as a prior post discussed. If the renewing lease still bundles them — or if the assistance-animal policy is silent — the renewal is the right moment to fix that.

7. Re-examine local-ordinance compliance

Several California cities — Los Angeles, San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, San Jose, Santa Monica, and others — have their own rent-control and just-cause ordinances on top of AB 1482, plus local registration and notice requirements that vary widely. If the property is in one of those jurisdictions, the renewal should reflect the most recent local rules; a lease drafted three or four years ago, against an ordinance that has been amended since, is often out of date.

8. Confirm the smoking, cannabis, and short-term-rental provisions

Smoking provisions in California leases now commonly need to address cannabis as well as tobacco, and short-term-rental restrictions (Airbnb-style use) have become common where they were not on older leases. A renewal is the moment to clarify these — even a simple "no smoking of any substance, including cannabis, anywhere on the premises" and "no short-term rental, sublet, or assignment without prior written consent of the landlord" addresses two of the most common dispute generators.

9. Refresh contact and payment information

This is mechanical, but worth doing: confirm the tenant's preferred email and mobile number, the landlord's (or property manager's) current contact and remittance information, and the rent-payment channel. Disputes about whether a notice was effectively served, or whether rent was tendered to the right place, often turn on details that were not refreshed at the last renewal.

10. Sign cleanly

A renewal that is executed by the same parties on the same form, with each page initialed and the signature block clear, is a document that is hard to attack later. A renewal that arrives by email, is signed by some but not all original tenants, and has handwritten margin edits is, regrettably, the kind of thing the firm sees frequently in disputed tenancies.

When to call counsel

Most renewals are routine. Some are not — particularly for properties in a local rent-control jurisdiction, properties with a pending just-cause situation, or leases that have not been refreshed in several years. If you have a renewal coming up and want a careful review of the form before it goes out, please reach out.

This article is general information and not legal advice. AB 1482, AB 12, and local ordinances are amended periodically; specific situations need specific review.