California Rent Control in 2026: AB 1482 vs Local Ordinances for South Bay Owners

Published March 18, 2026

AB 1482 caps rent increases at CPI + 5% or 10%, whichever is less. But local ordinances in Inglewood, Santa Monica, and others go much further.

If you own rental property in California, you need to know the rent control rules cold, because the penalties for getting them wrong can wipe out a year of rental income overnight. I have been managing properties across the South Bay for over 15 years, and I still see owners making avoidable mistakes because they misunderstand what applies to their building.

This is what matters in 2026.

AB 1482: The Statewide Baseline

Assembly Bill 1482, the Tenant Protection Act, sets the floor for rent control across California. It caps annual rent increases at the lesser of CPI plus 5 percent or 10 percent. As of early 2026, CPI for the Los Angeles region sits around 3.2 percent, which means the effective cap is approximately 8.2 percent.

In real dollars: if your tenant pays $2,400 per month, the maximum increase you can impose under AB 1482 is roughly $197 per month, bringing the rent to about $2,597. That is not nothing, but it is a far cry from bumping rent to the $2,900 or $3,100 that some owners assume they can charge after seeing comparable listings in the neighborhood.

AB 1482 also requires just cause for eviction once a tenant has lived in the unit for 12 months or more. You cannot simply choose not to renew a lease without a qualifying reason.

Who Is Exempt from AB 1482

Not every property falls under AB 1482, but the exemptions are narrower than most owners think.

Single family homes are exempt, but only if they are owned by a natural person or a trust where the beneficiary is a natural person. If you hold that single family home in an LLC that has a corporate member, you lose the exemption. I have watched owners discover this the hard way after sending a notice their attorney had to retract.

Condos are exempt under similar rules. Buildings with a certificate of occupancy issued within the last 15 years are also exempt, which gives newer construction a temporary pass. Owner occupied duplexes are exempt as well, meaning if you live in one unit and rent the other, AB 1482 does not apply.

If you are unsure whether your property qualifies, get it confirmed in writing.

Local Ordinances That Go Further

AB 1482 is the ceiling for most of California, but several cities in and around the South Bay impose their own rent stabilization ordinances that are far more restrictive.

Inglewood has a rent stabilization ordinance covering buildings constructed before February 1, 1995. The annual cap is 3 percent, period. No CPI calculation, no wiggle room. If you own a 1980s building in Inglewood, your $2,400 tenant is looking at a maximum increase of $72 per month.

Santa Monica has one of the oldest and most aggressive rent control regimes in the state. The Rent Control Board sets allowable increases annually, typically landing between 3 and 6 percent depending on the year and the CPI calculation they use.

West Hollywood caps increases at 3 to 4 percent for covered units. Beverly Hills ties their cap to 75 percent of CPI, which in practice tends to land around 2.5 to 3 percent.

Long Beach does not have a traditional rent control ordinance, but it does have tenant protection regulations that impose relocation assistance requirements and just cause provisions that go beyond AB 1482.

A Tale of Two Buildings

Take a 12 unit building in Torrance. Under AB 1482, you can raise rents up to 8.2 percent this year. If average rents are $2,200 per month, that is an additional $180 per unit per month, or roughly $25,920 in additional annual revenue across the building.

Now take the same 12 unit building in Inglewood, built in 1988. Under the Inglewood RSO, you are capped at 3 percent. That same $2,200 unit can only go up $66 per month. Annual additional revenue across the building: about $9,504. That is a $16,000 per year difference on an identical building just a few miles apart.

This is why location due diligence matters before you buy, and why ongoing compliance matters after.

Costa Hawkins and Vacancy Decontrol

The Costa Hawkins Rental Housing Act is the state law that limits how far local rent control can go. Its most important provision is vacancy decontrol: when a tenant voluntarily vacates or is evicted for cause, the landlord can reset rent to market rate for the next tenant.

This is a critical tool for owners in rent controlled jurisdictions. It means that even in Santa Monica or Inglewood, you are not permanently locked into below market rents. But you have to be patient and you have to handle turnovers correctly. Attempting to push a tenant out to trigger vacancy decontrol is illegal and will land you in front of a rent board or a judge.

The Owners Who Thought They Could Raise to Market

Early in my career, I took on a building in Hawthorne where the previous owner had been self managing. He had not raised rents in four years and decided to "catch up" by sending 30 percent increases to every unit. No proper notice periods, no AB 1482 compliance, no calculation of the allowable cap.

Three tenants filed complaints. The owner ended up rolling back every increase, paying penalties, and hiring us to clean up the mess. The total cost of his shortcut was more than $18,000 in penalties and legal fees, plus the lost goodwill with tenants who were otherwise perfectly fine.

Check your cap and your notice requirements before anything goes out, and keep records of all of it.

Staying Compliant Year to Year

Rent control compliance is not something you figure out once and forget. CPI changes every year, and local ordinances and new legislation keep shifting underneath you. If you manage your own properties, build a calendar reminder to recalculate allowable increases at least 90 days before you plan to send notices.

If that sounds like more than you want to track, that is exactly the kind of thing we handle at Schofield Properties. We monitor every applicable ordinance for our owners across the South Bay so they never send a notice that puts them at risk. If you would rather have us check your next increase before it goes out, we are at schofieldproperties.com.

Topics: rent control, AB 1482, california law, south bay, landlord guide

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