Trusted by property owners and tenants across Southern California. We deliver exceptional property management with a personal touch.
Focused Portfolio
Owner-Operated
Managing the South Bay
Published July 15, 2026
Owning an SFR as a natural person is not enough. AB 1482's rent cap and just cause exemptions require a specific written notice too.
Owning a Redondo Beach single family home as an individual with two or fewer properties does not automatically exempt you from California's Tenant Protection Act. Under Civil Code section 1947.12(d)(5) and section 1946.2(e)(8), the exemption only holds if you also served the tenant a specific written notice stating the property is exempt from the rent cap and just cause rules. Skip the notice and both protections apply anyway.
AB 1482, the statewide Tenant Protection Act, caps annual rent increases and requires a just cause reason for most terminations on covered rental housing. The law does carve out an exemption for single family homes and condos, but the ownership test is narrow. Under Civil Code section 1947.12(d)(5), the rent cap exemption applies only when the owner is a natural person, or a trust or LLC where every beneficiary or member is a natural person, and none of the owners is a real estate investment trust, a corporation, or an LLC with a corporate member. A property held in even a single member LLC where that member is a corporation loses the exemption entirely. Section 1946.2(e)(8) sets the identical ownership test for the just cause eviction exemption.
We see the ownership test get misapplied constantly. An owner who holds a Redondo Beach rental through a family trust often qualifies, but the same owner holding it through an LLC that they formed with a business partner's corporation does not, even if it is only one property.
Meeting the ownership test is only half the exemption. Both statutes require the owner to give the tenant written notice that the tenancy is not subject to the rent cap and just cause rules, using specific statutory language. For any tenancy that started or was renewed on or after July 1, 2020, that notice must be included in the lease or rental agreement itself, not delivered separately later. For tenancies that predate July 1, 2020, the notice is not required to be in the agreement but the exemption still depends on the tenant having received it.
The statutory language is precise. It must state that the property is not subject to the rent limits of Civil Code section 1947.12 or the just cause requirements of section 1946.2, that it meets the ownership conditions of sections 1947.12(d)(5) and 1946.2(e)(8), and that the owner is not a REIT, a corporation, or an LLC with a corporate member. A landlord who leaves that box blank on a standard association lease form, or who uses informal language instead of the statutory text, has not satisfied the requirement, and courts and tenant attorneys treat that as forfeiting the exemption.
Redondo Beach does not have its own local rent stabilization ordinance layered on top of state law the way some neighboring South Bay cities do, so for most single family rentals here, AB 1482 is the primary rule in play. That makes the ownership and notice test the whole ballgame. Get it right and a Redondo Beach owner with one or two rental houses has real flexibility on rent increases and lease non renewals. Get it wrong, meaning the notice was never served or used the wrong language, and the owner is bound by the statewide rent cap (5% plus the regional CPI, capped at 10%) and needs a qualifying just cause reason to end a tenancy, exactly like a large apartment landlord would.
Check two things on every Redondo Beach single family rental you hold. First, confirm the actual title holder, trust, or LLC membership meets the natural person test in section 1947.12(d)(5). Second, pull the lease and confirm the statutory exemption notice is actually in it, word for word, not paraphrased. If either one is missing, treat the unit as fully covered by AB 1482 until you fix it, since retroactively curing a missing notice on an existing lease is not something the statute clearly allows for.
If you would rather not comb through lease boilerplate to check this, that is exactly the kind of thing we run down for our owners.
This is general information, not legal or tax advice. Confirm with a licensed professional before you act.
Last verified: July 2026.
Topics: compliance, AB 1482, Redondo Beach, single family rental, just cause eviction
Back to the Schofield Properties blog
Schofield Properties is a family run property management company at 323 Richmond St, El Segundo, CA 90245. We have managed the South Bay since 1972 and personally oversee about 186 doors today. Book a call to talk about your property.
_1771595201102_optimized-600-hSjj9YMN.webp)
_1771595201094_optimized-DUHa1RXZ.webp)