San Pedro Owners, Your SCEP Inspection Fee Is Due Every January

Published July 25, 2026

If you own a two unit or larger rental in San Pedro, the city charges $67.94 per unit each year to fund inspections, and only half of that is collectible from your tenant.

San Pedro is part of the City of Los Angeles, so if you own a rental property here with two or more units, the city charges you an annual inspection fee. It is called the SCEP fee, it runs $67.94 per unit per year, it is due the first day of January, and it goes delinquent if you have not paid by the last day of February. You can pass only half of it to your tenant.

What SCEP actually is

SCEP stands for the Systematic Code Enforcement Program, and it is the machinery the Los Angeles Housing Department uses to inspect rental housing across the whole city. San Pedro is not a separate town with its own rules here. It is a neighborhood inside the City of Los Angeles, which means the same citywide housing code that governs a fourplex in Koreatown governs your building down by Gaffey Street. The fee you pay funds the inspectors who come out and check the property.

The program exists because the city inspects rental units on a schedule. LAHD aims to inspect Tier 1 properties at least once every four years and Tier 2 properties at least once every two years. When your turn comes up, the department mails you a Notice of Inspection at least 30 days ahead, and an inspector walks the buildings, the units, and the common areas to confirm everything meets code. If nothing is wrong, the case closes and you never think about it again. If something is cited, you get a written order and a compliance date.

One thing worth pinning down now. LAHD mails that notice to the address on file with the Los Angeles County Assessor and with the department itself. If you bought the building years ago and never updated your mailing address, the 30 day notice can land somewhere you never check. Keeping that address current is the single cheapest piece of compliance insurance you own.

The fee, the timing, and the delinquency trap

Here is the part that costs real money if you miss it. The SCEP fee is due and payable on the first day of January every year, and delinquent if it is not paid on or before the last day of February. That is your window. January and February. After that, you are late, and late fees on a per unit basis add up faster than most owners expect on a building with any real door count.

The fee itself is $67.94 per unit per year. On a duplex that is about $136. On a ten unit building it is close to $680. Not a number that changes your year, but not one you want to pay twice because a bill got buried either.

There is also a separate annual rent registration you complete with the city for units covered by the Rent Stabilization Ordinance. That registration and the SCEP inspection fee are two different obligations that often get talked about in the same breath because both come due early in the year. The registration fee amount changes over time, so confirm the current figure directly with LAHD or your management company before you write the check rather than trusting a number you saw in an old article.

What you can pass to your tenant, and what you cannot

This is where owners most often get it wrong, usually by assuming the old rule still holds. It does not. As of January 1, 2022, owners may only collect 50% of the SCEP fee from the tenant, spread over 12 months at the rate of $2.83 a month. Before that change, the pass through was the full amount. Now it is half.

So on your $67.94 per unit fee, roughly $33.97 is yours to recover from the tenant, and you do it in twelve small monthly pieces of $2.83, not in one lump. The other half stays with you as a cost of owning rental property in the city. The Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles documented that shift when the fee moved to its current level, and the halved pass through was the headline of it.

A practical note. If you are going to recover your half, the surcharge shows up on the tenant ledger as its own line, prorated by the twelfth. It is not folded into base rent, because base rent in a rent stabilized unit is governed separately and you do not want to muddy the two. Keeping the SCEP recovery as its own labeled line keeps your ledger clean and keeps you out of an argument later.

What this means for your building

Strip away the acronyms and here is the readout for a San Pedro owner.

You owe $67.94 per unit to the city each year to fund inspections. Budget it as a fixed annual line, the same way you budget insurance or the trash bill. Pay it in January so it never drifts toward the February deadline.

You can recover half of it from each tenant, at $2.83 per unit per month, and only if you actually put it on the ledger as its own line. Owners who forget to bill it are simply eating the full fee. That is a choice, and it is fine if you make it on purpose, but most people are not choosing it, they are just missing it.

Your building will be inspected on a cycle, every two or four years depending on its tier, with 30 days of mailed notice. The way you protect yourself is boring and effective. Keep your mailing address current, walk the property before the inspector does, and fix the obvious code items on your own clock instead of the city's. An inspection you have prepared for is a non event. An inspection you were surprised by is where the orders, the compliance dates, and eventually the Rent Escrow Account Program come from.

None of this makes your San Pedro building a worse investment. It is the cost of operating inside the city, it is predictable, and predictable costs are the easy kind to manage. The owners who get burned are the ones who treat it as a surprise instead of a line item.

Common questions

Does the SCEP fee apply if I own a single family home in San Pedro?

Generally the program covers properties with two or more residential units on a parcel, so a standalone single family rental usually falls outside it, and owner occupied units and vacant properties are outside it too. But two single family homes on one lot, or a property with an ADU, can be pulled in. If you are not certain which bucket your parcel sits in, confirm it with LAHD or a licensed professional before you assume you are exempt.

What happens if I just do not pay the SCEP fee?

It goes delinquent after the last day of February and starts accruing on a per unit basis, and unpaid municipal fees on rental property do not quietly disappear. Beyond the money, ignoring the inspection program is how properties end up cited, and uncorrected citations are the path into the Rent Escrow Account Program, where tenants pay rent to the city instead of to you. It is a lot cheaper to pay the fee in January.

Can I bill my tenant the whole $67.94?

No. Since January 1, 2022 the pass through is capped at 50%, collected at $2.83 per unit per month over twelve months. The remaining half is the owner's cost. Anyone billing the full amount to a tenant is out of step with the current rule.

Last verified: July 25, 2026. Fee amounts, pass through limits, and due dates are set by the Los Angeles Housing Department and change over time. This is general information for property owners, not legal advice. Confirm the current SCEP fee, any rent registration fee, and the pass through and delinquency rules that apply to your specific San Pedro property with a licensed professional before you act.

Kellie

Schofield Properties

323 Richmond Street, El Segundo, CA 90245

Topics: market, san-pedro, south-bay, compliance, rso

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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.