The L.A. Renter's Glossary: What the Words on Your Notice Mean

Two city ordinances and one state law cover rentals here, and the terms on your notice tell you which one is yours.

Every notice terminating a tenancy in the city of Los Angeles has to be filed with the Los Angeles Housing Department within three business days of being served on the tenant. You're wondering whether that does you any good, and it does: the paper taped to your door is also a record at a city agency, and every acronym printed on it has a section number holding it up. The rule is LAMC 151.09.C.9 and 165.05.B.5, and LAHD applies it to every eviction notice issued in the city, rent-stabilized or not.

So here's the vocabulary, A to Z. We read the city's rent bulletins and program pages, the Rent Adjustment Commission's escrow regulation, the two state Civil Code sections that run alongside the city's rules, and the Attorney General's current rent-cap chart. Each entry says what the term means, which rule sets it, and what it decides. Where another Globe guide already walks a whole procedure, we've linked it instead of repeating it.

One thing before the list, because most of the entries depend on it. Three rulebooks cover rentals here, and your building sits under exactly one of them: the city's Rent Stabilization Ordinance for older buildings, the city's Just Cause Ordinance for most of the rest, and the state's Tenant Protection Act underneath both. Which one is yours turns on a date in 1978 and a certificate of occupancy, and we've worked that question through in six steps on its own page.

AB 1482 — the Tenant Protection Act

The state's rent cap, and the one that governs most L.A. buildings the city's own ordinance doesn't reach. Civil Code section 1947.12 holds an increase to 5 percent plus the change in the cost of living, or 10 percent, whichever is lower, spread over no more than two increments in any 12 months. For increases that start between August 1, 2026 and July 31, 2027, the Attorney General's rent-cap chart puts the Los Angeles area — Los Angeles and Orange counties together — at 8.7 percent, up from 8 percent the year before.

Two things about it surprise people. A building that received its certificate of occupancy within the previous 15 years is exempt, and the exemption rolls, so a building crosses into the cap on its fifteenth birthday rather than staying outside it forever. And the section repeals itself on January 1, 2030 unless the Legislature moves the date. One caution: LAHD's own Just Cause page was still printing the cap for increases that started between August 1, 2024 and July 31, 2025 when we checked it on September 30, 2026. Take the percentage from the Attorney General's chart, which carries the current year.

Access, right of — the 24-hour notice

Your landlord can come in, and the notice that lets them has requirements. Under the city's anti-harassment ordinance a written 24-hour notice must state the specific reason for the entry and a reasonable time window for it, and if it does, the owner may enter whether or not you're home. Abuse of that right is its own violation, and LAHD lists what it looks like: photographing parts of the unit beyond the scope of a lawful inspection, a window unreasonably wide for the stated purpose, failing to tell you an entry was cancelled, and asking to come in far more often than the stated reason justifies.

Allowable increase, the

The percentage an RSO landlord may add to your rent once every 12 months without asking anyone's permission. It's 3 percent for increases effective July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027, and the bulletin that sets it now runs on a floor of 1 percent and a ceiling of 4 percent, calculated off the Consumer Price Index average for the 12 months ending September 30 each year. The adjustment isn't cumulative and isn't retroactive, so a landlord who skipped a year can't stack two.

An ordinance effective February 2, 2026 took two old add-ons off the table. A landlord can no longer fold an extra percentage into the increase for utilities, and adding a dependent to the household is no longer grounds for a raise. An additional tenant who isn't a dependent still carries 10 percent, with the landlord required to give notice within 60 days of learning about them — and required to drop the rent back when that person moves out. Your security deposit may rise by the same 1 to 4 percent at the same time.

AMI — area median income

The federal income yardstick two city programs run on, and the line that matters is 80 percent. A tenant at or below 80 percent of area median income, adjusted for household size, gets the low-income relocation payment regardless of how long they've lived in the unit, and is the tenant the Right to Counsel program was written for. HUD sets the figures and typically updates them in April, which means the answer to "do I qualify" can change in the spring without anything changing about you.

Buyout agreement — "cash for keys"

A written deal in which a landlord pays you to leave an RSO unit voluntarily. It isn't an eviction notice, you're never required to sign one, and the rules around it run in your favor. Before making the offer the landlord has to give you a signed, dated RSO Disclosure Notice; the agreement has to be in your primary language; and it has to carry a sentence in 12-point bold above the signature line telling you that you may cancel within 30 days of everyone signing. The landlord then has 60 days to file both documents with LAHD.

If any of that didn't happen, the deal is cancellable at any time, for any reason, and the failure is an affirmative defense if the landlord later sues to evict — plus a private civil claim of your own. The program is LAMC 151.31, added by Ordinance 184673, and written buyouts have had to meet its requirements since January 25, 2017.

Cost recovery

The five ways a landlord can get more than the annual percentage, each one requiring LAHD approval before it lands on your bill: capital improvements with a useful life of five years or more, primary renovation of major building systems, seismic retrofit mandated by the soft-story ordinance (No. 183,893), rehabilitation work done to comply with a government order, and a just-and-reasonable increase granted after a financial review of the property's net operating income. The first four are construction. The fifth is arithmetic about the landlord's return, and it's the one that can raise a rent without anybody touching the building.

Costa-Hawkins

The 1995 state law that lets an owner set whatever rent they like when a unit legally goes vacant, which is why two identical units on the same floor of a rent-stabilized building can carry very different rents. Civil Code section 1954.53 is the operative sentence, and subdivision (f) carries an exception worth knowing: the reset doesn't apply where a government inspection report cited the unit for serious health, safety, fire or building code violations at least 60 days before the vacancy, and the violation was still unabated when the last tenant moved out. A landlord who let an order sit doesn't get the new rent.

COVID rent freeze, the

Between March 30, 2020 and March 31, 2023, the city's emergency orders barred cost-recovery surcharges outright, and the allowable annual increase itself sat at zero from March 30, 2020 to January 31, 2024. The bulletin's own chronology shows the restart: 4 percent from February 1, 2024, 4 percent again for the year beginning July 1, 2024, then 3 percent in each of the two years since. A neighbor who signed a lease in 2019 and one who signed in 2024 are carrying very different histories on the same hallway.

Economic threshold — the unpaid-rent floor

Since March 27, 2023, a landlord in the city can't evict you for falling behind unless what you owe exceeds the federal Fair Market Rent for a unit with your number of bedrooms. LAHD's own example uses a one-bedroom renting for $1,500: the landlord can't evict, because what's owed is less than the fair market rent for a one-bedroom. It covers RSO and Just Cause units alike, and it stops a filing rather than cancelling a debt. The money is still owed and can still be sued for.

Ellis Act

The state law that lets a landlord leave the rental business altogether, and the only no-fault route that takes a whole building at once. In the city it runs through LAMC 151.22 through 151.28: the owner files a Notice of Intent to Withdraw with LAHD, and you get 120 days to move — six months if the purpose is demolition for new construction. LAHD writes to you with a case number and the name of the analyst assigned to it, and refers you to the city's relocation consultant for an interview that decides how much you're paid.

The clause people lose is the extension. If you're 62 or older or disabled and have lived in the unit at least a year, you're entitled to one more year — but you have to claim it in writing, to your landlord, within 60 days of the date the landlord filed with LAHD. That date isn't on your notice to move. It's on the Form E3 the owner is separately required to serve you, which is the piece of paper to go looking for the day the first envelope arrives.

JCO — Just Cause Ordinance

The city's second eviction rulebook, covering most residential units the RSO doesn't — including buildings newer than October 1, 1978, and single-family homes. It attaches once you've lived in the unit six months or your original lease has expired, whichever comes first. It bars terminating a tenancy without a stated cause and requires relocation assistance for no-fault evictions, and it says nothing at all about how much your rent can go up; that job belongs to AB 1482. Transient hotels, licensed care facilities, fraternity and sorority houses, an owner's roommate and certain public and nonprofit housing sit outside it.

LAHD — the Los Angeles Housing Department

The agency on the other end of nearly every term here. It registers the city's rental units, runs the inspection program, holds the eviction notices landlords are required to file, sets the relocation amounts and hears the appeals, and takes the complaints. The main line is (866) 557-7368, code enforcement has its own at (888) 557-7368, and the complaint form is online.

No-fault eviction

An eviction that isn't about anything you did, and the category that triggers a relocation payment. The RSO lists seven grounds: the landlord or an immediate family member moving in, a resident manager moving in, demolition or permanent withdrawal from the rental market, a government order to vacate, HUD selling a property it owns, a residential hotel being converted or demolished, and conversion to affordable housing. The landlord has to file a declaration of intent with LAHD before serving you anything, so the paperwork at the city predates the paperwork at your door — which is the first thing to ask about if the sequence looks wrong.

REAP — the Rent Escrow Account Program

What happens to a building whose repairs never got made. Any city or county agency, or a tenant, can refer a building once an order to correct an untenantable condition has run past its compliance deadline; if a hearing officer affirms the placement, LAHD reduces the legal rent by a percentage set by the severity of the deficiencies. The Rent Adjustment Commission's regulation caps that reduction at 50 percent and won't take a rent below $50 a month.

The escrow account is the part tenants misread. Within five business days of the final decision, LAHD opens an account you may pay your rent into instead of paying the landlord — the regulation puts that choice at the tenant's sole discretion, and a deposit into it counts as a payment to the landlord for every purpose, including as an affirmative defense in an eviction case. A landlord has to ask LAHD in writing whether you've been paying into escrow before filing to evict, and the department answers within three business days. When the building comes out of REAP, your rent goes back to its old level 30 days after LAHD notifies you. Our guide to filing a repairs complaint covers the road that gets a building there.

Registration certificate

The annual proof that the landlord registered the unit with the city and paid the fee, posted somewhere conspicuous on the property or served on you directly. Every unit rented or offered for rent has to be registered each year, a new owner has 45 days to do it, and an owner whose exemption status changes has 10 days to tell LAHD and pay. It matters to you for one blunt reason: the surcharges below can only be collected after the units are registered and you've had written notice.

Relocation assistance

The payment a landlord owes for a no-fault eviction, and which payment depends on which box you're in. A qualified tenant is one who, on the date the termination notice was served, is 62 or older, handicapped or disabled under the state and federal definitions, or has one or more minor dependent children; everyone else is an eligible tenant, paid on length of tenancy. A tenant at or below 80 percent of area median income gets the low-income amount no matter how long they've been there.

Three mechanics decide what actually arrives. The money is paid per unit and not per tenant, so roommates split an equal pro rata share; where more than one amount could apply to a unit, the landlord pays the higher one; and it has to be made available within 15 days of the notice, directly or through an escrow account. Either side has 15 days to appeal the determination, with a filing fee waived for households earning no more than 50 percent of the area's median income. A reduced "mom and pop" amount applies only to owner or family occupancy evictions, in buildings of four or fewer units, and only once every three years. The dollar figures themselves rise every July 1 and live in LAHD's relocation bulletin, which is the one place to read them.

Right to Counsel

A lawyer, if you qualify, in an eviction case. Ordinance 188,681 took effect August 20, 2025 and put three duties on landlords citywide: hand you a Notice of Right to Counsel in your primary language at the start of the tenancy, attach it to any eviction notice or Section 8 termination, and post it in a common area. A tenant whose household is at or below 80 percent of area median income, who lives in the covered geography and doesn't share the unit with the landlord, applies through Stay Housed LA within 30 days of being served.

Mind the faster clock underneath it. You have 10 days from service of an unlawful detainer complaint to file an answer with the court, and missing that lets the court enter a default before anyone argues the case. Apply for help immediately, whatever your income. One wrinkle to know before you dial: LAHD's pages print two different phone numbers for Stay Housed LA — (800) 694-0040 on the Right to Counsel page, (888) 694-0040 on the Ellis Act page — so go to stayhousedla.org and take the number there.

RSO — the Rent Stabilization Ordinance

The city's rent control, and the term that decides most of the others. It generally covers rental property first built on or before October 1, 1978 that is an apartment, a duplex, a condominium, a townhome, two or more single-family dwellings on one parcel, a residential unit attached to a commercial building, an accessory dwelling unit or a junior ADU, or a room in a hotel, motel, rooming house or boarding house occupied by the same tenant more than 30 consecutive days. Mobile homes and recreational vehicles in mobile home parks are covered too.

Condominium and townhome tenants get an awkward half-answer, and it's worth having straight before you argue with anyone: those units fall under the ordinance, but the rent amount isn't regulated for tenancies that began after December 31, 1995. The eviction protections hold. The percentage doesn't.

SCEP — the Systematic Code Enforcement Program

A routine inspection that arrives whether or not anyone complained. Adopted by Ordinance 172,109 and effective July 15, 1998, SCEP sends a city inspector to every residential rental property with two or more dwelling units at least once every four years. When violations turn up the owner generally gets 30 days to correct them, with up to two further 30-day extensions available depending on the progress made; if the violations survive that, the property goes to a General Manager's hearing, which is the doorway to REAP.

Surcharges

The line items that sit on top of rent without being rent. A landlord may pass through half the annual RSO registration fee at $1.61 a month, half the annual SCEP fee at $2.83 a month, and a $3.00 surcharge for the installation and cost of a hard-wired smoke detector or a combination smoke and carbon monoxide detector. Each needs the units registered and written notice first — 30 days' notice for the $1.61. None of them belongs in the number your percentage increase is calculated from, which is why the city's own calculator tells you to enter your rent before surcharges and then adds them back at the end.

TAHO — the Tenant Anti-Harassment Ordinance

The rule against being pushed out sideways, and it protects every residential tenant in the city whether or not the unit is rent-stabilized. Ordinance 187,109 took effect August 6, 2021, and Ordinance 188,416 strengthened it on December 29, 2024. What it reaches is a landlord's bad-faith conduct — willful, reckless or grossly negligent — aimed at a specific tenant: stripping out a service the lease provides, letting repairs run late, abusing the right of access, refusing lawful rent, asking about your immigration status or disclosing it, retaliating against tenant organizing, unilaterally changing the terms of the tenancy.

The remedies are the reason to keep a dated log. A tenant who prevails in civil court is awarded three times compensatory damages, including for emotional distress, plus attorney's fees and costs and civil penalties of at least $2,000 and up to $10,000 per violation depending on severity — with up to $5,000 more per violation where the tenant was over 65 or disabled when the conduct happened. The same conduct can also be charged as a misdemeanor carrying up to six months in jail or a $1,000 fine per offense.

THP — Tenant Habitability Plan

The document that has to exist before a landlord starts primary renovation work: new central heating or air conditioning, water and sewage piping, wiring inside walls, elevators, structural reinforcement, or abatement of lead paint or asbestos. LAHD must accept the plan in advance of the work beginning, not partway through it. A tenant affected by that work also has the option to end the tenancy voluntarily in exchange for permanent relocation assistance on the terms the accepted plan sets out — and being evicted for failing to comply with an accepted plan is one of the vacancies that lets the rent reset to market.

Unlawful detainer — the UD

The eviction lawsuit itself, which arrives as a summons and complaint and starts a 10-day clock to file an answer with the court. Nothing before it is the lawsuit: a notice to pay or quit is a notice, a declaration filed with LAHD is a filing, and neither one moves you out. Our eviction timeline lays out every deadline from the first notice to the lockout, in order.

Vacancy decontrol

The rule that decides whether the next tenant pays market rate or pays yours. Under the RSO the rent resets only when the tenancy ended for a listed reason — you moved out voluntarily, you were evicted for not paying the legal rent, you were evicted for a lease violation you didn't cure, you were evicted for failing to comply with a Tenant Habitability Plan or under a City Attorney order, or you took a buyout under a filed disclosure. Everywhere else, the rent for the new tenant has to stay where it was.

Two entries on the other side of that list are the ones to read twice. A landlord who evicted for owner, family or resident-manager occupancy and then let the unit go may not raise the rent, and neither may a landlord who evicted because a tenant wouldn't sign a similar new lease or wouldn't allow reasonable access. The rent stays put, and the next tenant inherits it.

ZIMAS

The city's zoning map, and the fastest answer to the question every entry above depends on. Put your address into zimas.lacity.org and the record will tell you whether the unit is under the RSO. If you'd rather not, text the letters RSO to (855) 880-7368 and follow the instructions — using the lowest street number on the building, not your own. For a building addressed 1722 through 1728 North Main, you send 1722 N Main St.