California SB 329 and What It Means for LA Rentals

California's Source of Income Protection law (SB 329, effective January 1, 2020) changed how every California property manager and owner has to handle Section 8, Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (VASH), and other voucher applicants.

Six years in, here's what we've learned at Sunset.

What SB 329 actually requires

SB 329 amended the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) to add "source of income" as a protected category for housing. Specifically, it prohibits:

1. Refusing to rent based on a tenant's lawful source of income — including Section 8 housing choice vouchers, VASH vouchers, social security, disability income, or any other government-issued income source.
2. Stating in any rental advertisement a preference based on income source ("no Section 8" advertisements are illegal).
3. Treating voucher applicants differently in screening — same credit standards, same income standards (with vouchered portion counted toward income), same lease terms.

What it does NOT require

• Owners are not required to rent to any specific applicant. Standard FCRA-compliant screening (credit, eviction history, criminal history with individualized review) still applies.
• Owners are not required to lower screening standards.
• Owners are not required to participate in the Section 8 program if they don't want to. However, refusing solely because the applicant holds a voucher is illegal.

How Sunset handles voucher applicants

We screen voucher applicants the same way we screen any applicant: 660+ credit (with the vouchered portion counted toward income), eviction-free five-year history, FCRA-compliant background check.

For owners who choose to participate in Section 8 (HACLA in LA), we coordinate the housing-authority inspection (typically 14-21 day turnaround in LA County), the HAP contract, and the rent-portion split. There's no additional fee.

What this means in practice

Most Sunset properties are voucher-compatible. Some are not — typically high-end properties where the rent exceeds the local Section 8 payment standard. We disclose voucher compatibility on every listing.

Since 2020, roughly 6% of Sunset lease signings have involved housing vouchers. The retention rate of voucher tenants in our portfolio is slightly higher than non-voucher tenants (4.6 years vs. 3.9 years).

Questions about applying with a voucher? Email leasing@sunsetprop.example. Questions as an owner about voucher compatibility? Get in touch.

California's statewide rent cap is six years old, and it's still the question we get most often from owners — usually the week before they want to raise the rent. Here is the version we'd want a friend to read before signing a renewal.

What AB-1482 actually is.

AB-1482, signed in 2019 and effective January 1, 2020, is the Tenant Protection Act of 2019. It does two things: it caps annual rent increases on covered properties, and it requires a "just cause" reason to evict a resident who has been in the unit twelve months or more.

It does not replace local rent control. In Los Angeles, your building either falls under the city's RSO (rent stabilization) ordinance, or — if it doesn't — it likely falls under AB-1482. A small slice falls under neither, and a vanishing slice falls under both with the stricter of the two governing.

Who's exempt.

The exemptions are narrower than most owners think. The big ones:

• New construction. Properties with a certificate of occupancy issued in the past 15 years (rolling). A 2014 build is covered starting 2029.
• Single-family homes & condos, but only if the owner is not a corporation, REIT, or LLC with a corporate member, and the resident has been served the prescribed exemption notice in writing.
• Owner-occupied duplexes where the owner has occupied one unit as their primary residence since the start of the tenancy.
• Affordable / deed-restricted housing, school dorms, and a couple of other specific categories.

If a fourplex you bought through your S-corp or LLC is your only rental, it is covered. The "single-family / condo" exemption does not apply because your ownership entity is corporate-structured.

Owners are surprised, every time, that an LLC means no exemption — even if the LLC is just them.

How the cap is calculated.

The cap is the lower of:

1. 5% plus the regional CPI, or
2. 10%.

"Regional CPI" means the April CPI for the metro area where the property sits — for LA, that's the Los Angeles–Long Beach–Anaheim CPI-U, published mid-May. For 2026 in our region the cap lands at 8.6% (5% plus 3.6% CPI). The cap resets every August 1.

The cap applies over a rolling twelve-month window. If you raised 4% in November, you can raise an additional 4.6% the following November — not all 8.6% on top of the prior raise.

Required notices.

Two notices matter most:

• The AB-1482 disclosure, which must be included on every new lease and renewal. We attach it as an addendum.
• The 30-day notice of rent increase for any raise of 10% or less, or 90-day notice for raises over 10% (which AB-1482 doesn't allow on covered units anyway, but is relevant on exempt units).

Just-cause eviction.

For residents who have been in the unit twelve months or more (or two of the same household 24 months or more), the landlord needs a "just cause" to terminate. There are two flavors:

• At-fault — nonpayment, breach of lease, criminal activity, refusal to sign a similar renewal, etc.
• No-fault — owner move-in, withdrawal from the rental market (Ellis), substantial remodel, government order. No-fault terminations require relocation assistance equal to one month's rent.

RSO + AB-1482 interactions.

Inside the City of LA, RSO covers most multifamily built before October 1978. RSO's annual cap is generally lower (3–8% based on CPI), and its just-cause rules are stricter. RSO wins where it applies. AB-1482 fills the gap for everything not covered by RSO.

So a 1962 fourplex in Silver Lake follows RSO. A 1992 fourplex in Silver Lake follows AB-1482. A 2018 fourplex follows neither (yet — until 2033).

How we handle it.

For every unit under management we track:

• Whether it's RSO, AB-1482, both, or neither, and which controls.
• The maximum allowable increase in the current 12-month window.
• The last increase date and amount, so we honor the rolling window.
• Service of the AB-1482 disclosure on the lease and any renewals.
• Annual LAHD registration for RSO units.

If you want to talk through your specific building, drop us a line. None of this is legal advice, and edge cases exist — when in doubt we loop in a tenant-defense-aware landlord attorney.