Reported / Citable
Background
After the COVID-19 pandemic, the City of Los Angeles enacted two ordinances affecting landlords and tenants. The Eviction Threshold Ordinance required tenants to owe more than one month’s fair market rent before a landlord could file an unlawful detainer action for nonpayment. The Relocation Assistance Ordinance required landlords to pay displaced tenants three times the fair market rent when raising rents above a threshold of 5% plus the consumer price index.
The Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles challenged both ordinances as preempted by state law. The trial court issued a mixed ruling. Both sides appealed.
The Court’s Holding
The Second District Court of Appeal partially affirmed and partially reversed. The court upheld the Eviction Threshold Ordinance, finding it was a permissible substantive regulation of the grounds for eviction — not a procedural limitation on unlawful detainer actions that would conflict with the state Unlawful Detainer Act. The city had authority under its police power to define when nonpayment becomes severe enough to justify eviction, and requiring a threshold of one month’s fair market rent did not impermissibly add a procedural prerequisite to the statutory eviction process.
However, the court struck down the Relocation Assistance Ordinance as preempted by the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act. Following its own recent decision in California Apartment Assn. v. City of Pasadena (2025), the court held that requiring landlords to pay three times fair market rent as relocation assistance when raising rents above a certain level effectively caps rents — which is exactly what Costa-Hawkins prohibits for units not otherwise subject to rent control. The financial burden of the relocation payment made rent increases above the threshold economically infeasible, functioning as a de facto rent ceiling.
Key Takeaways
- California cities may impose substantive minimum-debt thresholds for nonpayment evictions without conflicting with the state Unlawful Detainer Act, so long as the ordinance regulates the grounds for eviction rather than the procedure.
- Relocation-assistance mandates triggered by rent increases above a specific percentage are preempted by the Costa-Hawkins Act when they function as de facto rent caps on units not otherwise subject to rent control.
- The court followed its own Pasadena precedent on the Costa-Hawkins issue, signaling a consistent appellate approach to similar ordinances across Los Angeles County.
- The distinction between substantive eviction grounds and procedural unlawful-detainer prerequisites is now a key framework for evaluating local tenant-protection ordinances.
Why It Matters
This opinion is essential reading for California landlords, tenants, and municipalities. The eviction-threshold holding gives cities a green light to set minimum-debt floors for nonpayment evictions — a tool that several jurisdictions have adopted or considered in the wake of COVID-era tenant protections. Landlords in cities with such ordinances must track accumulated debt carefully before initiating eviction proceedings.
The relocation-assistance holding, however, limits how far cities can go in discouraging rent increases through financial penalties. By treating relocation mandates as de facto rent caps subject to Costa-Hawkins preemption, the court has drawn a line that will affect pending and proposed ordinances in cities across the state. Housing policy advocates on both sides should expect this issue to reach the California Supreme Court.