Free California Lease Extension Agreement

A lease extension is an agreement to carry an existing tenancy into a further term. It continues the existing lease rather than replacing it with a new one — that is the usual distinction between an extension and a renewal — though leases and statutes often use the two words for the same thing, so what governs is what the document in front of you actually says. Whether a further fixed term begins is a matter of contract, and the lease decides. What California adds is a limit on ending the tenancy at all: after a tenant has been in place for twelve months, ending the tenancy — including by declining to continue it — requires just cause under Civ. Code § 1946.2, the cause has to be written into the notice, and a no-fault cause carries a relocation payment or a written waiver of the final month’s rent. That is subject to an important gate: § 1946.2(e) lists nine categories of property and circumstance the section does not reach at all. Alongside all of it sits § 827, which governs what it costs in notice to change the rent or the other terms.

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This document records that an existing tenancy is continuing, on what terms, and for how long. It amends the lease rather than replacing it, so every term the parties do not change carries forward. In California it also does something more specific. Because § 1946.2 attaches consequences to the length of a tenant’s continuous occupancy — where the section reaches the property at all — and because § 827 attaches different notice periods to different sizes of rent increase, the renewal is the natural place to fix those facts in writing while everyone still agrees about them: when this tenant’s occupancy began, what the rent was before the change, and what kind of property this is.

• The parties, exactly as they are named on the lease being renewed.
• The property, including the unit number.
• The date the original lease was signed and the date its term ends.
• The date this tenant’s continuous occupancy began, which is the § 1946.2 clock.
• Whether any adult tenant was added to the lease after the tenancy began, and on what date.
• What kind of property this is — because § 1946.2(e) disapplies the section to nine categories, including an owner-occupied two-unit structure and housing issued a certificate of occupancy within the previous 15 years.
• The new term – its start date, and its end date if it is a fixed term.
• The rent for the new term, the rent before it, and the date the new rent takes effect.
• Any other rent increases in the twelve months before that effective date, because § 827(b) measures the ten per cent on a combined basis.
• Whether any statute, regulation, recorded regulatory agreement or contract sets a longer notice period than § 827 does, since § 827(c) makes the longer one govern.
• Every other term that is changing, and a statement that the rest continue unchanged.
• What happens to the deposit already held — and, if the renewal asks for more, whether § 1950.5(c) permits it, since (c)(1) bars demanding or receiving security in excess of one month’s rent except as (c)(2), (3) and (5) provide.
• The date, and a signature from the landlord and from every tenant named on the lease.

• Assuming § 1946.2 covers the property. Subdivision (e) lists nine categories it does not reach — including a two-unit structure in which the owner occupied one unit as a principal place of residence at the beginning of the tenancy and continues in occupancy, where neither unit is an accessory or junior accessory dwelling unit, and housing issued a certificate of occupancy within the previous 15 years. Reading the just-cause rule onto an exempt property is the commonest error in both directions.
• Treating non-renewal as a free choice where the section does apply. After twelve months of continuous lawful occupancy, § 1946.2(a) requires just cause to end the tenancy, and requires it to be stated in the notice.
• Serving a no-fault notice without the money or the wording. § 1946.2(d)(1) requires a relocation payment or a written waiver of the final month’s rent regardless of the tenant’s income; (d)(2) requires the notice itself to state the tenant’s right to it; (d)(3)(A) requires any relocation assistance within 15 calendar days of service; and (d)(4) provides that failure to strictly comply renders the notice of termination void.
• Skipping the cure step on a curable violation. § 1946.2(c) requires the owner first to give notice of the violation with an opportunity to cure under paragraph (3) of Code of Civil Procedure § 1161 before issuing a notice to terminate on that ground.
• Counting the ten per cent on a single increase. § 827(b) measures it “either in and of itself or when combined with” any other rent increases for the 12 months before the effective date.
• Reading the 30- and 90-day periods as ceilings. § 827(c) provides that where a statute, regulation, recorded regulatory agreement or contract sets a longer period, service must follow the longer one.
• Assuming a mailed notice buys you nothing and costs you nothing. § 827(b) makes both periods subject to Code of Civil Procedure § 1013 if served by mail, and § 1013(a) extends a statutory notice period by five calendar days on mailing within California, 10 if either end is out of state but in the United States, and 20 if either is outside it. That is a general service rule with its own exceptions, so check it against the notice rather than pencilling five days onto every date.
• Taking a bigger deposit at renewal without checking the cap. § 1950.5(c)(1) bars a landlord from demanding or receiving security, however denominated, in excess of one month’s rent, except as paragraphs (2), (3) and (5) of that subdivision provide — among them (5)(A)’s two-month allowance for a landlord who is a natural person, or a limited liability company all of whose members are natural persons, owning no more than two residential rental properties with no more than four dwelling units between them, which (5)(B) then disapplies where the prospective tenant is a service member.
• Borrowing a rule from the commercial part of § 827. Subdivisions (b)(4) to (b)(6) are limited to commercial real property let to a qualified commercial tenant, and (b)(7)(A) defines that term to exclude dwelling units.
• Measuring the twelve months from the lease date. § 1946.2(a) measures continuous and lawful occupancy.

Whether a further fixed term begins is a matter of contract: the lease decides, and there is no statute in the captured material giving a tenant a right to a new fixed term. But the question most Californians actually mean by “does it renew” is different — can the landlord simply end things when the term runs out?

Civ. Code § 1946.2(a) provides that “after a tenant has continuously and lawfully occupied a residential real property for 12 months, the owner … shall not terminate a tenancy without just cause, which shall be stated in the written notice to terminate tenancy”.

The sentence is short and every part of it is doing work. “Continuously and lawfully occupied” sets a clock that runs on occupancy, not on paperwork; the date the lease was signed is not the date the clock starts if the tenant moved in later. Twelve months is the threshold. And the cause must be stated in the written notice — the statute is not satisfied by a cause that existed and was never written down.

The subdivision also deals with households that change, and the trigger is precise: where additional adult tenants are added to the lease before an existing tenant has continuously and lawfully occupied the property for 24 months, the subdivision applies only where the conditions stated in it are met — that all of the tenants have continuously and lawfully occupied the property for twelve months or more, or that one or more tenants have done so for twenty-four months or more.

Note that it is being added to the lease that matters, not simply moving in. The proviso restricts a tenant protection, so reading it to cover anyone who started living there would work against the tenant. If your household has added an adult tenant to the lease since the tenancy began, read § 1946.2 in full rather than relying on any summary, including this one.

All of which is subject to a prior question, and it is the one this page puts first because a reader who skips it can be told the opposite of the statute: does § 1946.2 reach this property at all?

§ 1946.2(e) opens: “This section shall not apply to the following types of residential real properties or residential circumstances”. Nine categories follow, and the conditions attached to them are the whole of their meaning — an exemption stated without its conditions is as wrong as no exemption at all. As captured, they are:

• (1) “Transient and tourist hotel occupancy as defined in subdivision (b) of Section 1940.”
• (2) Housing accommodations in a nonprofit hospital, religious facility, extended care facility, licensed residential care facility for the elderly as defined in Health and Safety Code § 1569.2, or an adult residential facility as defined in the Manual of Policies and Procedures published by the State Department of Social Services.
• (3) Dormitories owned and operated by an institution of higher education, or by a kindergarten and grades 1 to 12, inclusive, school.
• (4) “Housing accommodations in which the tenant shares bathroom or kitchen facilities with the owner who maintains their principal residence at the residential real property.” The owner’s own principal residence has to be there; a shared kitchen with an absent owner is not this category.
• (5) “Single-family owner-occupied residences, including both of the following:” — and subparagraph (A) reads “A residence in which the owner-occupant rents or leases no more than two units or bedrooms, including, but not limited to, an accessory dwelling unit or a junior accessory dwelling unit.” The two-unit-or-bedroom limit is part of the exemption, not a gloss on it. (The chapeau promises two items; the text retrieved for this page prints subparagraph (A) only, which is a reason to read the subdivision at source rather than to assume what the second item says.)
• (6) “A property containing two separate dwelling units within a single structure in which the owner occupied one of the units as the owner’s principal place of residence at the beginning of the tenancy, so long as the owner continues in occupancy, and neither unit is an accessory dwelling unit or a junior accessory dwelling unit.” Three conditions, all live: principal residence, at the beginning of the tenancy, and continuing.
• (7) “Housing that has been issued a certificate of occupancy within the previous 15 years, unless the housing is a mobilehome.”
• (8) Residential real property, including a mobilehome, that is alienable separate from the title to any other dwelling unit — but only where both of two things are true. (A) the owner is not one of the listed entities, which in the captured text are a real estate investment trust as defined in Internal Revenue Code § 856, a limited liability company in which at least one member is a corporation, and management of a mobilehome park as defined in § 798.2; and (B) the tenants have been given written notice that the property is exempt, in the statutory words the subdivision sets out. Timing matters: for a tenancy commenced or renewed on or after 1 July 2020 (1 July 2022 for a mobilehome tenancy) that notice must be in the rental agreement, while for earlier tenancies it may be. Without the notice, this exemption does not do its work.
• (9) “Housing restricted by deed, regulatory restriction contained in an agreement with a government agency, or other recorded document as affordable housing for persons and families of very low, low, or moderate income … or subject to an agreement that provides housing subsidies for affordable housing for persons and families of very low, low, or moderate income … or comparable federal statutes.” This is wider than “deed-restricted affordable housing”: a regulatory agreement or a subsidy agreement is enough.

Two further carve-outs sit outside (e). § 1946.2(i)(1)(A) disapplies the section to residential real property subject to a local ordinance requiring just cause for termination adopted on or before 1 September 2019 — “in which case the local ordinance shall apply”. Subparagraph (B) does the same for an ordinance adopted or amended after that date which is more protective on the three criteria the subdivision lists, and (i)(2) provides that a property is not subject to both a local just-cause ordinance and this section. And § 1946.2(l) provides that the section “shall not apply to a homeowner of a mobilehome, as defined in Section 798.9”.

The point of setting this out is not to let anyone decide their own case from a summary. It is that a page which states the just-cause rule flatly, as though it covered every California tenancy past twelve months, tells a large class of readers the opposite of the statute. If you rent the other half of an owner-occupied duplex, or a room where you share the kitchen with an owner who lives there, or a recently built unit, read subdivision (e) before assuming § 1946.2 protects you — and check your city’s ordinance, which may protect you where the state section does not.

The traffic runs the other way too. An owner who assumes an exemption applies, and serves a notice with no cause stated, has a problem if a condition is missing: under § 1946.2(g) an owner’s failure to comply with any provision of the section “shall render the written termination notice void”, and under (h) an owner who attempts to recover possession in material violation of the section is liable to the tenant in a civil action, with attorney’s fees and costs in the court’s discretion and up to three times the actual damages on a showing of wilfulness, oppression, fraud or malice. § 1946.2(j) adds that “Any waiver of the rights under this section shall be void as contrary to public policy”.

Where the section does apply, § 1946.2(b) defines just cause as either at-fault just cause or no-fault just cause, and both lists are set out in the captured text. Taking the at-fault grounds in (b)(1) as they are lettered:

• (A) Default in the payment of rent.
• (B) A breach of a material term of the lease, as described in paragraph (3) of Code of Civil Procedure § 1161, including but not limited to violation of a lease provision after being issued a written notice to correct the violation.
• (C) Maintaining, committing, or permitting the maintenance or commission of a nuisance as described in paragraph (4) of § 1161.
• (D) Committing waste as described in paragraph (4) of § 1161.
• (E) The renewal ground, and the one this page exists for: the tenant had a written lease that terminated on or after 1 January 2020 (1 January 2022 for a tenancy in a mobilehome) and, “after a written request or demand from the owner, the tenant has refused to execute a written extension or renewal of the lease for an additional term of similar duration with similar provisions, provided that those terms do not violate this section or any other provision of law”.
• (F) Criminal activity by the tenant on the property, including common areas, or criminal activity or a criminal threat as defined in Penal Code § 422(a), on or off the property, directed at an owner or agent of the owner.
• (G) Assigning or subletting the premises in violation of the tenant’s lease, as described in paragraph (4) of § 1161.
• (H) The tenant’s refusal to allow the owner to enter as authorized by §§ 1101.5 and 1954 of the Civil Code and §§ 13113.7 and 17926.1 of the Health and Safety Code.
• (I) Using the premises for an unlawful purpose as described in paragraph (4) of § 1161.
• (J) An employee, agent or licensee’s failure to vacate after their termination as an employee, agent or licensee, as described in paragraph (1) of § 1161.
• (K) Failing to deliver possession after giving the owner written notice under § 1946 of an intention to terminate, or after making a written offer to surrender that the owner accepted in writing, at the time specified.

Ground (E) is worth pausing on in a renewal context. It is not a general power to insist on new terms: the extension or renewal the owner demands must be of similar duration with similar provisions, and those terms must not violate the section or any other law. A tenant who declines a materially different deal is not obviously within (E). Note too that § 1946.2(b)(2)(A)(ii) and (e)(8)(B)(iv) each provide that adding the particular provision they describe to a new or renewed rental agreement “constitutes a similar provision for the purposes of subparagraph (E)”.

One procedural rule governs the curable half of that list. § 1946.2(c) provides that before issuing a notice to terminate for a just cause that is a curable lease violation, “the owner shall first give notice of the violation to the tenant with an opportunity to cure the violation pursuant to paragraph (3) of Section 1161 of the Code of Civil Procedure”. Only if the violation is not cured within the time set out in that notice may a three-day notice to quit without an opportunity to cure be served.

Paragraph (3) of § 1161 is worth knowing rather than taking on trust, because it is what that cross-reference imports. It requires three days’ notice, excluding Saturdays, Sundays and other judicial holidays, in writing, requiring performance of the conditions or covenants or possession of the property. Within that same three days the tenant — or a mortgagee of the term, or another person interested in its continuance — may perform the conditions or covenants, or pay the stipulated rent, and thereby “save the lease from forfeiture”. The paragraph has its own proviso: where the covenants the tenant has broken cannot afterwards be performed, no such notice demanding performance need be given. So the cure step § 1946.2(c) requires is a real, dated opportunity with a defined length, not a courtesy letter. Paragraph (4) of the same section is the limb the just-cause list points at for waste, nuisance and unlawful purpose.

No-fault just cause under § 1946.2(b)(2) is the category that shows up in renewal conversations, because it is how a tenancy ends when nobody has done anything wrong. There are four grounds.

(A) Owner or relative move-in. Clause (i): “Intent to occupy the residential real property by the owner or the owner’s spouse, domestic partner, children, grandchildren, parents, or grandparents for a minimum of 12 continuous months as that person’s primary residence.” The conditions around it are substantial. For leases entered into on or after 1 July 2020 (1 July 2022 for a mobilehome tenancy), clause (ii) applies the ground only where the tenant agrees in writing to the termination or a lease provision allows it. Clause (iii) disapplies it where the intended occupant already occupies a rental unit on the property, or where a vacancy of a similar unit already exists there. Clause (iv) requires the written notice to contain the name and relationship of the intended occupant and to tell the tenant they may request proof. Clause (v) requires the intended occupant to move in within 90 days of the tenant vacating and to occupy as a primary residence for at least 12 consecutive months — and clause (vi) provides that if they do not, the owner must offer the unit back to the tenant who vacated at the same rent and lease terms in effect when they left and reimburse reasonable moving expenses incurred in excess of any relocation assistance already paid.

(B) Withdrawal of the residential real property from the rental market.

(C) Complying with an order or ordinance. The owner complying with an order issued by a government agency or court relating to habitability that necessitates vacating, an order to vacate, or a local ordinance that necessitates vacating. Clause (ii) adds that where a government agency or court determines the tenant is at fault for the condition triggering the order, the tenant is not entitled to the relocation assistance in paragraph (3) of subdivision (d).

(D) Intent to demolish or to substantially remodel. “Substantially remodel” is defined, and narrowly: work that cannot reasonably be accomplished in a safe manner with the tenant living there and that requires the tenant to vacate for at least 30 consecutive days, being either the replacement or substantial modification of a structural, electrical, plumbing or mechanical system requiring a permit, or the abatement of hazardous materials including lead-based paint, mould or asbestos. Clause (iii) is explicit that “Cosmetic improvements alone, including painting, decorating, and minor repairs” do not qualify. Clause (iv) sets out what the notice must contain, including a statutory paragraph telling the tenant that if the remodel or demolition is not commenced or completed the owner must offer the unit back on the same terms at the rent in effect when they vacated, a description of the work and its expected duration, and a copy of the permit or, in the hazardous-materials case where no permit is required, a copy of the signed contract.

Those four are the complete no-fault list as captured. If a notice cites a ground that does not match any of them, that is a reason to read the section rather than to assume the ground exists.

A no-fault termination carries money, and it is the most consequential thing about the category. § 1946.2(d)(1) requires the owner, on issuing a termination notice based on a no-fault just cause, regardless of the tenant’s income, to do one of two things at the owner’s option: (A) “Assist the tenant to relocate by providing a direct payment to the tenant as described in paragraph (3)”, or (B) “Waive in writing the payment of rent for the final month of the tenancy, prior to the rent becoming due”.

(d)(2) puts a requirement on the notice itself. Where an owner issues a no-fault termination notice, “the owner shall notify the tenant in the written termination notice of the tenant’s right to relocation assistance or rent waiver pursuant to this section”. And if the owner elects the rent waiver, “the notice shall state the amount of rent waived and that no rent is due for the final month of the tenancy”. A notice that quietly performs the obligation without saying so does not satisfy that paragraph.

(d)(3)(A) fixes both the amount and the deadline. The relocation assistance or rent waiver “shall be equal to one month of the tenant’s rent that was in effect when the owner issued the notice to terminate the tenancy”, and “Any relocation assistance shall be provided within 15 calendar days of service of the notice”. That deadline is easy to miss, because it runs from service rather than from the tenant leaving. (d)(3)(B) then provides that if the tenant does not vacate when the notice expires, the actual amount provided is recoverable as damages in an action to recover possession, and (d)(3)(C) credits it against any other relocation assistance required by any other law.

And § 1946.2(d)(4) supplies the sanction: “An owner’s failure to strictly comply with this subdivision shall render the notice of termination void.” Not voidable, and not a matter of substantial compliance. A no-fault notice served without the payment, without the written waiver, or without the wording (d)(2) requires is, on the face of that paragraph, no notice at all.

There is a separate notice duty in § 1946.2(f) that a renewal is the natural moment to satisfy: an owner of property subject to the section must give the tenant a statutory notification, in no less than 12-point type, describing the rent limits in § 1947.12 and the statement-of-cause requirement in this section. For a tenancy commenced or renewed on or after 1 July 2020 it goes in the lease or rental agreement, as an addendum, or as a written notice signed by the tenant with a copy provided; for a mobilehome tenancy the corresponding date is 1 July 2022.

Since that notification has to describe § 1947.12, here is what § 1947.12 does, from its own text. § 1947.12(a)(1) provides that, subject to subdivision (b), an owner of residential real property shall not, over the course of any 12-month period, increase the gross rental rate for a dwelling or unit by more than 5 per cent plus the percentage change in the cost of living, or 10 per cent, whichever is lower, of the lowest gross rental rate charged for that dwelling or unit at any time during the 12 months before the effective date — excluding, in that calculation, any discounts, incentives, concessions or credits the owner offered and the tenant accepted, which the section also requires to be separately listed and identified in the agreement. (a)(2) adds that where the same tenant remains in occupancy, the rate may not be increased in more than two increments over a 12-month period. (b) lets an owner set the initial rate freely for a new tenancy in which no tenant from the prior tenancy remains in lawful possession, subdivision (a) biting only on increases after that.

Two cautions about it, both of which matter at a renewal. The first is that this is a different rule from § 827: § 1947.12 limits how much the rent may go up, while § 827 sets how much notice the increase takes. An increase can satisfy one and fail the other. The second is that § 1947.12(d) has its own exemption list, and it is not identical to § 1946.2(e). It reaches deed-restricted and subsidised affordable housing, dormitories, housing already under a valid local rent or price control that restricts annual increases below the (a) figure, housing issued a certificate of occupancy within the previous 15 years unless it is a mobilehome, and separately alienable property on conditions of its own. A property outside § 1946.2 is not automatically outside § 1947.12, or the reverse. This page does not compute a permitted increase; the percentage change in the cost of living is an external figure and the section defines how it is measured. Read § 1947.12 at source before setting a number.

A renewal is usually when the rent changes, and California prices that change in notice. Civ. Code § 827(b)(1) sets the scope: it applies “In all leases of a residential dwelling, commercial real property by a qualified commercial tenant, or of any interest therein, from week to week, month to month, or other period less than a month”. Residential tenancies are squarely inside it.

From there the ladder has three rungs:

Ten per cent or less — at least 30 days. Under § 827(b)(2), where the increase, “either in and of itself or when combined with any other rent increases for the 12 months before the effective date of the increase”, is ten per cent or less of the rental amount charged to that tenant at any time during those twelve months, the notice must be delivered at least thirty days before the effective date.

More than ten per cent — at least 90 days. Under § 827(b)(3)(A), where the increase on that same combined basis is greater than ten per cent, the notice must be delivered at least ninety days before the effective date.

A recertification-driven increase — 30 days. Under § 827(b)(3)(B), where the increase is caused by a change in the tenant’s income or family composition as determined by a recertification required by statute or regulation, thirty days’ notice applies and (3)(A) does not.

Two riders travel with all of this. The ten per cent test is combined: two increases in one year that each look modest can add up across the line, and when they do, the ninety-day period applies. And the ladder is a floor, not a ceiling. § 827(c): where a state or federal statute, a state or federal regulation, a recorded regulatory agreement, or a contract provides for a longer period of notice regarding a rent increase than subdivision (a) or (b) provides, “the personal service or mailing of the notice shall be in accordance with the longer period”. So the lease itself, or a regulatory agreement on a subsidised property, can require more than ninety days — and where it does, that is the governing period. Check both before relying on the statutory minimum.

This is worth saying out loud rather than leaving to trust. Section 827 covers residential and commercial tenancies in the same section, and its subdivisions are not interchangeable.

Subdivisions (b)(4), (5) and (6) apply only to commercial real property let to a qualified commercial tenant. That includes the rule — frequently quoted online as if it were general California law — that a rent increase is not effective until the notice period has expired. Subdivision (b)(5) states that rule for commercial leases by a qualified commercial tenant. And § 827(b)(7)(A) defines “commercial real property” as all real property in the state except dwelling units subject to Chapter 2 (commencing with § 1940), mobilehomes and recreational vehicles.

So a residential reader who finds a confident sentence about § 827 online should check which subdivision it came from. This page states (b)(1) through (b)(3) because those reach residential dwellings, and deliberately does not state (b)(4) to (b)(6).

Rent is not the only thing a renewal changes. Section 827(a)(1) applies “Except as provided in subdivision (b)” — so a rent increase runs under (b), not here — and requires the landlord to give notice in writing to the tenant, in the manner prescribed by Section 1162 of the Code of Civil Procedure. On that footing the landlord may “change the terms of the lease to take effect, as to tenancies for less than one month, upon the expiration of a period at least as long as the term of the hiring itself, and, as to tenancies from month to month, to take effect at the expiration of not less than 30 days”. Where a change takes effect within a rental term, the same paragraph provides that rent accruing from the first day of the term to the date of the change is computed at the rate obtained immediately before it.

The service requirement is not decoration, and § 1162 is specific about what counts. § 1162(a) gives three methods: (1) delivering a copy to the tenant personally; (2) where the tenant is absent from both their residence and their usual place of business, leaving a copy with a person of suitable age and discretion at either place and sending a copy through the mail addressed to the tenant at their residence; and (3) where neither place can be ascertained or no such person can be found there, affixing a copy in a conspicuous place on the property, also delivering a copy to a person residing there if one can be found, and also sending a copy through the mail addressed to the tenant at the property. Methods (2) and (3) are each a combination, not a menu — the mailed copy is part of the service, not an alternative to it.

One scope point on § 1162, because it is easy to read the wrong subdivision. The methods above are subdivision (a). Subdivision (b) sets out a different set for a commercial tenant, and subdivision (c) defines a commercial tenant for that purpose as a person or entity hiring real property that is not a dwelling unit as defined in Civ. Code § 1940(c) or a mobilehome as defined in § 798.3. A residential tenancy is served under (a). Note also that § 1162 is written as the service provision for the notices required by §§ 1161 and 1161a; § 827(a)(1) borrows its manner of service, and this page does not go further than that.

There is a proviso, and it is useful in exactly the renewal situation this page is about: the parties may agree in writing that a notice changing terms “may be given at any time not less than seven days before the expiration of a term, to be effective upon the expiration of the term”. That is a shorter route, but it depends on a written agreement rather than on the landlord’s election.

Section 827 also answers the “what if nobody signs anything” question, and its answer is unusual. Under § 827(a)(2), the notice, when served, “shall in and of itself operate and be effectual to create and establish, as a part of the lease, the terms, rents, and conditions specified in the notice, if the tenant shall continue to hold the premises after the notice takes effect”.

In other words, a properly served notice plus continued occupancy after it takes effect writes the new terms into the lease. That is a real mechanism and it means a tenant who disagrees with a change cannot simply stay put and treat the notice as an unanswered letter. It also means a landlord who has served a valid notice does not need the tenant’s signature to make the change operate — though a signed renewal remains a far better record of what both sides understood.

It is worth being careful about scope here, because § 1946.2 and § 827 do not have the same reach and a renewal can move a tenancy from one footing to another.

Section 1946.2(a) is written around occupancy. Its trigger is a tenant having continuously and lawfully occupied a residential real property for twelve months, and it speaks to terminating a tenancy. It does not ask whether that tenancy is a fixed term or a periodic one; it asks how long the tenant has been there — and, before that, whether the property falls into one of the subdivision (e) categories.

Section 827(b)(1), by contrast, states its own scope in terms of the arrangement. It applies to leases of a residential dwelling “from week to week, month to month, or other period less than a month”. Those are periodic tenancies. That framing makes sense: during a fixed term the rent is whatever the lease says it is, and it does not change because a landlord serves a notice — it changes because the parties agree a new figure, which is precisely what a renewal is for.

So the two provisions answer different questions. If a fixed term is ending and the parties are negotiating a new one, the rent for the new term is a matter of agreement, and the tenant’s remedy for disliking it is to decline — subject to § 1946.2, which is about whether the tenancy can be ended at all. If the tenancy has become periodic, § 827’s notice ladder is the mechanism by which the rent is changed without a fresh agreement. Being clear about which of those two situations you are in is the first step in almost every California renewal conversation.

Both notice periods in § 827(b) are expressed to be “subject to Section 1013 of the Code of Civil Procedure if served by mail”. That phrase is easy to skim past, and it is worth following through to what § 1013 actually says.

§ 1013(a) deals with service by mail. The notice is to be deposited in a post office, mailbox or like facility regularly maintained by the United States Postal Service, in a sealed envelope with postage paid, addressed to the person to be served. Then the operative sentence: “Service is complete at the time of the deposit, but any period of notice and any right or duty to do any act or make any response within any period or on a date certain after service of the document, which time period or date is prescribed by statute or rule of court, shall be extended five calendar days, upon service by mail, if the place of address and the place of mailing is within the State of California”. The subdivision then sets 10 calendar days where either the place of mailing or the place of address is outside California but within the United States, 12 where the place of address is the Secretary of State’s address confidentiality programme, and 20 where either is outside the United States. Subdivision (b) requires the mailed copy to bear a notation of the date and place of mailing or be accompanied by an unsigned copy of the affidavit or certificate of mailing.

Two qualifications, and they are the reason to read the section rather than to memorise the number. The first is that the extension is expressed to apply “in the absence of a specific exception provided for by this section or other statute or rule of court”, and § 1013 lists exceptions of its own — notices of intention to move for a new trial, to vacate judgment under § 663a, and notices of appeal. The second is that § 1013 sits in the chapter on notices and the filing and service of papers, and its reach beyond that setting is a question this page does not decide; what it can say is that § 827(b) is the provision that points at it. The safe habit either way is to build in margin rather than trying to land on the last permissible day.

Note in passing that § 1013 has separate rules for other methods: two court days, not calendar days, for Express Mail or another overnight-delivery method under (c), and two court days for service by facsimile under (e), which is permitted only where the parties have agreed in writing.

Note also which paragraph does the work on delivery. § 827(b)(1) gives two procedures for a rent-increase notice: “By delivering a copy to the tenant personally”, or “By serving a copy by mail under the procedures prescribed in Section 1013 of the Code of Civil Procedure”. A change-of-terms notice under (a)(1) is instead to be given “in the manner prescribed by Section 1162 of the Code of Civil Procedure”. Two different cross-references, for two different notices.

There is a related discipline that costs nothing: record how and when the notice was served, not just what it said. In a dispute about whether an increase took effect, the contested fact is almost never the content of the notice. It is the date and the method. A extension document that records the service date of any rent-increase notice puts that fact beyond argument at the moment both sides agree about it.

Section 1946.2(a)’s just-cause requirement is expressed to apply after twelve months of continuous and lawful occupancy. This page therefore does not tell you what applies before that point, and it should not be read as saying that a tenancy inside the first year can be ended freely.

Two reasons for the caution. The first is that the sections read for this page do not establish what other provisions may bear on a tenancy in its first year; § 1946.2 is silent on the point rather than permissive about it. The second is local law. California has a dense layer of city and county regulation, and a number of jurisdictions operate their own just-cause and rent regimes with their own thresholds — which § 1946.2(i) expressly contemplates, and which the ordinance material the project holds for Berkeley, Los Angeles and Oakland illustrates without being a survey of the state. A tenancy that sits outside § 1946.2 on the twelve-month test, or because of a subdivision (e) category, may sit inside a local ordinance.

The honest position, then, is that § 1946.2 tells you what happens once the twelve months are up on a property it reaches, and that anything else needs the local rules checked before a conclusion is drawn either way.

Both of the California rules on this page turn on facts that are easy to establish today and hard to reconstruct in two years: when this tenant’s continuous occupancy actually began, whether an adult tenant was added to the lease and when, what the rent was before this change, whether there were other increases in the preceding twelve months, and what kind of property this is for the purposes of subdivision (e).

None of those are legal conclusions. They are dates, figures and descriptions the parties both know at the moment they renew. Writing them into the renewal costs nothing and removes the commonest source of argument later — not what the statute says, but what the facts were.

A California fixed term that runs out with nothing signed does not leave the parties in a vacuum, but nor does it leave them where either of them probably intended. Where § 1946.2 applies, it continues to govern whether the tenancy can be ended at all once the twelve-month threshold is passed — so a landlord who simply lets the term lapse and asks the tenant to go still needs a stated just cause, and on a no-fault ground still owes the subdivision (d) payment. Where the property falls in a subdivision (e) category, that constraint is absent and what remains is the lease, the ordinary notice rules and any local ordinance. Meanwhile § 827(a)(2) means that any properly served change-of-terms notice already in play can write itself into the lease if the tenant holds over after it takes effect.

California also has a statutory answer to exactly this situation, and it is short. Civ. Code § 1945 provides: “If a lessee of real property remains in possession thereof after the expiration of the hiring, and the lessor accepts rent from him, the parties are presumed to have renewed the hiring on the same terms and for the same time, not exceeding one month when the rent is payable monthly, nor in any case one year.”

Three things about that sentence. The first is that it takes two facts, not one: the tenant staying on, and the landlord accepting rent. Acceptance of rent is the act that triggers it. The second is what it produces — a renewal on the same terms, which is the opposite of what a landlord who wanted a higher rent or different terms was trying to achieve by letting the term lapse. The third is the cap on duration: not exceeding one month where the rent is payable monthly, and in no case more than a year. So a monthly-rent tenancy that runs on with rent accepted is presumed renewed for a month at a time on the old terms. It is a presumption, which is a starting point a contrary agreement or contrary facts can displace, and it fixes only the terms that were already there. Note too that § 1946 makes a hiring for an unspecified term “deemed to be renewed as stated in Section 1945” at the end of the term implied by law unless a party gives the notice that section requires.

If the lease itself contains a clause saying it renews or extends automatically when the tenant stays on, read Civ. Code § 1945.5 before relying on it. For residential property, a lease term providing for “the automatic renewal or extension of the lease for all or part of the full term of the lease if the lessee remains in possession after the expiration of the lease or fails to give notice of his intent not to renew or extend before the expiration of the lease” is voidable by the party who did not prepare the lease unless the renewal or extension provision appears in at least eight-point boldface type, if the contract is printed, in the body of the agreement, and a recital that the provision is contained in the body of the agreement appears in at least eight-point boldface type immediately before the place where the tenant signs. Where the clause is voided, § 1945.5 says the § 1945 presumption applies instead. And any waiver of § 1945.5 “is void as against public policy”. In practice that means an auto-renewal clause buried in ordinary body type, with no recital above the signature line, is a clause the tenant may be able to disclaim — a poor foundation for a further term.

What none of that supplies is a term, a rent figure or a start date the parties have actually agreed. § 1945 gives you the old terms for a short period; it does not give you the new ones. That is the argument for a signed renewal rather than a lapse.

A renewal is a common moment for a landlord to ask for more security, and the extension form below carries an option for it. There is a statutory ceiling. Civ. Code § 1950.5(c)(1) provides that “Except as provided in paragraph (2), (3), or (5), a landlord shall not demand or receive security, however denominated, in an amount or value in excess of an amount equal to one month’s rent, in addition to any rent for the first month paid on or before initial occupancy.” Two features of that sentence carry the weight. “However denominated” means the label on the money does not decide the question — the cap is on security by whatever name. And the limit is expressed as a multiple of the rent, so a rent increase at renewal moves the ceiling with it.

The exceptions are real and the paragraph names them, so do not read the one-month figure flat. (c)(2) does not prohibit an advance payment of not less than six months’ rent where the lease term is six months or longer. (c)(3) preserves a mutual agreement under which the landlord, at the tenant’s request and for a specified fee or charge, makes structural, decorative, furnishing or similar alterations. (c)(5)(A) allows security up to two months’ rent where the landlord meets both stated requirements: the landlord is a natural person, or a limited liability company all of whose members are natural persons, and owns no more than two residential rental properties collectively including no more than four dwelling units offered for rent — and (5)(B) withdraws that allowance where the prospective tenant is a service member, while also forbidding a landlord to refuse to rent to a service member because of it. There is a further requirement in (c)(4) where a service member is charged a higher-than-standard security for reasons related to the tenant: a written statement of the amount and the reason, on or before the date the lease is signed, and return of the additional amount after no more than six months of residency if the tenant is not in arrears, with the return date written into the agreement.

§ 1950.5 is a long section and this page states only its ceiling and that ceiling’s stated exceptions. It also governs what the deposit may be used for, what has to happen when the tenancy ends, and the accounting the landlord owes. None of that is set out here. If the renewal changes the deposit, read the section rather than the summary.

One point about the quotations above, since it affects how they should be read. Statutory passages on this page are quoted plain. Where a quoted passage is stressed, the emphasis is this page’s and the tag sits outside the quotation marks, never between them. Nothing appearing between an opening and a closing quotation mark on this page has been bolded or italicised by us, so what you see inside the quote marks is the statute’s own text and formatting is never doing argumentative work inside a quotation. Ellipses inside a quotation mark omitted words; they never join two separated passages into one sentence.

The primary sources read in full for this page are Civ. Code § 1946.2 and § 827. Where those sections cross-refer to other law, this page has read and stated the cross-referenced provisions it uses: Code of Civil Procedure § 1013 (mail service, to which the § 827(b) periods are made subject), Code of Civil Procedure § 1162 (the manner of giving a change-of-terms notice), Code of Civil Procedure § 1161 (paragraphs (3) and (4), which the just-cause list and the cure step point at), Civ. Code § 1947.12 (the rent cap the § 1946.2(f) notification describes), Civ. Code §§ 1945 and 1945.5 (renewal by implication, and automatic-renewal clauses), and Civ. Code § 1950.5(c) (the security ceiling). What is stated of each is what appears above and no more: none of those sections is summarised here in full, and the definitional sections the § 1946.2 exemptions point to — Health and Safety Code § 1569.2, Civ. Code §§ 1940, 798.2 and 798.9, Internal Revenue Code § 856 and the rest — were not read for this page. Read those at source before relying on them.

Local ordinances. This is the gap that matters most in California, because § 1946.2(i)(1)(A) hands the whole question to a qualifying local just-cause ordinance and (i)(2) says a property is not subject to both. No general survey of Californian local law was carried out for this page. The project’s own ordinance material covers three cities — Berkeley (the Rent Stabilization Ordinance at Berkeley Municipal Code Chapter 13.76 and the Rent Board regulations, including the good-cause-for-eviction chapter), Los Angeles (the Rent Stabilization Ordinance and the Just Cause for Eviction Ordinance in the Municipal Code, with the Housing Department’s own guidance), and Oakland (the Rent Adjustment Program, the Just Cause for Eviction ordinance and the uniform relocation material). Those captures were gathered for other pages and are not summarised here; nothing on this page states a rule of Berkeley, Los Angeles or Oakland law. California has several hundred cities and counties and many more of them regulate rents and evictions than the three named. Check the ordinance for the city and the county where the property sits before concluding either that § 1946.2 governs or that it does not. No case law was consulted.

One version note. The § 1946.2 text read for this page is marked effective 1 January 2026; subdivision (m) says the section became operative on 1 April 2024, and subdivision (n) says it remains in effect only until 1 January 2030, when it is repealed by its own provisions. The § 827 text is marked effective 1 January 2025. Check the current text of both sections, and your local rules, before acting.

An extension is mostly a matter of contract, so what it can do is decided by the existing lease before it is decided by statute. The place state law bites hardest is the rent, because continuing a tenancy is when it usually changes. Our guide to California rent increase laws sets out the notice that has to come first, which is often the real deadline in that negotiation.

The second place is what happens when the parties do not agree. An expiring term does not resolve itself, and California eviction notice laws explain the notices and timelines that follow if a tenant stays on without a new agreement.

For the obligations that run between a landlord and a tenant throughout the tenancy, and the rules that apply to both sides, see California landlord tenant laws.

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