Free California Month-to-Month Rental Agreement

Civ. Code § 1946.1 governs the ending of a California periodic tenancy. The default for an owner is sixty days before the proposed termination date; that drops to thirty days where the tenant or resident has occupied the dwelling for less than one year. A tenant’s notice runs on a different measure entirely — a period at least as long as the term of the periodic tenancy. The section also prescribes how notice is served, requires a specific paragraph about abandoned property to appear in an owner’s notice, and forbids charging the tenant a fee for serving it.

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A California periodic tenancy is deemed renewed at the end of each implied term unless a party gives notice — that is the mechanism § 1946.1(a) describes, by reference to § 1945. So the document is not merely a record of terms; it is the thing that keeps renewing. Because the owner’s notice period turns on how long the tenant has lived there, the move-in date is worth recording on the face of the agreement rather than reconstructing later from old paperwork. The generator above asks for it separately from the date of the agreement, and asks which side of the one-year line the tenancy sits on, because those are the two facts § 1946.1(b) and (c) turn on.

• The full names of the owner and of every adult tenant
• The address of the premises, including the unit number
• The date the tenant first moved in, which selects between the 60-day and 30-day owner notice under § 1946.1(b) and (c)
• The rent, the interval it covers, and the day it falls due
• The term of the periodic tenancy, since a tenant’s notice must be at least that long
• That the tenancy is periodic and is deemed renewed until a party gives notice
• The address each party sends notice to, and that service follows CCP § 1162 or certified or registered mail
• That no fee is charged for serving a notice under this section, which § 1946.1(i) prohibits in any event
• The security deposit, where it is held, and what the tenant is told about its return
• Which utilities and services each party pays for, and the pet, smoking and guest rules

• Measuring the year from the current agreement. § 1946.1(c) asks whether the tenant or resident has resided in the dwelling or occupied the property for less than one year. Signing a new document does not reset that.
• Giving a tenant’s notice of “thirty days” by default. § 1946.1(b) asks for a period at least as long as the term of the periodic tenancy, which for a monthly tenancy is a month rather than a fixed count of thirty.
• Leaving out the abandoned-property paragraph. § 1946.1(h) says an owner’s notice shall contain it in substantially the same form, and it is quoted in the statute.
• Charging a notice-service fee. § 1946.1(i) prohibits a landlord or its agent from charging one, with no exception for actual costs or for a lease term purporting to authorise it.
• Assuming § 1946.1 is the only rule that applies. Subsection (g) says the section may not be construed to affect the authority of a public entity that otherwise exists to regulate or monitor the basis for eviction — a direct acknowledgement that local regulation sits alongside it.

Sixty days from the owner, or thirty if the tenant has been there under a year. Civ. Code § 1946.1(b) requires an owner giving notice under the section to give it at least sixty days before the proposed date of termination. § 1946.1(c) then provides that, “notwithstanding” subdivision (b), the owner’s notice is at least thirty days where a tenant or resident has resided in the dwelling or occupied the property for less than one year.

The tenant’s obligation is expressed differently, and the difference is the part most summaries flatten. § 1946.1(b) says a tenant giving notice “shall give notice for a period at least as long as the term of the periodic tenancy prior to the proposed date of termination”. For a month-to-month arrangement that is a month. It is not stated as thirty days, and on a tenancy with a different period it would not be thirty days at all.

§ 1946.1(a) sets the frame. Notwithstanding § 1946, a hiring of residential real property for a term not specified by the parties is deemed to be renewed as stated in § 1945 at the end of the term implied by law, unless one of the parties gives written notice of an intention to terminate the tenancy as provided in the section.

So a California periodic tenancy does not simply continue by inertia — it is renewed, term by term, by operation of the Civil Code, and a notice is what interrupts that renewal. That framing is why the section speaks of a “proposed date of termination” rather than of a number of days from service: the notice is aimed at a date, and the period is the run-up to it.

The current text of the section also reaches commercial real property hired by a “qualified commercial tenant”, a defined term covering a microenterprise, a restaurant with fewer than ten employees, or a nonprofit organization with fewer than twenty employees, each subject to a notification requirement. That language sits alongside the residential rules in the same subsections, which is worth knowing when you read the section cold — the commercial material is not a separate part of the statute and it can make the residential rule harder to pick out.

§ 1946.1(d) contains a second route to thirty days, and it is narrow. An owner of a residential dwelling may give thirty days’ notice if all of the following apply:

• the dwelling or unit is alienable separate from the title to any other dwelling unit;
• the owner has contracted to sell it to a bona fide purchaser for value and has established an escrow with a title insurer or underwritten title company, a licensed escrow agent, or a licensed real estate broker, each as defined in the statutes the subdivision cites;
• the purchaser is a natural person or persons;
• the notice is given no more than 120 days after the escrow was established;
• notice was not previously given to the tenant pursuant to the section; and
• the purchaser in good faith intends to reside in the property for at least one full year after the termination of the tenancy.

Six conditions, joined by “all of the following”. This is not a general “selling the property” exception, and it will not cover a sale to a company, a sale of a unit that cannot be conveyed separately, a notice given late in the escrow, or a purchaser who intends to re-let. An owner reaching for thirty days on this basis should be able to point at each of the six.

§ 1946.1(e) is a genuinely useful provision and it is easy to miss. After an owner has given notice of an intention to terminate, the tenant may also give notice under the section, provided that the tenant’s notice is for a period at least as long as the term of the periodic tenancy and that the pr