Santa Ana’s Rent Stabilization and Just Cause Ordinance: What a Landlord Must Clear Before Selling

Santa Ana caps most rent increases below what state law allows and requires a valid reason to end a tenancy after just 30 days, not the twelve months the statewide Tenant Protection Act gives everywhere else.

The City Council approved the Rent Stabilization and Just Cause Eviction Ordinance on October 19, 2021, on a 4-3 vote, effective November 19, 2021 — making Santa Ana the first city in Orange County with its own rent control program.

If you own a Santa Ana rental with a tenant in place, this ordinance, not AB 1482 alone, usually decides what you can charge, how you can end the tenancy, and what you owe the tenant before a sale can close cleanly.

Santa Ana’s older housing stock already adds extra disclosure obligations to an as-is sale; this ordinance is a second, separate layer for occupied rentals specifically.

Why Santa Ana’s Ordinance Goes Further Than State Law

California’s statewide Tenant Protection Act of 2019 (AB 1482) sets a floor: a rent cap of 5% plus local CPI, up to 10%, and just-cause protection after twelve months of continuous occupancy.

Santa Ana’s ordinance, codified at Santa Ana Municipal Code §§ 8-3120 through 8-3148, sits on top of that floor and is stricter on nearly every axis that matters to a landlord — a lower rent cap (the lesser of 3% or 80% of the change in the Consumer Price Index), a just-cause trigger at 30 days instead of twelve months, and obligations AB 1482 never imposes at all: city registration, written affidavits before certain no-fault terminations, a strict 15-day deadline to pay relocation money, and a private right of action letting a tenant sue for damages and attorney’s fees if a landlord gets any of it wrong.

Santa Ana voters locked this framework into the city’s charter in November 2024 with Measure CC, so the City Council can no longer weaken it without going back to the ballot. This isn’t a short-term local experiment likely to disappear before you sell.

Which Rentals the Ordinance Actually Covers

The rent cap and the just-cause rules use two different coverage tests, and conflating them is one of the most common mistakes a Santa Ana landlord makes before a sale.

The rent cap applies to residential rental units that received a certificate of occupancy on or before February 1, 1995 (SAMC §§ 8-3140, 8-3147), unless a specific exemption applies. That is a fixed date — it does not move as the calendar advances, so a building that was exempt as “new” in 1996 has stayed exempt from the local rent cap ever since.

The just-cause rules use a different, rolling test: a unit is exempt only if its certificate of occupancy was issued within the last 15 years (SAMC § 8-3120(a), (e)).

A building finished in 1998 lost its just-cause exemption around 2013 and has been covered ever since — even though that same building has stayed exempt from the rent cap the whole time, because 1998 falls after the fixed 1995 cutoff.

A mid-1990s to mid-2000s Santa Ana property can genuinely be free of the rent cap while still owing a tenant a valid just-cause reason to end the tenancy. Checking only one test and assuming the answer carries over to the other is how landlords get this wrong.

Beyond those date tests, both ordinances carve out largely overlapping categories of housing:

• Single-family homes and condominiums where the required written notice of exemption was actually given to the tenant — unless the owner is a REIT, a corporation, or an LLC with at least one corporate member
• New construction, under each ordinance’s own date test described above
• Certain mobilehomes, including those covered by the state’s Mobilehome Residency Law
• Deed-restricted affordable housing and buildings under a government affordability agreement
• Dormitories operated by a school or college
• An owner-occupied duplex where the owner has lived in one unit as a principal residence since the tenancy began, and neither unit is an accessory dwelling unit
• Housing where the tenant shares a bathroom or kitchen with the owner, or an owner-occupied single-family home renting out no more than two units or bedrooms

Section 8 voucher holders are exempt from the local rent cap specifically, but that exemption does not appear on the just-cause side — another place where the two halves of the ordinance diverge rather than mirroring each other.

The single-family exemption trips up the most owners because it’s conditional, not automatic.

Our breakdown of how the AB 1482 single-family exemption actually works covers the same written-notice requirement Santa Ana’s local exemption borrows: for a tenancy that began or renewed on or after the relevant cutoff, the notice has to be part of the lease itself, not a letter sent later.

A landlord who never put that language in writing has an exempt-looking property that isn’t actually exempt from either the state or the local rules.

The Current Rent Cap, and How Santa Ana Calculates It

For a covered unit, a landlord may raise rent by whichever is lower: 3%, or 80% of the change in the Consumer Price Index for the region over the preceding 12 months (SAMC §§ 8-3140(a), 8-3141). Only one increase is allowed in any 12-month period, and if the CPI change is negative, no increase is permitted at all that period.

The city announces the actual percentage each year rather than leaving landlords to calculate CPI themselves. For September 1, 2026 through August 31, 2027, Santa Ana set the allowable increase at 2.87%, up from 2.42% the prior year (September 2025 through August 2026).

That figure and effective window come from the city’s own posting and are confirmed on the California Attorney General’s statewide rent-cap reference table at oag.ca.gov/rentcaps, both current as of this writing.

Because the percentage resets annually, pull the current posted number before issuing any rent-increase notice — the 3% figure is a ceiling, not the actual allowable amount in any given year.

A landlord also loses the right to raise rent at all, regardless of the percentage, if the unit isn’t registered with the city, if the landlord hasn’t substantially complied with the ordinance, or if open habitability violations or ordered repairs remain unmade (SAMC § 8-3148). That matters for a seller: a deferred repair list can void a pending rent increase on its own.

Just Cause: What Counts and What Doesn’t

Once a tenant has been in a covered unit for 30 days, Santa Ana requires one of a fixed list of reasons to end the tenancy.

The at-fault grounds track what most landlords already expect: nonpayment, a material lease breach, nuisance or waste, refusing a similar lease renewal, criminal activity directed at the landlord or other tenants, an unauthorized sublet, refusing lawful access, unlawful use, or staying past the tenant’s own notice to vacate.

The no-fault grounds are the ones that actually come up around a sale, and all four carry real conditions attached:

1. Owner or relative move-in. Limited to a spouse, domestic partner, child, grandchild, parent, or grandparent. For leases signed or renewed after November 19, 2021, the tenant has to have agreed to this in writing, or the lease has to already allow it. The landlord must intend to occupy the unit for at least 24 months and must submit a written affidavit to the city affirming that intent.
2. Withdrawal of the unit from the rental market. Also requires a written affidavit stating the landlord intends to keep the property off the rental market for at least 24 months — this is Santa Ana’s version of an Ellis-Act-style exit, and it is not a path to selling to someone who intends to keep renting the unit out.
3. Compliance with a government or court order requiring the unit to be vacated.
4. Demolition or substantial remodel. “Substantial remodel” means permit-level replacement of a structural, electrical, plumbing, or mechanical system, or hazard abatement (lead paint, mold, asbestos) — work unsafe to complete with the tenant present and requiring at least 30 days to vacate. Cosmetic work like painting doesn’t qualify. The tenant gets a right of first refusal to move back once the work is done, and again if the landlord re-rents within six months.

Notice the gap in that list: wanting to sell the property — to anyone, for any reason — is not itself a just cause. A buyer who wants a vacant house, and a seller who simply wants the tenant gone before closing, do not get to use any of the four no-fault grounds above unless the facts genuinely fit one of them and the paperwork is filed correctly.

No-Fault Terminations and the Three-Month Relocation Rule

Every no-fault termination under Santa Ana’s ordinance comes with a cost: the landlord must either pay relocation assistance equal to three months of the tenant’s rent, or waive the final three months of rent in writing (SAMC § 8-3120(d)(1)). That is three times what the statewide Tenant Protection Act requires — AB 1482 sets relocation assistance at one month’s rent for a no-fault termination elsewhere in California.

Timing matters as much as the amount. If the landlord pays rather than waives rent, payment is due within fifteen calendar days of serving the termination notice — not from when the tenant moves out, and not whenever escrow allows.

For the owner-move-in and withdrawal grounds specifically, the landlord must also file the termination notice and proof of service through the city’s Rental Registry portal within five days of serving the tenant.

Miss either deadline, or the filing step, and the termination notice is void outright (SAMC § 8-3120(d)(4)). A tenancy a seller believed was properly ended months ago can turn out to still be legally in effect — exactly the surprise that derails escrow when a title company asks for proof the unit is actually vacant on clean legal footing.

Registration With the City, and Why It Affects a Sale

Santa Ana requires covered rental units to be registered with the city’s Rental Registry, and that registry does double duty: it’s where landlords file the affidavits and termination notices the ordinance requires, and it’s the record the city checks before allowing a rent increase to stand.

An unregistered unit cannot lawfully receive a rent increase under SAMC § 8-3148, no matter how current the actual rent is relative to the allowable cap.

For a seller, registration status is worth confirming early rather than discovering during escrow. A buyer’s attorney or a sophisticated investor doing diligence on a tenant-occupied purchase will often ask whether the unit is registered and whether past rent increases were lawful under the ordinance.

An unregistered unit, or a rent increase taken while out of compliance, can become a disclosure issue at exactly the point in a transaction where neither side wants a new problem.

Where AB 1482 Still Does the Work Instead

Santa Ana’s ordinance layers on top of AB 1482 rather than replacing it, and plenty of Santa Ana rentals end up governed by the state law instead of the city’s.

That happens when a unit is exempt locally — say, built after the February 1995 rent-cap cutoff — but isn’t yet old enough to clear AB 1482’s own 15-year rolling exemption window, leaving it within the state law’s reach.

There, the statewide 5%-plus-CPI cap and twelve-month just-cause threshold become the operative rule instead of Santa Ana’s stricter numbers.

The practical lesson: never assume “exempt from the Santa Ana ordinance” means “exempt from rent regulation altogether.” It usually just means the softer statewide version applies instead. Our fuller look at how California tenant rights survive a home sale walks through that statewide layer — lease transfer, security deposit handling, and the twelve-month just-cause threshold — once you’re outside Santa Ana’s own ordinance.

What a Seller With Tenants Must Clear Before Listing

Before a Santa Ana rental with a tenant in place goes on the market, or before any notice is served with a sale in mind, a handful of things are worth confirming — ideally with a local landlord-tenant attorney, since the ordinance’s deadlines and filing steps leave very little room for a good-faith mistake:

• Whether a single-family or condo exemption notice was actually put in writing, and whether it was part of the lease itself if the tenancy began or renewed after the required cutoff — an exemption nobody ever documented does not exist
• The unit’s registration status with the city’s Rental Registry, and whether every rent increase taken in the last several years was lawful under the ordinance in effect at the time
• Which coverage test applies to the specific certificate-of-occupancy date — the fixed February 1, 1995 cutoff for the rent cap, and the separate rolling 15-year window for just-cause protection — since a property can land on different sides of each one
• If a tenancy has already been terminated for an owner-move-in or market-withdrawal reason, whether the written affidavit, the termination notice, and proof of service were actually filed through the Rental Registry within five days, and whether relocation money was paid within fifteen days — any gap there can mean the termination never legally took effect
• Whether any open repair or habitability issue exists that could void a pending rent increase or complicate a buyer’s inspection
• Whether the plan was ever to end the tenancy simply because the house is being sold — which, on its own, is not a recognized just cause under the ordinance

The rent cap, the just-cause rules, and the registration status all run with the property, not with the person who owns it today, so a buyer steps into whatever situation actually exists at closing — including any unresolved gap the seller leaves behind. Disclosing the ordinance’s application and the tenancy’s history honestly produces a far smoother closing than letting a buyer’s attorney find the problem during due diligence.

When a Cash Sale Is the Wrong Move Here

A fast cash sale isn’t automatically right just because a property carries a rent-controlled tenant.

If the single-family exemption genuinely applies, the ownership structure qualifies and the written notice was actually documented, and the current tenant pays close to market rent in a unit in decent shape, there may be no compliance problem to solve at all.

A conventional listing marketed to an owner-occupant or an investor who wants a clean, exempt rental usually nets more than a quick cash offer priced around speed. The same holds if the tenancy is month-to-month, the rent roll is healthy, and nothing about registration or filing history needs untangling.

A cash sale makes more sense when there’s an actual problem to work around, not just a tenant in the house: an exemption notice that was never documented, a unit that was never registered, a termination notice that may not have been filed correctly, an outstanding relocation obligation, or an owner who doesn’t want to manage the Rental Registry and its filing deadlines through to closing.

None of that is fixed by hiring a faster escrow officer — these are legal and procedural issues that take time a seller under pressure may not have.

Weigh both paths against your actual numbers and your actual compliance history before picking one — not against an assumption that rent control makes the house harder to sell than it really is, or easier than it really is.

If you’d rather not untangle the registration, affidavit, and relocation paperwork yourself before closing, Cash Home Buyers CA can make a no-obligation cash offer on a Santa Ana rental with a tenant still in place, and we buy directly or bring a vetted cash buyer who already understands how the ordinance works.

If your situation matches selling a tenant-occupied house in Santa Ana specifically, that page covers the transaction side in more depth. You can also find Cash Home Buyers CA on Google to see who we are before reaching out.