Pomona’s Rent Stabilization Ordinance Just Became Permanent: What Landlords Must Do Before Selling

Pomona’s Rent Stabilization and Eviction Control Ordinance, Ordinance No. 4359, became permanent on January 1, 2026, replacing the city’s temporary rules and capping most residential rent increases at 5% a year.

If you’re selling a tenant-occupied property in Pomona right now, that cap, plus new eviction and disclosure rules, changes what a buyer will expect to see before closing, in ways that go well beyond the statewide framework, where California’s AB 1482 rent cap formula works differently.

Why Pomona’s Permanent Ordinance Changes the Selling Conversation

On November 17, 2025, the Pomona City Council approved the second reading of Ordinance No. 4359, and it took effect January 1, 2026. It repeals and replaces the city’s prior Urgency Ordinance No. 4320, adopted in August 2022, and its amendment, Ordinance No. 4329, adopted in April 2023.

That matters more than it sounds, because an urgency ordinance is, by design, temporary and subject to expiration or renewal votes.

A permanent ordinance is enduring city policy that a buyer’s lender, property manager, or investment committee will expect to see handled correctly, not treated as a passing inconvenience that might lapse before escrow closes.

Pomona is a city of roughly 147,800 residents, according to the Census Bureau’s 2025 population estimate, with a housing stock where a little under half of occupied units are renter-occupied rather than owner-occupied.

It’s also home to Cal Poly Pomona, California State Polytechnic University, which opened in 1938 and enrolled more than 27,000 students as of fall 2024, a steady source of rental demand that keeps much of the city’s multifamily housing full.

In a rental market that size, a city-specific ordinance touches a meaningful share of the properties that change hands every year, and a buyer evaluating a tenant-occupied duplex or small apartment building will want to know, specifically, whether that unit is covered by Ordinance No. 4359, whether the current rent complies with it, and whether any petitions are pending against the property before they commit to a price.

That scrutiny isn’t unique to Pomona.

Buyers who’ve shopped occupied rentals anywhere in Los Angeles or Orange County have learned to ask the same set of questions wherever a city has layered its own rules on top of state law, the way West Hollywood’s rent stabilization ordinance requires a seller with tenants to clear specific hurdles before a sale closes there.

What makes Pomona’s situation worth a dedicated conversation right now is the timing: the ordinance just shifted from an “urgency” measure, something adopted quickly and renewed in pieces since 2022, to a permanent fixture of the municipal code.

Escrow officers, lenders, and buyers’ agents working in the San Gabriel Valley are still updating their checklists to reflect that shift, and a seller who can answer the new questions before being asked usually keeps a transaction moving instead of stalling it.

The Rent Cap Mechanics: 5% a Year, Once a Year

Under the City’s posted notice, the maximum allowable rent increase for covered residential units is 5% per year, effective January 1, 2026 through December 31, 2026. Only one increase is permitted in any 12-month period, and it cannot exceed the allowable rate in effect for that period.

That’s a flat, single-number cap, which is a meaningfully different mechanism from the statewide standard, where the AB 1482 formula allows 5% plus the regional CPI, up to a 10% ceiling.

A Pomona landlord cannot rely on the statewide formula to justify an increase above 5% on a covered unit; the local ordinance controls.

Worth flagging for anyone pricing a sale around future rent growth: the City has already posted a separate item for council consideration titled “Consideration of the Rent Stabilization Program Presentation Beyond December 31, 2026,” which signals the City may revisit the allowable rate for 2027 and beyond.

The 5% figure is current and verified as of this writing, but it is tied to a specific one-year window rather than fixed permanently at that number, so anyone using this cap in a pro forma or in underwriting an offer should check the City’s current notice at the time of the transaction rather than assume 5% carries forward indefinitely.

If a tenant believes a rent increase was calculated incorrectly, or that a landlord has otherwise violated the ordinance, they can file a Petition of Noncompliance with the City. That petition, like every petition under the ordinance, is decided by an independent Hearing Officer, not by city staff informally.

For a seller, an open Petition of Noncompliance is exactly the kind of thing a title company or a cautious buyer will ask about, because it can affect what rent the new owner is legally entitled to collect going forward.

It also means the rent currently being paid isn’t automatically the rent a new owner can rely on.

If a past increase exceeded 5%, or was the second increase inside a 12-month window, a Hearing Officer could later roll it back, which would reduce the income a buyer underwrote the purchase around.

Sellers sometimes assume that whatever a tenant is currently paying is simply “the rent.” Under an ordinance this specific, it’s worth having someone check the increase history against the 5% cap before that number goes into a listing or a cash-offer conversation, rather than finding out during due diligence that part of it isn’t defensible.

Fair Return and Capital Improvement Petitions: What a Landlord Can Do About the Cap

The ordinance isn’t a one-way ratchet against owners. A landlord who believes the 5% cap prevents a fair and reasonable return on a property can file a Fair Return Petition asking the City to approve a rent increase above the published rate.

Separately, a landlord who has made eligible capital improvements, a new roof, upgraded plumbing, seismic retrofitting, that kind of work, can file a Capital Improvement Petition to pass a portion of those costs through to tenants as a rent adjustment. Both petitions go to the same independent Hearing Officer who decides tenant petitions.

For a seller, the practical point is this: if either petition is pending, or if one was decided recently and changed the legal rent on a unit, that’s information a buyer needs before they can accurately underwrite the property’s income.

A buyer who discovers a pending Fair Return Petition after opening escrow is going to ask harder questions and move more slowly, which is the opposite of what most sellers of occupied rental property want.

At-Fault and No-Fault Terminations, and the Relocation Assistance That Comes With One

Pomona’s eviction control provisions require landlords to have either an At-Fault or a No-Fault reason before terminating a residential tenancy, a structure that runs parallel to, but is not identical with, California’s just cause eviction notice requirements under Civil Code 1946.2.

At-Fault terminations cover situations where the tenant has broken the lease: nonpayment of rent, a material breach of the rental agreement, refusing to allow the landlord reasonable access to the unit, maintaining or permitting a nuisance, and using the premises for an unlawful purpose are the examples the City lists.

No-Fault terminations are different: the tenant hasn’t done anything wrong, but the landlord has a legitimate reason to end the tenancy anyway.

The City’s examples include demolishing or substantially remodeling the property, removing the unit from the rental market altogether, converting a unit to house a resident manager where none exists, and an owner or qualifying relative moving in to use the unit as a primary residence.

The important distinction for anyone selling a tenant-occupied property: a No-Fault termination triggers a legal obligation to provide the tenant with financial relocation assistance.

That’s not optional, and it’s not a number a seller can estimate casually, since the City has its own Relocation Assistance Guidelines spelling out how the payment is calculated.

If a seller is counting on delivering a property vacant through a No-Fault notice before closing, the relocation assistance cost needs to be built into the math from the start, not discovered partway through escrow.

This is also where sellers most often collide with timing. A No-Fault termination, done correctly, with the right notice period and the relocation payment calculated and ready, still takes weeks, sometimes longer if the tenant disputes the basis for termination.

A seller who needs to close quickly and is hoping an eviction will simply resolve itself before the closing date is usually disappointed.

It’s generally more realistic to sell the property as tenant-occupied, with the lease and any termination paperwork fully disclosed, than to try to engineer a vacant delivery on a tight timeline.

The Exemption List, and the Notice of Exemption Filing Trap

A meaningful share of Pomona’s housing stock doesn’t fall under Ordinance No. 4359 at all.

The exemption list includes transient and tourist hotel occupancies; housing in nonprofit hospitals, religious facilities, extended care facilities, residential care facilities for the elderly, or adult residential facilities; dormitories operated by a school or university; shared-facility housing where the tenant lives with an owner who occupies the property as a principal residence; single-family, owner-occupied homes where the owner rents no more than two units or bedrooms, which covers most owner-occupied properties with an ADU or JADU; owner-occupied duplexes; and units that are alienable separately from title to any other unit, which is the category that covers most single-family homes, condominiums, and townhomes sold on the open market.

It also exempts rental units with a certificate of occupancy issued after February 1, 1995, or issued within the past fifteen years, subdivided-interest units, federally, state, or locally subsidized housing such as Section 8 vouchers, and units bound by a recorded covenant restricting tenant income or rent.

Here’s the trap that catches owners who assume exemption is automatic: a landlord who believes a property is exempt is required to file a Notice of Exemption with the City.

Skipping that filing doesn’t just leave a technical gap in the file; the City’s own guidance states that failing to file a Notice of Exemption can subject the property to the ordinance anyway, despite the unit actually qualifying for an exemption on the merits.

For a seller, that means an exempt single-family rental with no Notice of Exemption on file could be treated, functionally, as a covered unit until the paperwork is corrected, which is the kind of detail a careful buyer’s agent or a title company will flag during due diligence.

It’s a useful contrast to a city like West Hollywood, which uses a very different registration-first structure for its own rent stabilization rules; Pomona’s exemption-by-filing approach puts the burden on the owner to proactively document exempt status rather than assuming it.

This trips up more sellers than it should, because the exemption categories themselves sound like they cover the most common rental setups: a single-family home rented out while the owner lives elsewhere, a condo bought as a rental property, a duplex where the owner occupies one side.

All of those can genuinely qualify. But qualifying and being documented as exempt are two different things under Ordinance No. 4359, and only the second one protects a seller from a tenant or a Hearing Officer later arguing that the unit is, in fact, covered.

Before listing, it’s worth confirming the Notice of Exemption form is on file with the City, not just that the property seems to fit one of the listed categories on paper.

The Unlawful Detainer Reporting Requirement

If a Pomona landlord ends up filing an unlawful detainer action, an eviction lawsuit, in court, the ordinance requires a copy of that filing to be submitted to the City within ten calendar days after the tenant is served.

This is a change from the prior urgency ordinances: under Ordinance No. 4359, 3-Day Notices no longer need to be separately submitted to the City, which simplifies routine notice practice even as it tightens the reporting requirement around actual court filings.

For a seller, any recent or pending unlawful detainer action on the property is a disclosure item that a buyer, and especially a buyer’s lender, will want documented, including proof that the City copy was submitted on time.

What a Seller Should Pull Together Before Listing or Accepting an Offer

Before a tenant-occupied Pomona property goes on the market, or before a seller accepts an offer on one, it’s worth assembling a clean file rather than reconstructing one under deadline pressure during escrow. A buyer evaluating the property, cash or otherwise, is going to ask for most of this anyway.

1. A complete rent roll showing current rent, lease start date, and the date and amount of the most recent increase for each unit
2. Copies of all leases and any amendments or addenda, along with the security deposit ledger
3. Documentation of whether each unit is covered by Ordinance No. 4359 or falls under one of the listed exemptions, including the certificate of occupancy date where relevant
4. A filed Notice of Exemption, if the property qualifies as exempt and that filing hasn’t already been made
5. A record of any Petition of Noncompliance, Fair Return Petition, or Capital Improvement Petition filed or decided on the property
6. Copies of any termination notices served, labeled as At-Fault or No-Fault, along with proof of any relocation assistance paid or owed
7. Proof that any unlawful detainer filing was submitted to the City within the required ten-day window

Having this ready doesn’t just speed up escrow. It changes the conversation with a buyer from “what are we going to discover” to “here’s exactly where things stand,” which tends to produce cleaner offers and fewer last-minute renegotiations over price.

When a Cash Sale Isn’t the Right Choice

It’s worth saying plainly: a fast cash sale isn’t automatically the best outcome for every tenant-occupied property in Pomona.

If a unit is clearly exempt, say, a single-family home alienable separately from title with a long-term tenant paying close to market rent and no pending petitions or notices, a traditional on-market listing may net a higher price.

Exempt, well-documented properties with stable tenants and clean paperwork are exactly the kind of asset that owner-occupant buyers and conventional investors compete for, and that competition can outweigh the speed and certainty a cash sale offers.

A seller with six months or more before they need proceeds in hand, a tenant who isn’t a source of friction, and a property that’s already compliant should at least get a comparative market analysis and a couple of listing-agent opinions before assuming a direct sale is the better path.

Where a cash sale tends to make more sense is the opposite scenario: rent that may not match what the ordinance allows, a tenant dispute or pending petition, an eviction already in motion, or simply a seller who doesn’t want to spend weeks tracking down certificate-of-occupancy dates and relocation-assistance math before they can even list.

In those cases, the paperwork burden and the uncertainty around timing are themselves a cost, and that’s the situation where a direct sale genuinely saves time, stress, and sometimes money, net of a lower headline price.

When you sell to us, we pay the standard closing costs, including the county and city transfer taxes, escrow and title.

Selling a tenant-occupied Pomona property under the new ordinance takes documentation most sellers don’t have ready. If you want a no-obligation cash offer from a buyer experienced with occupied rentals, Cash Home Buyers CA can make one, including for a tenant-occupied house in Pomona.

If you’d like a fuller picture of who we are first, you can see our Google listing.