Landlord Harassment in Los Angeles: LAHD Complaints and Remedies

Landlord harassment in Los Angeles is illegal under the city’s Tenant Anti-Harassment Ordinance (TAHO), which covers every residential rental in the city and lets tenants recover between $2,000 and $10,000 for each proven violation.¹ The ordinance took effect on August 6, 2021. You can file a complaint with the Los Angeles Housing Department (LAHD), sue your landlord directly, or both.

Who Is Covered

TAHO applies to every residential tenant inside the City of Los Angeles. You do not need to live in a rent-stabilized unit to be protected. The Rent Stabilization Ordinance (RSO) adds separate protections for buildings first occupied on or before October 1, 1978, including rent-increase caps and just-cause eviction rules,² but the harassment rules stand on their own and reach every rental in city limits.¹

What Counts as Harassment

TAHO defines harassment as a landlord’s bad-faith conduct directed at a specific tenant that causes harm. The ordinance lists more than a dozen prohibited behaviors, and the list is not exhaustive.¹ The patterns tenants run into most often fall into a few groups.

Cutting Services or Stalling on Repairs

Reducing or eliminating services your lease or the law requires, including heat, water, electricity, parking, and laundry, is harassment. So is failing to make timely repairs required by housing, health, or safety codes.³ A landlord who claims they cannot find a plumber for months after a pipe bursts is not simply slow. If the delay is calculated to push you out, it can qualify as a violation.

Entering Without Proper Notice

California law allows a landlord to enter your unit only for emergencies, necessary repairs, showing the unit to prospective buyers or tenants, or by court order. Outside of emergencies, the landlord must give reasonable written notice stating the date, approximate time, and purpose, and enter during normal business hours. Twenty-four hours is presumed reasonable.⁴ A landlord who shows up unannounced, enters without notice, or uses access to photograph areas beyond the stated purpose is violating both state law and TAHO.

Threats, Intimidation, and False Statements About Your Rights

Threatening physical harm, using abusive language to pressure you into moving, or misrepresenting your legal rights, such as falsely telling you that you must vacate, are all prohibited. The ordinance also bars landlords from asking about or disclosing your immigration or citizenship status and from sharing your personal information with government agencies as a form of pressure.¹

Bad-Faith Evictions and Retaliation

Filing an eviction based on facts the landlord has no reasonable basis to believe are true is harassment. Retaliating against you for reporting code violations, organizing with other tenants, or exercising any legal right counts as well.³

Buyout Offers Without Disclosure

Cash-for-keys offers come with strict rules in Los Angeles. For RSO tenants, the landlord must deliver a written RSO Disclosure Notice explaining your rights before making any buyout offer. The agreement itself must be written in your primary language and must state, in bold 12-point type above the signature line, that you can cancel for any reason within 30 days of signing without penalty.⁵ If the disclosure is skipped or the agreement does not meet these requirements, your cancellation right extends through the applicable statute of limitations rather than ending at 30 days.

Under TAHO, offering a buyout without first providing the required written disclosure is itself harassment.⁶ A landlord who pushes you to sign on the spot without handing you the disclosure has already committed a violation, even when the offer sounds generous.

Document Everything

Harassment claims turn on documentation. Start a written log the moment problems begin, noting date, time, what happened, and who was present. Keep it going for small incidents too, since these cases usually depend on showing a pattern rather than one dramatic event.

Save every text, email, voicemail, and letter from your landlord. Screenshot text threads and back them up off your phone. Photograph broken fixtures, mold, cut services, and any deterioration, and note the date each photo was taken.

If neighbors witnessed something, get their names and contact information while the memory is fresh. Written statements taken soon after an incident carry far more weight than vague recollections months later.

Recording Conversations Legally

California is an all-party consent state. You cannot legally record a phone call or in-person conversation with your landlord unless everyone involved knows about the recording and agrees to it. Recording without consent is a crime punishable by a fine of up to $2,500 per violation, up to a year in jail, or both, with the ceiling rising to $10,000 for a repeat offense.⁷ The rule applies where parties reasonably expect privacy. If you want to record, announce it at the start of the call. If the landlord stays on the line and keeps talking, that counts as consent.

Filing a Complaint With LAHD

LAHD takes harassment complaints through its online portal at housing.lacity.gov. You can also submit forms by certified mail or deliver them to a public counter during business hours.⁸

The form asks for identifying information about you and the property owner or manager. If your building is owned by an LLC or corporate entity, you may need to check public records to list the ownership correctly. The form lists the specific categories of harassment covered by the ordinance. Check every category that applies and give a short factual description of each incident, tracking the dates in your log. Specific, organized narratives move faster through the review process than emotional ones.

After the complaint is received, LAHD assigns a case number and begins a preliminary review. An investigator contacts you for an intake interview and may also reach out to your landlord. The investigator decides whether the conduct violates TAHO or the RSO. No official source specifies a standard timeline; the length of the process depends on complexity and department caseload. Stay in regular contact with your investigator.

Protection Against Retaliation After You Complain

Fear of eviction stops many tenants from filing. State law addresses that directly. If you report habitability problems to your landlord or file a complaint with an appropriate government agency, your landlord cannot evict you, raise your rent, or reduce services within 180 days of that complaint. Any such action during that window is presumed retaliatory.⁹

The 180-day clock runs from whichever protected event happened most recently: an oral complaint to the landlord, a written complaint to LAHD, an inspection that followed your complaint, or the filing of a legal proceeding about the unit’s condition. The presumption flips the burden. Your landlord has to show the action was taken in good faith for a legitimate reason unrelated to your complaint.⁹

The same protection covers tenant organizing. Threats to report you to immigration authorities are specifically identified as retaliatory, regardless of your actual status.

What You Can Recover

A tenant who wins a civil action under TAHO recovers between $2,000 and $10,000 per violation, depending on severity. If you were 65 or older or had a disability when the harassment occurred, the court can add up to $5,000 more per violation.¹ Because the floor is $2,000 per violation and most harassment involves repeated conduct, awards add up quickly.

TAHO gives you the right to sue your landlord directly in civil court without waiting for the city to act.³ On top of the statutory penalties, a successful plaintiff can recover actual economic damages (moving costs, the price difference on replacement housing), emotional distress damages, and reasonable attorney’s fees. The fee provision matters in practice because it lets tenant-side lawyers take strong cases knowing the landlord will cover their fees if the tenant wins. You can also ask the court for an injunction ordering specific harassing behavior to stop.

Retaliation damages run separately. A landlord who commits retaliatory acts is liable for actual damages plus punitive damages of $100 to $2,000 for each act, which can stack on top of TAHO penalties where the same conduct is both harassment and retaliation.⁹ For severe or repeated conduct, the LA City Attorney’s Office can also bring criminal charges; a misdemeanor conviction carries a fine of up to $1,000 per offense, up to six months in county jail, or both.³

Where to Get Help

The Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA) provides free legal assistance to low-income tenants dealing with harassment, eviction threats, and habitability problems. LAHD’s website lists additional legal service providers and tenant rights organizations.¹

For immediate safety concerns, such as a landlord who has physically threatened you or changed your locks without notice, call LAPD and file a police report. The report protects you in the moment and creates official documentation you can use in a later LAHD complaint or lawsuit. If threats continue, you may be able to obtain a civil harassment restraining order through the Los Angeles Superior Court, which can legally restrict your landlord’s ability to contact or approach you while the underlying dispute is resolved.

1
Los Angeles Housing Department. Tenant Anti-Harassment Ordinance
2
Los Angeles Housing Department. RSO Overview
3
Los Angeles City Clerk. Tenant Anti-Harassment Ordinance No. 187109
4
California Legislative Information. California Civil Code 1954 – Entry of Dwelling Unit
5
Los Angeles Municipal Code. LAMC 151.31 – Tenant Buyout Notification Program
6
Los Angeles Municipal Code. LAMC 151.33 – Tenant Anti-Harassment
7
California Legislative Information. California Penal Code 632
8
Los Angeles Housing Department. File a Complaint
9
California Legislative Information. California Civil Code 1942.5