Los Angeles Relocation Fee: Amounts, Timing, and Enforcement

The Los Angeles relocation fee is the payment a landlord must give a tenant who is being removed through a no-fault eviction, and for the period from July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026 it ranges from $10,650 to $26,550 per household depending on the tenant’s circumstances and length of tenancy.¹ The amounts adjust every July 1 based on the Consumer Price Index. Small landlords owe much less in certain situations, and the fee is enforced hard: a tenant who doesn’t get paid can block the eviction outright.

Current Fee Amounts

The city publishes a single schedule that applies to both the Rent Stabilization Ordinance and the Just Cause for Eviction Ordinance. For July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026, the standard amounts are:¹

Eligible tenant, less than 3 years in the unit: $10,650
Eligible tenant, 3 or more years in the unit: $13,950
Qualified tenant, less than 3 years in the unit: $22,450
Qualified tenant, 3 or more years in the unit: $26,550

Two variables set the number: whether the tenant counts as “qualified” or merely “eligible,” and whether the tenancy has reached the three-year mark. The jump from eligible to qualified roughly doubles the payment, so that classification matters more than any other single factor.

Qualified Versus Eligible Tenants

A tenant is “qualified” if, on the date the eviction notice is served, they are 62 or older, have a disability, or have at least one minor dependent child in the household.² Everyone else is “eligible.”

Low income gets you into the qualified tier automatically. If household income is at or below 80 percent of Area Median Income, the tenant receives the qualified amount regardless of age, disability, or children.³ To claim it, the tenant must provide the most recent federal income tax return (Form 1040) for every adult in the household. Birth certificates, medical records, or disability certifications establish the other paths into the qualified tier. Pulling those documents together before a notice arrives is worth the effort, because the fee tier is locked in at service of notice.

When the Fee Is Owed

The relocation fee applies only to no-fault evictions. A tenant being removed for unpaid rent, lease violations, or other misconduct gets no relocation payment. The obligation attaches when the landlord’s reason for ending the tenancy has nothing to do with the tenant’s behavior.

Under the Rent Stabilization Ordinance, the qualifying no-fault reasons are owner or qualifying-family-member move-in, Ellis Act withdrawal from the rental market, demolition or condo conversion, a government order to vacate (including uninhabitability from fire, flood, or earthquake), and major renovations that cannot be done with the tenant in place.³ The Just Cause Ordinance covers properties outside rent stabilization and mirrors most of the same triggers: owner move-in, demolition, substantial rehabilitation, withdrawal from the market, and compliance with government orders.⁴

Between the two ordinances, nearly every residential rental in the city is covered. The RSO reaches apartments, condos, townhomes, duplexes, and accessory dwelling units first built on or before October 1, 1978, plus hotel or rooming-house occupants who have stayed more than 30 consecutive days, and mobilehomes in mobile home parks.⁵ Everything else that isn’t rent-stabilized generally falls under Just Cause, which has been in effect since January 27, 2023.⁶

The Small-Landlord Reduction

Smaller owners can owe dramatically less. Under the RSO, a landlord who owns no more than four residential units plus a single-family home on a separate lot in Los Angeles may pay a reduced relocation amount for an owner-occupancy eviction, and the reduced option can only be used once every three years.²

Under the Just Cause Ordinance, the reduction is sharper and more explicit. When the property is a single-family dwelling and the owner is a natural person holding no more than four units plus a single-family home, the relocation obligation drops to one month’s rent.⁴ A small landlord sitting on an eviction decision should confirm whether this provision applies before writing a check for the standard amount.

Shared Units

When two or more tenants share a unit, the landlord doesn’t owe the full amount to each person. The total relocation fee is divided equally among all tenants in the unit, with each receiving a pro-rata share.⁷ The classification (qualified or eligible) still runs tenant by tenant, but the dollar pool for the unit is set first and then split.

Payment Timeline, Escrow, and Back Rent

The landlord must make the relocation payment available within 15 days of serving the written notice of termination.⁷ That’s a tight window.

Instead of paying the tenant directly, the landlord may place the money into an escrow account. The arrangement must still let the tenant draw from the account before vacating to cover actual moving costs like security deposits, moving company fees, and utility connection charges. If the two sides disagree about releasing escrowed funds, the disputed amount goes to the Housing Department for a final determination.⁷

Back rent cuts into the payment. A landlord can offset accumulated unpaid rent against the relocation amount, except when the eviction results from a government order to vacate an unpermitted dwelling unit.⁷ A tenant who owes back rent should expect to see it deducted from the relocation check in most situations.

If the Landlord Doesn’t Pay

Nonpayment stops the eviction. A tenant facing an unlawful detainer action can raise the landlord’s failure to pay relocation assistance as an affirmative defense, which stalls the case until the landlord pays.⁷

A landlord who withholds the required money is also personally liable in a civil lawsuit for the full unpaid amount plus the tenant’s reasonable attorney fees and court costs.⁷ Trying to dodge the payment ends up costing the relocation amount plus the other side’s lawyer.

City Administrative Fees

Separate from what goes to the tenant, the Just Cause Ordinance requires the landlord to pay the city an administrative fee for each displaced unit: $840 per unit occupied by a qualified tenant and $522 per unit occupied by other tenants, plus $72 per unit in administrative costs.⁴ This money goes to the city and should sit on the landlord’s budget alongside the relocation payment itself.

How State and Federal Rules Interact

California’s Tenant Protection Act (AB 1482) sets a statewide floor of one month’s rent for no-fault relocation, delivered within 15 calendar days of the termination notice. Los Angeles’s local amounts are higher, so the city numbers are what landlords actually owe inside the city. The state floor matters more for tenants in jurisdictions without their own relocation ordinances.

When multiple relocation requirements overlap, the Just Cause Ordinance says the landlord pays whichever amount is highest, and any benefits paid under federal, state, or other local law count as a credit against the city obligation, so tenants don’t receive duplicate payments. For a demolition or government-order displacement tied to federal funding, the landlord owes whichever is greater: the federal Uniform Relocation Act amount, the California Relocation Assistance Act amount, or the city’s amount.⁴ Federal regulations prohibit duplicate recovery, and where more than one federal agency funds a project, a single lead agency administers relocation.⁸

1
Los Angeles Housing Department. Relocation Assistance Bulletin
2
Los Angeles Housing Department. Relocation Assistance Information
3
Los Angeles Housing Department. Relocation Assistance
4
Los Angeles Municipal Code. Los Angeles Municipal Code Section 165.06 – Relocation Assistance
5
Los Angeles Housing Department. RSO Overview
6
Los Angeles Housing Department. Just Cause For Eviction Ordinance
7
Los Angeles Municipal Code. Los Angeles Municipal Code Section 151.09 – Evictions
8
eCFR. Uniform Relocation Assistance and Real Property Acquisition for Federal and Federally Assisted Programs