What Is the Ellis Act in California: Notice, Payments, Penalties

The Ellis Act is a California state law, codified at Government Code Sections 7060 through 7060.7, that lets residential landlords permanently withdraw their rental units from the market, even in cities with strict rent control. In exchange for that exit, the Ellis Act in California imposes a strict all-or-nothing withdrawal, long notice periods, mandatory relocation payments, and years of restrictions on re-renting the property.¹

What the Law Does and Why It Exists

Enacted in 1985, the Ellis Act was the Legislature’s response to Nash v. City of Santa Monica, a 1984 California Supreme Court decision that upheld a local ordinance blocking a landlord from pulling his units off the rental market. The statute reverses that result: no city, county, or other public entity can compel a residential property owner to keep offering units for rent. The law says plainly that its purpose is “to permit landlords to go out of business.”²

That is the whole point. The Ellis Act is an exit from the rental business, not a tool for repositioning a single unit, raising rents, or clearing out one difficult tenant. Everything else in the statute follows from that framing.

You Must Withdraw All Units at Once

A landlord cannot pick and choose. The Ellis Act requires withdrawing every “accommodation,” and the statute defines that term broadly.³

For buildings with four or more residential units, “accommodations” means every unit in that structure. For smaller properties with three or fewer units per building, the definition reaches further and covers every residential rental unit on the entire parcel, including units in separate structures. Own a duplex and a detached cottage on the same lot? All three units have to go.³ The design blocks landlords from using the Ellis Act to remove only rent-controlled tenants while keeping the more lucrative units renting.¹

One carve-out: residential hotels in cities with populations over one million (effectively Los Angeles and San Francisco) that had permits issued before January 1, 1990, are generally exempt and cannot be withdrawn under the Ellis Act.

How a Landlord Invokes the Ellis Act

The withdrawal is a sequence, not a filing. The landlord files a Notice of Intent to Withdraw Residential Units from the Rental Market with the local rent board or housing department and separately serves each tenant with a written notice terminating the tenancy as of the withdrawal date.⁴

Within 15 days after filing the Notice of Intent, the landlord must separately inform every tenant that the notice was filed, that tenants have re-occupancy rights if the unit is later re-rented, that they are entitled to relocation assistance, and that elderly or disabled tenants may qualify for an extended notice period.⁴

Before the withdrawal takes effect, the landlord also records a memorandum summarizing the Notice of Intent with the County Recorder. Skipping that recording is more than a paperwork problem: a tenant can raise it as a defense against the eviction.⁴ Cities also charge their own administrative fees. Oakland, for example, charges $262.50 per unit.⁵

How Much Notice Tenants Get

The withdrawal becomes effective 120 days after the Notice of Intent is filed. That is the minimum time tenants have to find somewhere else to live and move out.⁴

Tenants who are 62 or older, or who have a qualifying disability, and who have lived in the unit for at least a year, are entitled to a full year’s notice. The tenant has to claim the extension in writing and may need to supply documentation such as proof of age or a doctor’s letter.⁶ Because the effective withdrawal date for the whole building is tied to the latest termination date among the tenants, one qualifying tenant pushes the date back for everyone in the building.

Relocation Payments

Every displaced tenant is entitled to a relocation payment. Half is due when the landlord serves the termination notice; the other half is due when the tenant moves out.⁴ The dollar amount is set locally and adjusted each year.

In San Francisco, for the March 2026 through February 2027 period, the payment is $11,110.05 per eligible tenant, capped at $33,330.13 per unit, with an additional $7,443.90 for each tenant who is 62 or older or has a disability.⁷ In Los Angeles, for July 2025 through June 2026, payments run $10,650 to $13,950 per eligible household depending on tenancy length and income, rising to $22,450 to $26,550 when the household includes a senior, disabled person, or minor children.⁸

These numbers add up. A six-unit San Francisco building with a mix of long-term and senior tenants can easily generate well over $100,000 in relocation payments, before filing fees or legal costs.

What You Cannot Do After Withdrawing

The Ellis Act is not a short-term maneuver. The restrictions on re-renting run in layers, and they bind whoever owns the property at any given moment, not just the owner who filed the original Notice of Intent.

Two Years: The Penalty Window

If any withdrawn unit is offered for rent within two years of the withdrawal date, the displaced tenant can sue for actual damages and exemplary damages, and the city can bring its own civil action for exemplary damages. Either claim must be filed within three years of the withdrawal.⁹

Five Years: Rent Rolled Back

Any tenancy that begins within five years of the Notice of Intent filing has to be offered at the rent lawfully in effect when that notice was filed, adjusted by whatever annual increases the local rent control system would have allowed in the meantime.⁹ Re-renting at market rate during this window is not allowed. The rule applies even if the withdrawal is rescinded instead of completed.

Ten Years: The Former Tenant’s First Shot

For ten years after withdrawal, any displaced tenant who asked in writing to be notified keeps a right of first refusal. Before renting to anyone else, the landlord must notify the former tenant by certified mail, describe the terms, and give 30 days to accept. Failing to make the offer exposes the landlord to punitive damages of up to six months’ rent.⁹ In San Francisco, if any single unit in the building returns to the rental market during the ten-year window, the entire property has to come back on the market.⁴

Demolition Does Not Reset the Clock

Tearing the building down and putting up a new one does not clear the slate. New units built on the same property and offered for rent within five years of the withdrawal are subject to rent control, even if the city’s rent control ordinance would normally exempt new construction.⁹

Penalties for Getting It Wrong

The financial exposure scales with how badly the rules are broken:

Re-renting within two years: actual damages and exemplary damages to the displaced tenant, plus a city-brought civil action for exemplary damages, with a three-year statute of limitations running from the withdrawal date.⁹
Failing to offer the right of first refusal: punitive damages of up to six months’ contract rent per displaced tenant, and paying those damages does not end the ongoing obligation to offer the unit to the former tenant.⁹
Failing to notify the rent board and displaced tenants before re-renting: liability for general and punitive damages.¹⁰

These obligations travel with the property. A buyer who takes title to a recently Ellis-Acted building inherits every remaining restriction and every displaced tenant’s right of first refusal.

Local Ordinances Add More

State law sets the floor. Rent-controlled cities, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Berkeley, San José, and Oakland, each have their own Ellis Act ordinances, and the local layers can differ meaningfully from one another.¹¹

Common local additions include higher relocation payments than state law requires, per-unit administrative filing fees, specific forms and documentation, restrictions on condo conversions following a withdrawal, and whole-building re-rental triggers when any single unit comes back online. Some cities require a reoccupation permit before any withdrawn unit can be re-rented. San José’s ordinance goes further on redevelopment and requires that 50% of new apartments built on a site where rent-stabilized units were removed stay subject to the local rent stabilization program.¹² Because these local rules change often and vary, the specific ordinance in the property’s city should be checked before any Notice of Intent is filed.

In cities without rent control, the Ellis Act has less practical significance. Its protections and restrictions are built to operate inside rent-controlled systems, and landlords in uncontrolled markets generally have simpler options for ending tenancies.

1
California Legislative Information. California Code GOV Section 7060.7
2
City of Richmond, CA. Ellis Act Information
3
California Legislative Information. California Code Government Code Section 7060
4
SF.gov. Evictions Pursuant to the Ellis Act
5
City of Oakland, CA. Ellis Act Forms
6
Los Angeles Housing Department. Removal From Rental Market – Renters
7
SF.gov. Current Rates, Including Rent Increase, Relocation, Security Deposit
8
Los Angeles Housing Department. Relocation Assistance Bulletin
9
California Legislative Information. California Code GOV Section 7060.2
10
Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board. Information Packet and Forms for Complying With the Ellis Implementation Ordinance
11
Berkeley Rent Board. Ellis Act Eviction
12
City of San José. Ellis Act Ordinance