The Ellis Act — Withdrawing Units From the Market

The Ellis Act (California Government Code §§ 7060–7060.7), enacted in 1985, gives every residential landlord the right to go out of the rental business. No city — even one with strict rent control — can force an owner to keep renting. The catch: it is all-or-nothing. To invoke the Ellis Act, the owner must withdraw every unit in the building from the rental market, not just one troublesome tenancy.

Because it removes tenants without any fault on their part, an Ellis Act withdrawal is a recognized no-fault ground under just-cause eviction law (§ 1946.2) and triggers notice, relocation and re-rental obligations — heaviest in rent-controlled cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles. Whether an address falls under those local rules is exactly what GoCodebook answers.

An Ellis Act withdrawal requires a long notice: generally 120 days, extended to a full one year for tenants who are 62 or older or disabled (and who provide the required documentation). The owner must also file a notice of intent to withdraw with the local rent board where one exists.

Tenants are entitled to relocation assistance, and amounts are set locally. In the City of Los Angeles, for example, 2026 LAHD per-unit payments run roughly $9,650 to $24,650 depending on the household. San Francisco sets its own per-tenant amounts that adjust annually. Because the dollar figures and timelines are city-specific, GoCodebook looks up the rule for the actual jurisdiction.

The Ellis Act is an exit, not a reset. If an owner puts the property back on the rental market within a set window (commonly two years, and up to five years with reduced protections), strict consequences follow: the unit may have to be offered first to the displaced tenant, re-rented at the prior rent-controlled rate, and the owner can face damages for re-renting too soon.

AB 1399 (2020) tightened this further, clarifying that an owner cannot return fewer than all the withdrawn units to the market — if any unit goes back during the constraint period, the whole property does, on the same terms. This blocks using the Ellis Act to quietly de-control just one or two units.

The Ellis Act matters most in cities with their own rent-control ordinances — San Francisco, Los Angeles, Berkeley, Santa Monica, Oakland — because those cities impose the longest re-rental constraints and the largest relocation payments. It overrides their eviction-control rules but only on the condition that the owner truly leaves the business.

It interacts with Costa-Hawkins (vacancy decontrol does not apply to an Ellis withdrawal) and with the no-fault and relocation requirements that SB 567 (2024) tightened under AB 1482. Ask GoCodebook before serving an Ellis notice to confirm the local timeline and payments.