Retaliatory Eviction — California Civil Code § 1942.5

California's retaliatory eviction protection lives in Civil Code § 1942.5. If a tenant is not behind on rent and exercises specific rights — like giving repair-and-deduct notice under § 1942 or filing a habitability complaint — the landlord cannot retaliate by taking possession, forcing the tenant out, raising the rent, or cutting services within a 180-day window of that act (§ 1942.5(a)).

The statute does not stop a landlord from acting for a genuinely unrelated, lawful reason during that window — it stops the landlord from using a protected act as the trigger. GoCodebook checks which of the listed triggering acts applies and how much of the 180 days remain before an eviction notice goes out.

The protected acts include: giving good-faith notice under § 1942 (repair-and-deduct) or of a suspected bed bug infestation; an oral complaint to the landlord about tenantability; a written (or registered oral) complaint to an appropriate agency; an inspection or citation resulting from such a complaint; filing a judicial or arbitration proceeding over tenantability; and a judgment or arbitration award against the landlord on that issue (§ 1942.5(a)(1)–(5)). The 180-day period runs from the latest of whichever of these events applies.

During that window, the landlord may not recover possession, force the tenant to quit, raise the rent, or reduce services. A tenant may invoke this protection no more than once in any 12-month period (§ 1942.5(b)).

Threatening to report — or actually reporting — the tenant, or people known to the landlord to be associated with the tenant, to immigration authorities is expressly a form of retaliatory conduct under this section, both for habitability-related retaliation (§ 1942.5(c)) and for retaliation against a tenant who has organized or joined a tenants' association or lawfully exercised other rights (§ 1942.5(d)–(e)).

A landlord does not violate these provisions by complying with a legal obligation under a federal program that provides rent limitations or rental assistance to a qualified tenant (§ 1942.5(k)).

Section 1942.5 does not stop a landlord from doing any of these things for a genuine, lawful cause unrelated to the protected act (§ 1942.5(f)). If the landlord's notice — of termination, a rent increase, or another act — states the ground it is relying on in good faith, the landlord may act within the protected period. If the tenant disputes that stated ground, the landlord must prove it is true at trial or another hearing (§ 1942.5(g)).

Any waiver by a tenant of these rights is void as against public policy (§ 1942.5(f)).

A landlord or agent who violates this section is liable to the tenant for actual damages, plus punitive damages of not less than $100 nor more than $2,000 per retaliatory act where the landlord acted with fraud, oppression, or malice (§ 1942.5(h)). The court must award reasonable attorney's fees to the prevailing party in a retaliatory-eviction damages action, if either side requests fees when the action begins (§ 1942.5(i)).

These remedies are in addition to any other remedy available under statute or case law (§ 1942.5(j)) — including the tenant's underlying repair-and-deduct rights and any protection under just-cause eviction rules.