Journal ·
Selling a Tenant-Occupied House in Pasadena: What the Charter Allows
A seller in Pasadena can list a house with tenants in it, show it, and close on it. What a seller cannot do is end the tenancy because the house is being sold. The city's rules run from a charter amendment, not an ordinance the council can quietly revise, and the list of reasons a tenancy can end is closed.
Sale is not a reason to evict
Article XVIII of the Pasadena City Charter sets out eleven just cause grounds at Section 1806(a). Seven are at-fault, four are no-fault. Sale is not among them.
That is not an interpretation. A full-text search of Article XVIII returns zero occurrences of "sale", "sell", "sold" and "buyer". The word "purchaser" appears exactly once, at Section 1806(a)(6), and it works the other way: refusing the owner access to show the unit to a prospective purchaser is itself an at-fault ground. The charter contemplates showings. It does not contemplate vacancy.
State law lands in the same place. Civil Code 1946.2 has no sale ground either.
Two rulebooks, and they do not cover the same properties
This is where most sellers go wrong. Pasadena has rent control and just cause, and they apply to different sets of buildings.
Rent control is limited by the state Costa-Hawkins Act, which exempts single-family homes and condominiums that are separately alienable, plus anything with a certificate of occupancy after February 1, 1995. Just cause is not limited that way. Costa-Hawkins says so itself at Section 1954.52(c): nothing in it affects a city's authority "to regulate or monitor the basis for eviction".
| Property | Rent control | Just cause |
|---|---|---|
| Single-family home | No, Costa-Hawkins | Yes |
| Condominium, already sold separately | No, Costa-Hawkins | Yes |
| Condominium never sold separately by the subdivider | Yes | Yes |
| Duplex, certificate of occupancy before Feb 1 1995 | Yes | Yes |
| Duplex where the owner lives in one half | Yes | Yes |
| Anything built after Feb 1 1995 | No | Yes |
Two rows surprise people. A duplex is usually not separately alienable, so Costa-Hawkins does not exempt it and Pasadena rent control applies. And Pasadena has no owner-occupied duplex exemption. Under state AB 1482 an owner living in one unit of a duplex is exempt from just cause. Under Section 1805(b) of the charter, the exemption only reaches a tenant who shares a bathroom or kitchen with the owner. Sharing a wall is not sharing a kitchen.
One more detail worth knowing: the date February 1, 1995 does not appear in Article XVIII at all. It reaches Pasadena only through Costa-Hawkins by reference. If the state rule changes, the local coverage map changes with it.
What the buyer inherits
Section 1803(m) defines the landlord to include a successor. The obligations run with the property, and three consequences follow.
The Base Rent does not reset at closing. If the previous owner took an unlawful increase, that defect travels to the buyer along with the building. Tenancy length carries over too, which matters because relocation payments are tiered by how long the tenant has lived there.
The new owner has to register the unit within 30 days under Section 1812(b), and has to identify themselves to the tenant within 15 days under Civil Code 1962. Miss the second one and the new owner cannot evict for nonpayment of rent until it is cured. That is a real trap for an out-of-area buyer who assumes escrow handled it.
If the unit genuinely has to be empty
There are two lawful routes, and neither is fast.
Owner move-in, Section 1806(a)(9), requires that the owner or a qualifying relative actually occupy the unit, and requires a recorded ownership interest. An unrecorded side agreement does not qualify. A buyer who wants to move in should plan this as a post-closing process with notice and payment, not as a condition the seller delivers.
Withdrawal from the rental market, Section 1806(a)(10), runs through the state Ellis Act. It takes the whole property off the rental market, carries long notice periods, and attaches conditions for years afterward if the units come back.
The honest answer for most sellers is the third route: sell with the tenants in place and price it accordingly. Investor buyers understand tenancies. Our seller page covers how that changes the listing strategy, and buyers evaluating a tenant-occupied building should start on the buyer page.
The relocation numbers changed on October 1
No-fault grounds trigger relocation assistance, and the schedule is tiered by unit size and length of tenancy. A new schedule takes effect 1 October 2026.
Base payments now run from $7,935 for an efficiency unit with a tenancy under three years to $25,833 for a four-bedroom with a tenancy of ten years or more. A Special Circumstances supplement adds $7,935 to $15,500 for qualifying households. Moving costs are $1,657, or $5,000 in Special Circumstances. The ceiling on a single tenancy is $46,333.
Worked example from the city's own tiers: a two-bedroom, twelve-year tenancy with a qualifying senior comes to $34,160. On top of that, the full security deposit is returned and the relocation agency fee is paid before the notice is served, not at move-out.
A rule the city still publishes that a court struck down
This one needs saying plainly, because two official sources disagree right now.
In California Apartment Assn. v. City of Pasadena (2025) 117 Cal.App.5th 187, decided 18 December 2025, the Court of Appeal invalidated two provisions: the relocation payment triggered by a rent increase above five percent plus the annual adjustment, at Section 1806(b)(C), and the Written Notice to Cease requirement for evictions based on nonpayment of rent. The California Supreme Court denied review and depublication on 1 April 2026.
As of today the city continues to publish both provisions as current, in Board regulations dated 15 January 2026 and in meeting materials from 3 September 2026. The published decision governs. Anyone relying on the city's own handout for those two points is relying on text a court has already set aside, and anyone acting on the handout should get that reviewed by counsel first.
Before you list
- Pull the registration status and the Base Rent on file, not the rent you believe you are charging.
- Reconstruct each tenancy's start date. It drives the relocation tier.
- Confirm whether the building is in rent control, just cause, or both.
- Check whether any prior increase exceeded the allowed adjustment.
- Decide the route early. Owner move-in and Ellis both run on the buyer's clock, not the seller's.
- Budget relocation against the October schedule, not last year's.
Burbank handles the same situation under a different instrument, and the differences are not cosmetic: see selling a tenant-occupied house in Burbank. For the other obligations that attach at closing on this side of the county line, see Pasadena vs Glendale point-of-sale requirements.
Q: Can I ask my tenant to leave so the house shows better? Not as a ground for ending the tenancy. Refusing reasonable access for a showing is an at-fault ground, so access is protected. Vacancy is not.
Q: Does the tenant have a right to buy the property? Article XVIII does not create a general right of first refusal on sale. Rights of first refusal appear in specific no-fault situations, not on a simple sale.
This is general information about a city charter provision, not legal advice. Coverage, payment schedules and effective dates change, and a court decision has already unsettled part of the published guidance. Confirm current requirements with the city and with your own attorney before serving any notice. Call Alla at (818) 699-5367 or use the enquiry form.
More on buying and selling in the area: the Pasadena area guide.