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A buyer who wants to live in a rented unit of your Los Angeles duplex can end that tenancy only through the owner occupancy process in the RSO or, for a newer City duplex, the Just Cause Ordinance. Both come with filings at LAHD and relocation money, and under the RSO some tenants can't be moved at all. Outside the City, where no local rule is stricter, state law sets the terms, and since April 1, 2024 an owner who takes a unit back has to move in within 90 days and stay at least 12 months in a row.
None of it is yours to start. LAHD says a landlord can't evict a tenant to sell the property, so an owner move-in is the buyer's step, taken after the deed is theirs. What you control is which buyer you sell to and what you tell them before they write an offer.
- Under the RSO, the owner needs at least 25 percent of the property to move in, or 50 percent to move in a family member, and has to live there two consecutive years.
- A tenant who is terminally ill, or who is 62 or older or disabled and has lived there 10 years or more, can't be displaced for owner occupancy.
- The Just Cause Ordinance sends a City owner move-in through the RSO's own owner occupancy section, 151.30, and a corporate entity can't use it.
- Relocation money is due within 15 days of the notice, and the amount depends on whether the tenant is qualified, how long they've lived there and their income.
Moving into a rented unit under the RSO
The RSO lets an owner recover a unit in good faith to live in as a primary residence, for themselves, for a spouse, child, grandchild, parent or grandparent, or for a resident manager. LAHD's owner occupancy rules attach conditions to every part of that.
- The owner needs at least a 25 percent share of the property to move in, and at least 50 percent to move in a family member.
- Whoever moves in has to live there as a primary residence for at least two consecutive years.
- The owner files a Declaration of Intent to Evict with LAHD before serving notice, as LAHD's bulletin on owner, family and manager occupancy sets out, and then files the notice itself within three business days of serving it, as every RSO termination notice has to be.
- Relocation assistance has to be available to the tenant within 15 days of the notice, and the owner can pay it through an escrow account.
- The owner can recover only the unit whose tenant moved in most recently, and can't displace anyone while a comparable unit in the building sits vacant.
Some tenants are off limits. A tenant who is terminally ill can't be moved out for owner, family or manager occupancy, and neither can one who is 62 or older, or disabled, and has lived in the unit 10 years or more. The start date of each tenancy is the part you can hand a buyer. The rest turns on your tenant's age and health, and a landlord-tenant attorney should work through it for the buyer before anyone counts on getting the unit. Shaya can put the tenancy history in front of buyers early, but he isn't a lawyer and can't tell a buyer whether a particular tenant is protected.
The rules stay with the unit after the move-in, too. The next tenant's rent stays controlled instead of starting fresh. And an owner who puts the unit back on the rental market within two years of the tenant leaving has to offer it to that tenant first.
What the relocation payment turns on
LAHD's relocation amounts depend first on the tenant's category. A tenant counts as qualified if, on the date the notice goes out, they're 62 or over, they're disabled, or a minor child depends on them. Everyone else is an eligible tenant, whose amount depends on how long they've lived in the unit and on their income. LAHD adjusts the figures every July 1 and posts them on its relocation assistance page, where the current chart runs from July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027.
A small landlord may owe less. The RSO's "Mom and Pop" provision, in Municipal Code section 151.30, covers a landlord who owns no more than four residential units and a single-family house in the City of Los Angeles. That landlord can pay a lower relocation amount to move in themselves or a close family member, once every three years. A buyer whose only City property will be your duplex is inside that count, and the difference is worth putting in front of them early.
A newer City duplex under the Just Cause Ordinance
A City duplex certified after October 1, 1978 is outside the RSO. Once a tenant has been there six months, or the original lease has run out if that comes first, the Just Cause Ordinance protects them instead. Its owner occupancy ground, in Municipal Code section 165.03, covers the landlord and the landlord's spouse, domestic partner, children, grandchildren, parents and grandparents. It also makes the landlord follow the restrictions and requirements of section 151.30, the RSO section that governs owner occupancy.
A corporate entity can't use this ground. The City allows one month's rent as the whole relocation payment in a single case, a stand-alone single-family house owned by a natural person with no more than four units and one house in the City. A duplex isn't that.
The JCO also exempts a two-unit property where an owner lived in the second unit for the entire tenancy. If you've lived in one half for all of your tenant's time there, that exemption describes your duplex today. Whether it carries over to a buyer who wasn't living there is not answered by the text, so give the buyer's attorney your dates along with the wording of both owner-occupied exemptions.
A duplex outside both City ordinances
Where no stricter local rule applies, Civil Code section 1946.2 protects a tenant who has lived in the unit lawfully and continuously for 12 months. An owner moving in, or moving in certain close family, is one of its no-fault causes, and the relocation payment is one month's rent, paid directly or waived as the final month. SB 567, in effect since April 1, 2024, tightened the move-in itself. The owner or relative has to move in within 90 days and live there for at least 12 consecutive months, as the DRE's guide to terminations explains.
The same section exempts a duplex whose two units share one structure, where the owner lived in one unit when the tenancy began and still does, as long as neither unit is an ADU or a junior ADU. In unincorporated Los Angeles County, the County's Rent Stabilization and Tenant Protections Ordinance comes first, and another city may have rules of its own.
What it means for your price and timing
Every step above happens after closing, on the buyer's time and at the buyer's cost. The filings, the notice, the relocation money and the wait for the tenant to go all come after the deed changes hands, and a protected tenant may never have to leave. An owner-occupant also answers to a lender. FHA gives the borrower 60 days from signing to move in, and each of the owner-occupant loans requires the buyer to live there.
So an empty unit and a rented one sell to different people. With one unit empty at closing, owner-occupants compete with investors for your duplex. With both rented, you're selling to investors, and to the owner-occupant willing to take on the process, who will take its cost and delay off the price. Whether to deliver a unit empty is the decision to make before you list, because a new lease on an empty unit makes it for you.
Shaya can look at who lives in each unit, when each tenancy began and which rules reach it, and tell you which buyers that leaves you before a tenant decision settles it.