California HOA Short-Term Rentals

Quick-Reference Table

Last verified: July 17, 2026

Section 1: Overview — Can an HOA restrict short-term rentals in California?

California associations may prohibit transient or short-term rentals of 30 days or less, and many do — but the same statute that grants that power sharply limits broader rental bans. Under Civil Code section 4741, an association generally cannot adopt or enforce a governing-document provision that prohibits, has the effect of prohibiting, or unreasonably restricts the rental or leasing of a separate interest. It must allow at least 25 percent of separate interests to be rented, and it cannot require an owner to occupy a unit before renting it.¹ That same section expressly preserves an association's authority to prohibit short-term or transient rentals of a separate interest for 30 days or less.¹ Both halves of that rule are the law, and any policy that reflects only one half gets it wrong.

California governs all common interest developments through one unified statute, the Davis-Stirling Common Interest Development Act (Civil Code section 4000 et seq.), which covers condominium projects, planned developments, stock cooperatives, and community apartment projects together.⁸ Section 4741 stands as the controlling rental provision, and its subdivision (c) supplies the short-term carve-out that lets an association keep out nightly and weekly vacation rentals while still allowing longer leases.¹ Section 4740 grandfathers owners who acquired title before a rental prohibition took effect, and that interaction limits enforcement of newly adopted short-term bans against existing owners.²

Local short-term rental ordinances and the coastal-zone permit question regulate the relationship between the owner and the government, not the association's private authority under Davis-Stirling.¹⁵ California stands as a comprehensive, single-statute, high-activity state on this topic, with a prescriptive rental statute and a dense local and coastal overlay. The sections that follow set out the framework, the operational mechanics, and recent activity.

Section 2: The legal framework for HOA short-term rental restrictions

2A. The Davis-Stirling framework and the source of rental authority

California doesn't maintain separate condominium and planned-community statutes. The Davis-Stirling Common Interest Development Act, Civil Code section 4000 et seq., forms a single unified framework governing condominium projects, planned developments, stock cooperatives, and community apartment projects under one act. The Act defines a common interest development to include each of those forms and treats them together for purposes of the rental provisions discussed below.⁸ Practitioners entering California from two-statute states shouldn't try to separate condominium and planned-development rental analysis — the same sections apply to both.

The Act got recodified effective January 1, 2014. Current citations run in the section 4000 series, and the pre-2014 section 1350 series — including former section 1360.2, now section 4740 — is superseded.³ Every citation on this page uses the current numbering.

Within Davis-Stirling, the recorded declaration, the CC&Rs, sets community-specific rules as a governing document, but it operates inside the statute rather than above it. On rentals the statute runs unusually prescriptive, and it overrides conflicting governing-document provisions: a CC&R clause that conflicts with section 4741 is void and unenforceable to the extent of the conflict, and the association must amend the documents to conform.¹ The Act draws an explicit line between authority over long-term leasing, which the statute protects, and authority over short-term or transient rentals of 30 days or less, which the statute expressly leaves to the association.¹

2B. Civil Code § 4741 and § 4740: the rental statutes

Civil Code section 4741, enacted by AB 3182 (2020) and operative January 1, 2021, forms the centerpiece.^1,3 Subdivision (a) provides that an owner isn't subject to a governing-document provision that prohibits, has the effect of prohibiting, or unreasonably restricts the rental or leasing of any separate interest, accessory dwelling unit, or junior accessory dwelling unit. Subdivision (b) sets the minimum-rental floor: an association may not adopt or enforce a provision that restricts rentals to less than 25 percent of the separate interests, though it may permit a higher percentage. Subdivision (c) supplies the short-term carve-out: the section doesn't stop an association from adopting and enforcing a provision that prohibits transient or short-term rental of a separate interest for a period of 30 days or less. Subdivision (d) provides that an accessory dwelling unit or junior accessory dwelling unit isn't a separate interest for these purposes, so such units don't count toward the 25 percent floor. Subdivision (e) provides that a separate interest isn't counted as occupied by a renter if the owner occupies the separate interest, the ADU, or the JADU.¹ AB 3182 didn't impose a pre-rental owner-occupancy requirement, and by voiding minimum lease terms greater than 30 days, it removed the six-month and one-year minimums many associations had used.³

On compliance, subdivision (f) required associations to comply with the rental limits on and after January 1, 2021, regardless of whether they had revised their documents. AB 1584 (2021) amended subdivision (f) to extend the conforming-amendment deadline to July 1, 2022 and to require the board to make the conforming amendment without a member vote.⁷ Subdivision (g) makes an association that willfully violates the section liable for actual damages and a civil penalty up to $1,000.¹

Civil Code section 4740 supplies the grandfathering provision. An owner isn't subject to a governing-document provision, or an amendment, that prohibits the rental or leasing of a separate interest unless that provision was effective before the owner acquired title.² Section 4741(h) reinforces this by stating that, in accordance with section 4740, section 4741 doesn't change the right of an owner who acquired title before its effective date to rent or lease.¹

The interaction between section 4740 grandfathering and a section 4741(c) short-term prohibition stands as the single most complex point on this page, and it deserves a conservative framing. In Brown v. Montage at Mission Hills, Inc. (2021) 68 Cal.App.5th 124, the Court of Appeal, Fourth District, Division Two, held that a newly adopted ban on rentals of less than 30 days counts as a "prohibition" within the meaning of section 4740, and therefore was unenforceable against an owner who had acquired title — and rented short-term — before the ban took effect.⁸ The practical consequence: an association may adopt a 30-day short-term ban, but it generally cannot enforce that ban against an owner who held title before the ban's effective date, absent that owner's consent. Open questions remain, including the precise scope of "consent" and how the grandfathering rule interacts with the 25 percent floor in communities whose documents contained pre-existing rental prohibitions. Boards should confirm the timing of each owner's acquisition of title before sending a violation notice, and counsel should treat unresolved edge cases as unsettled.

2C. Adopting restrictions, amendments, and the local and coastal layer

Amending the declaration to add a rental restriction follows Civil Code section 4270: the amendment must be approved by the percentage of members the declaration requires, plus any other approval the declaration requires, then certified in writing and recorded. If the declaration doesn't specify the percentage, a majority of all members may approve the amendment.⁵ Because older declarations often require a supermajority that's hard to reach through member apathy, section 4275 lets an association, or any member, petition the superior court for an order reducing the required percentage, provided more than 50 percent of the votes were cast in favor and the statutory notice and reasonableness findings are met.⁶ No single statewide amendment percentage exists; the declaration sets the required vote, with section 4275 as the relief mechanism, and the conforming amendments section 4741 requires run as a separate board-only process.

Local short-term rental ordinances form a distinct layer. Cities and counties — including San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Palm Springs and the desert resort cities, and communities in the Lake Tahoe basin — regulate STRs through permits, registration, occupancy caps, and transient occupancy tax. These ordinances govern the relationship between the owner and the government, not the association's private authority. SB 346 (2025) confirms this division: it lets a locality require STR platforms to report listing data, and it expressly does not preempt local STR ordinances.⁴

In the coastal zone, an additional wrinkle applies to local government, not to associations. Under the California Coastal Act, a local restriction or ban on short-term rentals can constitute "development" that requires a coastal development permit or a local coastal program amendment, and the California Coastal Commission has resisted blanket local vacation-rental bans on the ground that they reduce coastal access.¹⁵ Courts have enforced this view against cities: in Kracke v. City of Santa Barbara (2021) 63 Cal.App.5th 1089, the Court of Appeal, Second District, affirmed an injunction against the city's short-term rental ban in the coastal zone absent Coastal Commission approval, relying on Greenfield v. Mandalay Shores Community Assn. (2018) 21 Cal.App.5th 896.¹⁶ This layer constrains local government regulation in the coastal zone; it doesn't limit an association's authority under Davis-Stirling.

Because the layers run separate, an owner who satisfies a local STR ordinance may still violate the governing documents, and an owner who complies with the CC&Rs may still violate a local ordinance. Compliance with one doesn't establish compliance with the other, and an operator must check both.

Section 3: Operational mechanics and enforcement

A. Adopting a valid restriction (the tools)

The principal lawful mechanism to keep out nightly and weekly rentals is a governing-document provision prohibiting transient or short-term rental of a separate interest for 30 days or less, authorized by section 4741(c). An association may also impose a rental cap, but only down to the section 4741 minimum-rental floor: it may not restrict rentals to fewer than 25 percent of the separate interests, though a higher cap is permitted. Accessory dwelling units and junior accessory dwelling units fall outside the count, and an owner-occupied interest doesn't count as rented, so a cap needs drafting with those exclusions in mind.¹

An association may impose reasonable owner and tenant information requirements, bounded by section 4741. Section 4740(c) requires an owner invoking grandfathering to give the association verification of the date the owner acquired title and the name and contact information of the prospective tenant or the tenant's representative.² Requirements that operate to prohibit or unreasonably restrict leasing aren't permitted. The conforming-amendment obligation runs mandatory: a compliant provision bans rentals of 30 days or less, sets any cap at 25 percent or higher, omits minimum lease terms longer than 30 days, and omits pre-rental owner-occupancy conditions. The board must make the conforming amendment without a member vote under section 4741(f).^1,7

B. Enforcement

Before imposing a fine for a short-term rental violation, the board must satisfy the notice and hearing requirements of section 5855: written notice to the member at least 10 days before the meeting, stating the date, time, place, and nature of the alleged violation and the member's right to attend and be heard. Discipline doesn't take effect against the member unless the board meets these requirements, and the fine must follow a schedule adopted and distributed under section 5850.¹¹ AB 130 (2025) capped most governing-document fines at $100 per violation, with a narrow exception for violations that may cause an adverse health or safety impact, which requires a written board finding at an open meeting; late fees and interest on fines are prohibited.¹² These caps apply to short-term rental fines too, and they reduce the deterrent value of fines for high-value STR violations.

Available remedies include fines, injunctive relief, and civil action to enforce the governing documents. A significant limit applies to fines: under section 5725(b), a monetary penalty imposed as a disciplinary measure may not be characterized or treated as an assessment that becomes a lien enforceable by nonjudicial foreclosure.¹³ Associations therefore generally cannot use the assessment-lien and nonjudicial-foreclosure machinery to collect STR fines, and injunctive relief often works as the more effective remedy for a persistent short-term rental. Association enforcement runs in parallel with, and independent of, local STR enforcement: a city can cite an owner for operating without a permit while the association separately enforces its 30-day ban, and each proceeds under its own authority. The notice-and-hearing and fine-cap rules are statutory and can't be varied by the governing documents to lower the member's protections; the board sets the fine schedule itself within the statutory cap.

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

B. Recent appellate rulings

No published California Court of Appeal or California Supreme Court decision issued in the past 36 months squarely addresses HOA rental-restriction enforceability, section 4741, or section 4740. The controlling appellate authority on the grandfathering of short-term rental bans remains Brown v. Montage at Mission Hills, Inc. (2021) 68 Cal.App.5th 124 (Fourth District, Division Two), discussed as framework in Section 2B rather than here.⁸ This check deserves a rerun each quarter, since California's rental litigation activity runs high and a qualifying decision could issue at any time.

C. Active legislative or local debates

SB 1318 (2025-2026) would require the Coastal Commission to approve a coastal development permit or local coastal program amendment restricting or prohibiting non-owner-occupied short-term rentals, regardless of the availability of other visitor-serving accommodations; it remained in committee as of mid-2026.¹⁷ Separately, the Coastal Commission voted 6-2 on August 13, 2025 to certify Monterey County's ordinance banning commercial short-term rentals in Big Sur and Carmel Highlands — eliminating the roughly 37 commercial vacation rentals then operating in Big Sur — illustrating the case-by-case coastal-zone posture that governs local government, not associations.¹⁸

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

California stands as a leading example of a state whose statute directly governs HOA rental authority. It simultaneously bars broad rental prohibitions, sets a minimum-rental floor, and forbids pre-rental occupancy requirements, while expressly permitting associations to prohibit short-term or transient rentals of 30 days or less. That combination sets California apart both from states that leave the rental question entirely to the recorded declaration and from states that regulate only local government STR power. The local STR ordinances and the coastal-zone permit question restrain government actors, not associations, whose rental authority is fixed by Davis-Stirling and the declaration. For a multi-state operator entering California, the practical implication is a single prescriptive statute to master, a 25 percent minimum-rental floor, grandfathering of existing owners under section 4740, and a dense local and coastal overlay that needs checking property by property.

HOA Weekly's California Short-Term Rentals coverage updates quarterly as the Legislature, the California Courts of Appeal and Supreme Court, local governments, and the Coastal Commission act. Federal frameworks — including the FHA, ADA, FDCPA, SCRA, and OTARD — also apply to California associations regardless of the state framework.

Footnotes

1. Cal. Civ. Code § 4741 (Davis-Stirling Common Interest Development Act), California Legislative Information ↩
2. Cal. Civ. Code § 4740, California Legislative Information ↩
3. AB 3182 (2019-2020), Housing: governing documents: rental or leasing of separate interests: accessory dwelling units, California Legislative Information ↩
4. SB 346 (2025), Short-Term Rental Facilitator Act of 2025, Gov. Code § 50990 et seq., Chapter 751, Statutes of 2025, California Legislative Information ↩
5. Cal. Civ. Code § 4270, California Legislative Information ↩
6. Cal. Civ. Code § 4275, California Legislative Information ↩
7. AB 1584 (2021), Housing omnibus (amending Cal. Civ. Code § 4741), California Legislative Information ↩
8. Brown v. Montage at Mission Hills, Inc. (2021) 68 Cal.App.5th 124, Court of Appeal, Fourth District, Division Two, Aug. 20, 2021 (Nos. E074341, E075762), California Courts of Appeal opinion via Justia ↩
9. City of Palm Springs, Vacation Rentals (Vacation Rental/Homeshare Registration Certificate requirement), official city site ↩
10. City of Palm Springs, Transient Occupancy Tax (11.5% TOT on vacation rentals) plus 1% TBID assessment, official city site ↩
11. Cal. Civ. Code § 5855 (disciplinary measures; notice and hearing), California Legislative Information ↩
12. Cal. Civ. Code § 5850 (schedule of monetary penalties; $100 fine cap and health-or-safety exception, as amended by AB 130 (2025)), California Legislative Information ↩
13. Cal. Civ. Code § 5725(b) (monetary penalty may not be treated as an assessment lien enforceable by nonjudicial foreclosure), California Legislative Information ↩
14. California Courts of Appeal (six appellate districts), Judicial Branch of California ↩
15. California Coastal Commission, Short-Term/Vacation Rentals in the California Coastal Zone (guidance memo, Dec. 6, 2016), coastal.ca.gov ↩
16. Kracke v. City of Santa Barbara (2021) 63 Cal.App.5th 1089, Court of Appeal, Second District (citing Greenfield v. Mandalay Shores Community Assn. (2018) 21 Cal.App.5th 896), California Courts of Appeal opinion via Justia ↩
17. SB 1318 (2025-2026), Coastal resources: local coastal program: coastal development permit: non-owner-occupied short-term rentals, California Legislative Information ↩
18. "The Coastal Commission certifies Monterey County's short-term rental ordinance," Monterey County Now, Aug. 2025 (6-2 vote, Aug. 13, 2025) ↩