In the wake of the devastating fires in Los Angeles in January 2025, I have been working with several victims, families who have lost their homes, to find housing and navigate the myriad of things. This page will house good information about hot topics and will be updated frequently as I become aware of emerging information about: housing and rent caps, insurance information, property taxes, and others. If I have not covered a question that you are interested in, please contact me and I can help find answers.
Rents
A hot topic immediately following the fires is price gouging, overall for all things, but very specifically rental amounts. Rob Bonta’s DOJ office and the California Department of Real Estate couldn’t be more serious about monitoring rates to ensure that rents aren't being inflated beyond reasonable amounts. In normal times, the rule of thumb in real estate is to get as much as someone is willing to pay, and the supply and demand of the market will cause prices to go up and down. In a disaster, the supply and demand is not normal and people are caught in a situation where it would be easy to be taken advantage of due to their circumstance, finding themselves unexpectedly homeless. Here is the guide for setting rent as published by the California Dept of Justice.
- If your property has been listed for rent in the past 12 months, you cannot charge more than 10% of that number.
- If your property has not been listed for rent in the past 12 months, then you must check the HUD (Housing and urban development) website for the fair market rents in your zip code/ by bedroom count. Here is the link to their Fair Market Rents (FMR) page. Once you have your number from the website you can multiply it by 160% (x1.6). This is the max that you can charge for rent in your area.
Bear in mind that this applies to all areas that may be impacted by the disaster, not just the immediate neighborhoods. So for example, this covers all of LA county, and neighboring counties, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura and Orange County.
Are property owners publishing rental amounts that don’t fit the legal guide, yes, of course. But the potential consequences are as follows, for property owners and real estate professionals that represent them:
- Up to $10K fine and time in jail
- You may be required to pay back the amount overcharged for each month of the lease agreement.
- Insurance companies for the victims may already be using this guide to determine payouts, so potential tenants might not be able to even apply for the property if it is overpriced.
What if a tenant approaches a property owner with a rent amount higher than the guidelines? The property owner can still be charged fines and potential jail time and still be on the hook for restitution of rents over the legal amount. Even if the tenant offered it, if the offer is accepted it means you are charging that amount. Loophole: If your lease agreement is over 12 months, then the rule doesn’t apply. This is technically how the guide is written but all legal experts for the department of real estate advise that it would be foolish to aggressively exploit that loophole and probably not strong enough to protect a property owner.
Updated: 2.10.2025
Property Taxes
Prop 19 allows for residents, 55 +, victims of natural disasters and/or severely disabled to transfer their low primary residence property taxes up to 3 times, anywhere in California. So, in the situation of the recent fires, if you own property that is destroyed, you can purchase a new primary residence and transfer your low taxes to your new primary residence, even if you still own the destroyed property. If you are not a victim of a natural disaster you are required to sell the primary residence first. Then you have a few years to initiate the transfer. If you rebuild your primary residence then you can transfer your low property tax back to your now, newly built property.
If your property was destroyed in the fires you can also submit to have your property reassessed now, so your property taxes reflect the current value of your property. You must submit the “misfortune and calamity” e-form. Here is the link to the disaster relief page.
If you need assistance with finding a home, either temporary or permanent I would be happy to assist, feel free to contact me anytime.
