Renters, Apartments & HOA Charging·August 22, 2026·@stonewren

California §1947.6 carve-out for rent-controlled units — does my lease still protect me?

I've been in my building near Los Feliz for about five years now, one of the older courtyard buildings that falls under LA's Rent Stabilization Ordinance. Rent's been great specifically because it's rent-controlled, but that same status might be the thing standing between me and a Level 2 setup for my car. I got the EV about ten months ago and have been fine running a Level 1 cord out to my carport, but with how much I'm driving for work lately it's not really keeping up overnight anymore. I started actually reading up on what California law says about landlords and EV charger requests after Civil Code 1947.6 came up in a thread here a while back about a landlord who just went silent on someone's request. Reading the actual code section, there's a carve-out at 1947.6(b)(4) that exempts units under local rent control from the general rule that a landlord has to approve a compliant request. Which sounded like it killed my case before I even asked. Then I found language saying that exemption doesn't apply to leases 'executed, extended, or renewed' on or after January 1, 2019. Here's where I got stuck. My lease is a one-year term that auto-renews every year unless either side gives 30 days' notice. I signed the original in 2019, so the initial signing is already right at the cutoff, but does the auto-renewal every year since then count as the lease being renewed each time, or does only the original signing date matter? If it's the former, I might actually be covered under the regular protection instead of the carve-out, which flips the whole answer. I don't want to bring this up with my landlord assuming I'm protected and be wrong about it, and I don't want to assume I'm not protected and never ask. Has anyone actually dealt with this specific wrinkle, the auto-renewal clause and the 2019 date, either in LA or another rent-controlled city? Trying to figure out where I actually stand before I say anything to management.

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13 ANSWERS

@Priya SharmaVerified ExpertAugust 23, 2026

The auto-renewal question is the real crux here, and there's no clean answer. The carve-out is about whether your lease has been "renewed" since 2019, and an annual auto-renewal clause is exactly the kind of thing that could count as a renewal each year — which would knock you out of the exemption and put you under the regular protection instead. I wouldn't lead with that reading in a conversation with your landlord though. How that clause gets treated depends on your lease wording and how your city's rent board interprets it — some California cities read auto-renewal differently than others. Worth a real conversation with a landlord-tenant attorney in your city before bringing this to the building, not a forum comment, mine included.

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↳@driftbadgeAugust 27, 2026

Before anyone runs with the auto-renewal theory too far: is the clause in your lease actually renewal language, or does it convert to month-to-month after the term? Those aren't the same mechanism, and I'd guess it matters which one you actually have. A lot of leases use the second one and just call it 'renews' in the plain-English summary at the top even though the clause underneath works differently.

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↳@stonewrenAugust 30, 2026

Just went and reread it. It says the agreement automatically renews for successive one-year terms unless either party gives written notice at least 30 days before the end of the current term. So it's using the word renew directly, not converting to month-to-month. Doesn't answer whether that's the same 'renewed' the statute means, but at least I know which clause I'm actually working with now.

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↳@Priya SharmaVerified ExpertSeptember 01, 2026

That's meaningfully different from a month-to-month rollover — "automatically renews for successive one-year terms" reads a lot closer to the kind of renewal the statute's pointing at. I'd call that a real argument you've had a renewal event every year since 2019, which would put you back under the regular approval requirement instead of the rent-control carve-out. I wouldn't treat that as settled though — I haven't seen this exact clause tested against the statute directly, and how strong it is depends on your city's rent board. Bring the exact lease language to the attorney conversation, that wording matters more than anything here. You're not the only one stuck on this question either — it's come up unanswered in another rent-controlled city's forum too.

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@paperiguanaAugust 29, 2026

On the management side, and not in California so take this as general pattern rather than local knowledge: most property managers I've worked with don't actually track which of their rent-controlled units have leases old enough to sit inside a carve-out versus ones that got renewed past it. It's usually one blanket answer for the whole building, 'we're rent-controlled, so no,' whether or not that's even correct for a specific unit. You might end up correcting your landlord's assumption as much as asserting your own rights here.

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↳@stonewrenAugust 30, 2026

That actually matches what happened when I mentioned it in passing to the building manager a couple months ago, before I'd read any of this. The answer was an immediate 'we're rent control, we don't have to do that,' no hesitation at all. Now I'm wondering if that was even her call to make or just the standard line everyone in that office repeats.

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@ribbonashAugust 27, 2026

Different rent-controlled city here, Santa Monica, and it's not just the lease-date question that varies. Santa Monica's rent control board has its own separate approval steps on top of the state law, so even if you land on the covered side of this instead of the carve-out side, you might still have to go through the local board depending on your building. Checked into mine last year and the state law and the city process turned out to be two separate things I had to satisfy, not one. Also check (b)(5) - a pre-2018 ordinance can override the carve-out too, no idea if LA has one.

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@icewardenAugust 25, 2026

LA's Housing Department has a public RSO search you can look up by address. Tells you if a unit is covered and roughly when the building registered. Won't answer the lease-renewal question, but it'll confirm you're actually dealing with a rent-controlled unit instead of just an assumption everyone's been repeating. Worth five minutes before the attorney call.

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@gravelfox88September 03, 2026

Worth remembering that even on the side of this where you're not in the carve-out, the statute still lets a landlord refuse for real reasons: panel doesn't have capacity, no reasonable path to run a circuit to your spot, things like that. Being covered means they can't say no just because they don't want to deal with it, not that they have to say yes to whatever install you show up with. Get the legal status sorted first, but whatever you eventually propose still has to be electrically reasonable for the building. Also, 1947.6(g) spells out what your written request itself has to include, not just a text.

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@stonewrenAugust 24, 2026

That's the other thing I keep going back and forth on. If I ask directly and turn out to be wrong about the renewal argument, do I just hand my landlord the carve-out as a ready-made reason to say no? There might be a version of this where finding out the answer before I ask is worth more than asking and hoping.

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↳@driftbadgeAugust 29, 2026

You can ask a landlord-tenant attorney to review just the lease clause and the code section without your landlord ever knowing the question got asked. That's a one-time consult, not a negotiation. Get that answer first, then decide how you want to bring it up, instead of finding out live in a conversation with the person you're trying to convince.

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@orbit_snackAugust 29, 2026

Went through basically this exact question with an Oakland unit two years ago, and ours went the other direction. Original lease from 2016, no renewal language after the first term, it just continued on the same terms until someone ended it, and our attorney said that never triggered a renewal event, so we stayed inside the carve-out instead of falling into the protected side the way your case might. Depends entirely on the actual paragraph in your own lease, not just the statute.

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@pintleafAugust 29, 2026

Same issue different state. Illinois doesn't have this exact carve-out, but my lease has the identical auto-renewal wording and I never once thought to ask whether that mattered for anything. Following this thread for whenever something similar shows up here.

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California §1947.6 carve-out for rent-controlled units — does my lease still protect me?

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