Will you buy my California rental with the tenants still living there?

Yes. We buy California rental properties with tenants in place every week. The lease transfers to us at closing, we become the landlord. Whatever the relationship is (paying, non-paying, mid-eviction, holdover), we factor it into the offer and you're done with it.

Do I have to evict the tenants before selling?

No. In fact, that's usually a bad idea, eviction in California costs money, takes months, and you're paying carrying costs the whole time. Sell to us with the tenant in place and we handle it. The discount we apply for tenant-in-place is usually less than the cost of pursuing eviction yourself.

How does California rent control affect the sale?

Rent control caps how much we can raise rent post-purchase, which affects the rental yield and therefore the offer. We pull the rent ordinance for the property's city, model the post-purchase economics, and price accordingly. It's factored in but doesn't kill the deal.

My tenant hasn't paid in 6 months. Can you still buy?

Yes. Non-paying tenants are common in our pipeline. We close, then we deal with the unlawful detainer ourselves. Some sellers wait until eviction is complete before selling, but that's six more months of unpaid rent for you. Selling now stops the bleeding.

Will selling violate California tenant protections?

No. Selling the property doesn't terminate the lease. California tenants keep their lease rights with the new owner (us). We comply with the same rent-control and eviction protections you do, that's our problem post-close, not yours.

You Can Sell Your California Rental Property if You're Tired of Being a Landlord

Done being a landlord? We buy California rentals with tenants in place. No vacancy required, no evictions, no showings. Cash offer in 24 hours, close in as little as 7 days.

You do not need the tenant out to sell

The single most expensive belief in this situation is that the house has to be empty first.

It does not. A sale does not terminate a tenancy in California. The buyer takes the property subject to whatever tenancy exists:

Fixed-term lease. It survives the sale. The buyer becomes the landlord for the remainder of the term on the existing terms.
Month-to-month. It continues, and the buyer inherits it along with whatever notice obligations apply.

So "I have to evict before I can sell" gets the order backwards. Landlords who believe it spend months and thousands of dollars clearing a house to sell it, when the tenancy was never the obstacle. It only narrows the pool of buyers, because a retail owner-occupant wants possession at closing and an investor usually prefers the income.

The one thing to be careful about: evicting in order to sell can itself be the legal problem, not the solution. Which brings us to AB 1482.

What AB 1482 changed for landlords selling

The Tenant Protection Act reshaped this for most California rentals. Two parts matter here.

Just cause. Once a tenant has occupied a covered unit for 12 months, you generally need a stated just cause to terminate. Wanting to sell is not on the list. Owner move-in is, but it applies to the owner or specified family members actually moving in, and a sale to a third party is not that.

Relocation assistance. For no-fault terminations under the Act, the landlord generally owes the tenant relocation assistance, commonly one month's rent, either as a direct payment or a waiver of the final month.

There are exemptions, and they matter. Single-family homes and condos are exempt in many cases when the owner is not a corporation or REIT and the required written notice of exemption was given to the tenant. Buildings issued a certificate of occupancy within the last 15 years are also generally exempt.

Two cautions worth stating plainly. First, if you never served that exemption notice, you probably do not have the exemption, however the property is owned. Second, local ordinances can be stricter than state law. Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Oakland and others have their own just cause and relocation rules that override the state floor.

Do not take any of this as advice on your specific unit. Take it as the reason to check before you serve anything.

Showing an occupied California rental

If you list on the open market, you are asking a tenant who did not choose this to cooperate with it.

California requires reasonable advance notice to enter, and 24 hours' written notice is presumed reasonable. Entry is generally limited to normal business hours. Your tenant does not have to leave, tidy up, or be pleasant to buyers.

In practice, that means:

Every showing needs a notice, and a scheduling conversation
A tenant with no reason to help you can decline evening and weekend times
The house shows in whatever state they keep it
Retail buyers read an unhappy tenant as a problem and price accordingly

None of that is the tenant behaving badly. They are being asked to help sell the roof over their head. It is simply the reality of listing an occupied rental, and it is the reason many landlord sales stall at the showing stage rather than the offer stage.

A cash sale removes the entire question. We do not need showings.

The estoppel certificate, and why buyers ask for one

Any serious buyer of a tenanted property will ask for an estoppel certificate: a signed statement from the tenant confirming what the tenancy actually is.

Typically it confirms the rent, the deposit held, the term and end date, whether rent is current, and whether any side agreements or promises exist that are not in the written lease.

That last item is the reason it exists. Verbal arrangements are extremely common in long-held rentals: a rent reduction for doing yard work, permission to keep a pet, a deposit partly applied to a past-due month years ago. They bind the buyer as surely as the written lease does.

Get your paperwork together before you sell, whoever you sell to: the lease and any amendments, the rent ledger, the deposit accounting, and the AB 1482 exemption notice if you served one. A landlord who can produce these gets a cleaner deal and a better number.

Security deposits transfer, whether you remember or not

At closing you either transfer the security deposit to the buyer or return it to the tenant, and the buyer becomes responsible for it. In practice it is credited to the buyer through escrow.

Two things to get right:

The deposit is the tenant's money. If it was spent years ago, it is still owed. It comes out of your proceeds at closing rather than disappearing.

The accounting has to be real. Deductions you believe you made need documentation. A tenant who disputes an undocumented deduction after the sale has a claim, and California's bad-faith retention penalties are not trivial.

If your deposit records are a mess, say so up front. It is a normal thing to sort out in escrow and a bad thing to discover afterwards.

Your timeline with My Home Sold

Step 1: Tell us about the tenancy

Rent, term, deposit, and how current they are. A problem tenancy does not disqualify the property. It just needs to be priced honestly.

Step 2: Written offer in 24 hours

No showings, no notices to serve, no asking the tenant to accommodate anything.

Step 3: Estoppel and documents

We confirm the tenancy with the tenant directly and keep it low-key. They are not being asked to leave.

Step 4: Close

The deposit transfers through escrow, the tenancy continues with us as the landlord, and your obligations end.

Your options compared

Factor	List with an agent	Evict, then list	My Home Sold
Time to close	60–120 days, plus tenant cooperation	Months, plus the eviction itself	7–14 days
Requires the tenant to leave	No, but buyers often want it	Yes	No
Showings and 24-hour notices	Many	After they are out	None
Relocation assistance owed	No	Likely, under AB 1482 or local rules	No
Lost rent while it sells	Some	All of it, plus legal costs	None
Just cause exposure	Low	This is where landlords get sued	None

The tradeoff, plainly: we buy below retail, usually 10–20% depending on condition and market. If your tenant is cooperative, the unit shows well and you are not in a hurry, listing on the open market will very likely net you more, and we will tell you that on the call.

The cash route earns its discount when the tenancy is what makes the property hard to sell: a below-market rent a retail buyer will not underwrite, deferred maintenance you have stopped funding, a tenant who will not accommodate showings, or a just cause situation you would rather not test.

Compare the routes in our guide to selling a house fast in California.

Sell your California house the easy way

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