Alameda, CA Rental Property Rules: Rent Increase Notice (2026)

Sec. 65 conditions a landlord's right to take the Annual General Adjustment on more than the math working out. Before charging the increase, the landlord must serve the tenant with the notice of a rent increase that state law requires, and must be in full compliance with the rest of the City's Rent Control Ordinance, including paying every Rent Program Fee owed on the Master Fee Schedule, registering all rental units, and following any Hearing Officer order still in effect. If a rent-increase notice doesn't satisfy those requirements, or the specifics in Rent Program Regulation 23-03, Sec.

65 requires the landlord to rescind it and reimburse any rent the tenant already paid under it. Subsection B goes further: a landlord who isn't in full compliance with the Rent Ordinance across every unit they own, hasn't paid the fees owed, hasn't registered every required unit, or is out of compliance with a Hearing Officer's order cannot raise rent on any unit at all, not just the noncompliant one. Separately, Sec. 35(R) requires a landlord to file a copy of any rent-increase notice tied to a Relocation Rent Increase with the Program Administrator within three days of serving it on the tenant, giving the City a paper trail on that category of increase. Together these sections mean the notice itself, and the paperwork behind it, are as legally load-bearing as the percentage the landlord is charging.