Palm Desert, CA Rental Property Rules: Rental Registration (2026)

Section 8.70.020 sits inside Chapter 8.70, the property maintenance chapter, and it applies to owners of multifamily rental properties within the city consisting of three or more units. Two separate duties follow. First, the owner must provide the city with the name and telephone number of at least one person whom the city can contact in the event of a compliance problem relating to the requirements of Chapter 8.70. Second, all on-site property managers must register with the city, providing their names, addresses, telephone numbers, and such other information as the city manager or his or her designee deems useful to the enforcement of the chapter. The code carves out one limit: the city cannot demand information that is unavailable to cities because of constitutional or statutory limitations.

The section does not itself print a registration fee, a renewal date or an inspection schedule, and it does not name buildings with one or two units. Its purpose is practical. Chapter 8.70 restates the city's property maintenance standards because the city council determined that the quality of life in Palm Desert is tied to the character and condition of real property within the city. When a multifamily building falls short of those standards, the city needs a named person to call. Section 8.70.010 allows inspection from public rights-of-way, with the consent of the owner or occupier, or under a court-issued warrant, and it declares violations of the chapter a public nuisance that the city can abate under Chapter 8.20. The registration duty was added by Ordinance 801 in 1996 and has not been amended since. Nothing in the section turns the contact requirement into a rental license.