DRE Update: Real Estate Related Bill Summaries – 2026 Legislation

Published: November 3, 2026

Chapter 506, Statutes of 2026 (AB 739) will require a homeowners’ association board of directors to review a statement of fees charged by the association’s managing agent on an annual basis. This bill will additionally add a statement of fees charged by the managing agent to the list of documents that are defined as association records.

Chapter 887, Statutes of 2026 (AB 1684) will make void and unenforceable any provision in a homeowners’ association governing documents or architectural guidelines if they prohibit or restrict the installation/use of a cooling system that complies with applicable state and local building codes. It will also make void and unenforceable any covenant, condition, or restriction contained in any deed, contract, security instrument, or other instrument affecting the transfer of any interest in real property, as well as any governing document, that effectively prohibits or restricts the installation or use of a cooling system. An association that willfully violates this bill will be liable to the association member for actual damages, attorney’s fees and court costs, and a civil penalty of up to $2,000.

Chapter 43, Statutes of 2026 (AB 1834) will amend the Subdivision Map Act to add mixed-use developments, including those with residential uses, to the list of subdivisions that are exempt from the requirement to secure a tentative and final map. Instead, these developments may instead receive a parcel map. This applies if the land consists of parcels having approved access to a public street or highway which has the approval of the governing body as to street alignments and widths. This will apply to both for-sale and rental units.

Chapter 241, Statutes of 2026 (AB 1842) will enact the California Mortgage Relief Act, which will require a mortgage servicer to provide up to 12 months of forbearance to an eligible borrower whose residential unit has become uninhabitable as a direct result of a disaster included in a declaration of disaster issued by the federal government.

Chapter 242, Statutes of 2026 (AB 1847) will extend the Mortgage Forbearance Act from January 7, 2027 to January 7, 2029, and will increase the maximum forbearance period from 12 months to 24 months. It will also require borrowers requesting a forbearance to affirm that the property is uninhabitable due to the wildfire disaster, in addition to the current requirement to affirm that they are experiencing a financial hardship due to the wildfire disaster. It will allow servicers to request specific additional documentation when a request for a forbearance extension beyond 12 months is made and increase the time period a servicer has to approve a forbearance beyond 12 months. Lastly, it will require, unless prohibited by the investor contract or servicing guidelines, a servicer to offer the option to defer repayment to the end of the loan term through a loan deferral or comparable loss mitigation option.

Chapter 169, Statutes of 2026 (AB 1892) will make various clarifications to the Davis-Stirling Act regarding repairs to restore interrupted utility services within a common interest development, as well as homeowners’ association election notices and electronic balloting. The bill will clarify that an association’s existing responsibility to make the repairs necessary to restore interrupted gas, heat, water, or electrical services will apply to services where the interruption begins in the common area rather than the services begin in the common area. The bill also changes the timing of notice requirements for the existing disclosure that board elections can be conducted by acclamation, instead of by a balloting process, if the number of qualified candidates is not more than the number of vacancies to be filled. This notice will be required to be sent at least 30 days before the deadline for submitting nominations and the currently required reminder notice will be required to be sent 10 days before the deadline. Finally, the bill will revise electronic ballot noticing requirements to only require HOAs to deliver a notice of electronic voting to those members who have chosen to vote electronically and be provided no later than 30 days before the election.

Chapter 279, Statutes of 2026 (AB 1957) will revise the foreclosure bid process established by SB 1079 (Skinner, Chapter 202, Statutes of 2020) by removing the prospective owner occupant category of eligible bidder and limit bidding only to eligible tenant bidders and eligible community bidders. It will also limit the types of properties on which a tenant bidder may bid to only those whose fair market value is no more than the maximum Federal Housing Administration loan limits and will require tenant bidders to occupy the property for at least one year after purchase.

Chapter 572, Statutes of 2026 (AB 2025) will require a person, who includes a digitally altered image in an advertisement or promotional material for the rental of residential real property, to disclose that the image was altered. This disclosure must be located on or adjacent to the image and the person must also include the unaltered version of the images from which the digitally altered images were created. A person will be considered in compliance with this requirement if they include the unaltered images by providing a link, uniform resource locator (URL), or quick response code (QR Code) to the unaltered images and include a disclosure indicating the unaltered images can be accessed via the link, URL, or QR code. This requirement will not apply to an image, architectural rendering, or artistic rendering that was not originally created through the use of a capture device, as defined by current law. The bill will also exempt leaseholds that exceed one year’s duration from a similar requirement in current law that requires digitally altered images to be disclosed in advertisements or promotional materials for the sale of real property.

Chapter 916, Statutes of 2026 (AB 2035) will expand the vote threshold options that a court may accept to grant a petition to amend the covenants, conditions, and restrictions of a common interest development. The expanded vote threshold options will only apply to senior developments that have more than 6,000 separate interests, have not amended their covenants, conditions, and restrictions in 35 years, and have more than 25 percent of the separate interests occupied by tenants.

Chapter 796, Statutes of 2026 (AB 2050), beginning January 1, 2032, will require homeowners’ associations to identify in their reserve study the minimum reserve contribution level required to prevent the projected reserve account balance from falling below zero over the following 30 years. It will also require associations to annually fund their reserve account in at least the minimum contribution level included in the most recent reserve study. If an association’s reserve balance is projected to fall below zero at any time over the following 30 years, the bill will require the association to transfer a minimum of 15 percent of its gross annual budget to its reserve account each year until the balance is no longer projected to fall below zero. If an association cannot prevent the projected account balance from falling below zero over the next 30 years, AB 2050 will require the association to levy a reserve funding special assessment to meet this contribution requirement, not more than once every nine years.

Chapter 124, Statutes of 2026 (AB 2692) will amend the Davis-Stirling Act to allow a common interest development in Los Angeles County to reinstate an expired declaration of covenants, conditions, and restrictions, for a new term equal in length to the initial term, or 20 years, whichever is less. The bill will require the threshold to approve the reinstatement to be the percentage stated in the expired declaration, or if no threshold was stated, by a majority vote of the members. This bill will sunset on January 1, 2028.

Chapter 738, Statutes of 2026 (SB 222) will make void and unenforceable any provision in homeowners’ association governing documents, architectural guidelines, or other policies that would prevent the replacement of a fuel-gas-burning appliance with an electric appliance, provided the appliance complies with all applicable state and local building codes. It will also make void and unenforceable any covenant, condition, or restriction contained in any deed, contract, security instrument, or other instrument affecting the transfer or sale of any interest in real property, as well as any governing document, that effectively prohibits or restricts the installation or use of a residential heat pump water heater or heat pump heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system.

Chapter 787, Statutes of 2026 (SB 908) will make void and unenforceable any restriction contained in any deed, contract, security instrument, or provision of a governing document of a common interest development that will prohibit or restrict a homeowner’s ability to complete a residential window replacement project or impose any requirements on California Energy Code-compliant windows. It will allow homeowners’ associations to have reasonable restrictions on the installation of such projects including aesthetic restrictions in limited circumstances. In addition, the measure outlines the process for approving an application for a window replacement project under those restrictions. For windows that are part of the common area or located in the common area, it outlines the parameters that an owner and any successive owners must meet to replace those windows.

Chapter 664, Statutes of 2026 (SB 946) will repeal the sunset on a set of protections for escrow agents under the Consumer Credit Reporting Agencies Act. These protections relate to escrow agent rating services in their work to evaluate escrow agents.

Chapter 350, Statutes of 2026 (SB 1267) will require an electric vehicle charging station installer to indemnify or reimburse the homeowners' association or its members for loss or damage caused by the electric vehicle charging station installation within a common interest development (CID). The bill will additionally make the CID separate interest owner, as well as each successive owner, responsible for any costs related to damage to the charging station, common area, exclusive use common area, or separate interests resulting from charging station use.

Chapter 1025, Statutes of 2026 (SB 1296), effective April 1, 2027, will require the landlord, or their agent, of a residential rental property to provide a hyperlink or other electronic means to access the written pet policy on the property’s internet website, in online advertising, and in property information supplied to search engines. A landlord or their agent will be required to provide a written copy of the pet policy or pet addendum with any rental application form. In situations where a landlord or their agent does not disclose the pet policy and, because of this failure, the applicant is no longer eligible to rent the unit or declines to proceed with the application, the applicant may apply, in writing, for a refund of the rental application fee. The landlord or their agent will be required to provide the refund within seven days of receiving the written refund request. A landlord or their agent who complies with the refund request in a timely manner will have no further obligations to the applicant for purposes of this bill.

Chapter 1028, Statutes of 2026 (SB 1365) will clarify price gouging law related to rental housing price increases following a declared state of emergency. Specifically, it will provide that housing advertised, offered, or charged at a daily rate following the declaration of an emergency, which was not advertised, offered, or charged at a daily rate prior to the declaration, is protected by price gouging laws. It provides that such rental housing is subject to a daily rate equivalent to the 160 percent of fair market rent established by HUD. It will expand what types of rental housing will be protected by price gouging laws by removing the requirement that the initial lease term be no longer than one year. It will also revise the circumstances in which rent increases over 10 percent are allowed under the price gouging statute. Lastly, it will modify California price gouging laws to make actions that were previously declared “not unlawful” when a person can prove they are due to specific factors to now be deemed an affirmative defense, if specific factors are present.

 

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