The Brief

Renting in California is not cheap. The average rent for a one-bedroom in the Golden State — $2,100 — is 40% higher than the national average. But renters will soon be getting a little more for their money: a working refrigerator and stove.

On Jan. 1, California will begin requiring landlords to provide their tenants with a fridge and stove — and repair or replace them if they stop working.

While this new law may surprise some tenants who have always lived in apartments that already came with these appliances, it’s more common in Southern California cities for landlords to rent out homes with no stove or refrigerator, placing this responsibility on the tenant.

AB 628 — authored by state Assemblymember Tina McKinnor, D-Inglewood — adds these appliances to the state’s definition of a livable home, helping secure access to these appliances for the state’s millions of tenants.

“Having a working, safe fridge and stove will be a minimum requirement for keeping the unit in a habitable state,” said Ethan Silverstein, staff attorney for the housing rights nonprofit, The California Center for Movement Legal Services.

Whether you are a renter or landlord, keep reading to learn how AB 628 applies in different situations and what legal experts recommend to make sure your home is up-to-date with the state’s habitability standards.

What does the law actually say?

All new leases signed on or after Jan. 1 will need to include a working fridge and stove.

When an existing lease is renewed or extended at any moment starting on Jan. 1, those homes will also need to have these appliances.

“The way this law is written, it will eventually apply to all new and current renters in California,” Silverstein said.

This law also applies to homes where tenants are renting without a formal written agreement (e.g., renting “informally” with a month-to-month lease).

What tenants should know

If you’re thinking about moving and hoping to land a new spot sometime in 2026, any potential landlord must be ready to provide a stove and refrigerator, along with any maintenance these devices need in the future — at no cost to you. And if you plan to stay in your current rental home, this law will impact you, depending on who provided the appliances.

If you bought your own refrigerator when you moved in, you can talk with your landlord before it’s time to renew your lease and decide together if it makes more sense to keep it or replace it with one provided by your landlord.

“The parties can agree for the tenant to bring their own refrigerator,” said Whitney Prout, executive vice president of legal affairs for the California Apartment Association, which advises landlords and developers. “But you can’t require the tenant to bring their own refrigerator. … It has to be the tenant’s voluntary choice and the landlord has to agree.”

If both you and your landlord decide to keep the fridge you provided, the law requires that the lease acknowledge this arrangement by adding the following disclosure:

“Under state law, the landlord is required to provide a refrigerator in good working order in your unit. By checking this box, you acknowledge that you have asked to bring your own refrigerator and that you are responsible for keeping that refrigerator in working order.”

But under no circumstances can the landlord ask a tenant to buy their home’s stove. “The landlord needs to provide the stove,” Prout said. “You can’t have an agreement for the tenant to provide their own stove.”

What landlords need to know

Landlords should start preparing now to comply with AB 628, Prout said. “Look at when your lease renewals are coming up, because that does give you some flexibility in terms of phasing in compliance with this law — especially if you have a lot of appliances you need to acquire,” she said.

What kind of stove or fridge are landlords required to provide? The actual text of the law is pretty broad and only specifies that these appliances need to be in “good working order.” A stove must be “capable of safely generating heat for cooking purposes,” while a refrigerator should be “capable of safely storing food.” According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a refrigerator that can keep temperatures at 40°F or below can protect most food products.

On Jan. 1, California will begin requiring landlords to provide their tenants with a fridge and stove — and repair or replace them if they stop working. (Alicia Windzio/Picture Alliance via Getty Images)As for what appliance brand or model, that’s the landlord’s decision. But Prout added that it could be a good idea to share with tenants some information on the appliances you’ll provide them with, especially if you’re planning to replace what’s in their home.

“The tenant may have feelings about aesthetics,” she said. “They may have invested in a stainless steel refrigerator that they’re really happy with, that has certain functionalities.”

And if you will replace existing appliances, make a plan to safely remove them. “Communicate with residents what the appropriate processes are for removal and disposal of tenant-provided appliances,” Prout said, adding that “Illegal dumping is a huge problem around rental property.”

What if these appliances break down?

If the tenant provided the fridge— and both the tenant and landlord agreed to this arrangement — then it’s actually the tenant’s responsibility to make repairs.

But if the landlord provided both the refrigerator and stove, then it’s up to the landlord to make sure they keep functioning. “You provide the appliances; if they break down, you fix them or replace them — as long as you’re doing that, you’re in compliance with the law,” Prout said.

The law explicitly states that property owners have 30 days to either replace or repair these appliances if there is a recall from the manufacturer.

Landlords: Keep in mind that while it’s legal to provide your tenants with second-hand appliances, it may be more difficult to keep up with recall announcements, as the manufacturer may not have a record that you bought their product.

But if these devices simply break down with time or use, “It’s like any other repair issue where the landlord needs to act in a reasonable amount of time to get it replaced,” Silverstein said.

Silverstein recommends that tenants notify their landlords about any repair needs through written communication, like a text message or email.

“The worst thing you can do is make the request verbally through the phone,” he said, adding that keeping this “paper” trail could be helpful if your landlord fails to make necessary repairs. You can also ask your landlord for a clear date for when repairs will be made and what you can do in the interim to safely store or cook your food.

If a landlord is not complying with AB 628, tenants can contact their city’s rent board or building code enforcement agency. After a tenant files a complaint, code enforcement staff will contact the landlord to enforce the state’s habitability standards.

Below is the contact information for the code enforcement departments of several California cities. You can also quickly look up the contact information for your city’s agency with an online search.

• Los Angeles: If you live in a property that only contains one house, you can call (888) 524-2845 or file a complaint online. If you live in a property that contains multiple homes — like a duplex or an apartment complex — you can call (866) 557-7368 or file a complaint online. And if you live in unincorporated Los Angeles County, you can call 211 or file a complaint online.
• San Diego: If you live in the city of San Diego, call (619) 236-5500 or file a complaint online. And if you live in unincorporated San Diego County, you can call (858) 694-2705.
• Long Beach: Call (562) 570-2633 or file a complaint about a Long Beach rental online.
• San Francisco: Call 311 or file a complaint about a San Francisco rental online.
• Oakland: Call (510) 238-3444 or file a complaint about an Oakland rental online.
• San José: Call (408) 535-7770 or file a complaint about a San José rental online.
• Santa Ana: Call (714) 667- 2780 or file a complaint about a Santa Ana rental online.

The Los Angeles Unified School District is officially on the hook for providing high-dosage tutoring to students after a judge approved a settlement reached last fall.

After being accused of denying students their right to equitable education during pandemic shutdowns, the district must now provide 100,000 students — more than a quarter of the district’s TK-12 students — with three years of high-dosage tutoring under a court-approved settlement, amounting to more than 10 million hours. District staff and outside vendors will provide students with a mix of virtual and in-person sessions.

“The District is conducting a program evaluation of the tutoring program, which will explore variation in the implementation, take-up, and impact on student outcomes across a range of tutoring models and vendors,” LAUSD said in a statement to EdSource.

The tutoring mandate stems from a court-approved settlement reached in October and finalized last month in Shaw et al. v. LAUSD et al., a lawsuit filed during the Covid-19 pandemic that alleged that only 60% of the district’s students participated in virtual instruction during the spring 2020 semester, denying them “basic educational equality guaranteed to them by the California Constitution.”

LAUSD would continue to use its already existing high-dose tutoring eligibility criteria to determine which students receive the support. The district did not specify how it would measure the program’s success.

The settlement 

The high-dosage tutoring that Los Angeles Unified maintains it has been providing relies on money from the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program (ELOP). The lawsuit, which includes other supports outlined in the settlement, gained final approval on Feb. 18 and is intended to help close learning gaps and improve academic performance.

The method specifically caters to students’ individual needs and provides either small group or one-on-one support that complements what they learn in the classroom, according to the National Student Support Accelerator at Stanford University.

“Evidence does suggest that that kind of effort would boost student outcomes,” said Morgan Polikoff, a USC professor of education.

“But I think it’s not likely to fully solve the problem, both because it’s missing a portion of the student population — a pretty sizable one — and also because I don’t know if that’s enough hours to solve the problem,” he said, referring to the fact that only a quarter of the student population will receive these services.

Ned Hillenbrand, a partner with Kirkland & Ellis LLP and one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs, emphasized the importance of accountability moving forward.

“Our families understood that these issues affected students across the district. They admirably pursued remedial programs for those students as well as their own children,” Hillenbrand said in the statement.

“Now that the court has approved the settlement, our goal is to hold LAUSD accountable and to maximize the benefits students receive during the three-year enforcement period.”

Challenges with access  

After the pandemic hit, Judith Larson, a plaintiff in the case, said she waited six months for a school computer to arrive, navigated connectivity challenges and even paid out of pocket for tutoring for her daughter. And one of the mentors struggled to help because she learned math in an entirely different way.

Aida Vega found it difficult to access LAUSD’s tutoring services for her daughter, who struggled academically during the pandemic but eventually graduated. But Vega had to take on an extra job to pay for the support.

“I did have the opportunity as a mom to be able to help my student that year because it was just her at that moment. I paid for her,” she said in Spanish. “But other parents had three, four children in schools and didn’t have that opportunity to pay. And now those students aren’t studying.”

LAUSD’s tutoring webpage says schools will contact families whose students qualify, and that parents can contact their local school sites for more information.

But Walt Gersón Rodríguez, the vice president of Innovate Public Schools, which supported parents in the suit, emphasized the importance of improving access, so parents and students don’t have to embark on a “scavenger hunt” to find them.

“My concern would be that this information doesn’t reach the parents; their children don’t get the service and support,” Rodríguez said. “And then, we have another generation of students that either graduate or don’t graduate and don’t go on to college and get a job or career in a competitive economy that we have today.”

Despite LAUSD’s gains in standardized test scores, which showed students are performing better than they did prepandemic, Polikoff noted that students are still “behind where they would have been had Covid not happened.”

Rodríguez added that some graduates have struggled to meet A-G requirements, courses necessary for students to be eligible to attend University of California or California State University campuses, and are having a hard time getting into college or entering the workforce.

If it weren’t for the setbacks, Larson said her daughter would have loved to attend UCLA. But she still considers herself one of the fortunate ones.

“Many moms and dads that I know, that one [dream] we share is we need to do better and change for our children,” Larson said. “But here we are taking steps, one at a time.”

L.A., you have a big choice to make this year. Mayor Karen Bass is running for a second term in office, and there's a long list of others — including City Councilmember Nithya Raman, former reality star Spencer Pratt, community organizer Rae Huang and tech entrepreneur Adam Miller — lined up to run against her.

The election is June 2. If any one candidate for mayor gets more than 50% of the vote, they'll win the election outright. If nobody meets that threshold, the top two vote-getters will compete in a runoff Nov. 3.

LAist and The LA Local are preparing to ask the candidates questions that will shape our voter guides closer to the June election. We want to make sure we're asking the right ones.

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The Los Angeles Unified School District is officially on the hook for providing high-dosage tutoring to students after a judge approved a settlement reached last fall.

After being accused of denying students their right to equitable education during pandemic shutdowns, the district must now provide 100,000 students — more than a quarter of the district’s TK-12 students — with three years of high-dosage tutoring under a court-approved settlement, amounting to more than 10 million hours. District staff and outside vendors will provide students with a mix of virtual and in-person sessions.

“The District is conducting a program evaluation of the tutoring program, which will explore variation in the implementation, take-up, and impact on student outcomes across a range of tutoring models and vendors,” LAUSD said in a statement to EdSource.

The tutoring mandate stems from a court-approved settlement reached in October and finalized last month in Shaw et al. v. LAUSD et al., a lawsuit filed during the Covid-19 pandemic that alleged that only 60% of the district’s students participated in virtual instruction during the spring 2020 semester, denying them “basic educational equality guaranteed to them by the California Constitution.”

LAUSD would continue to use its already existing high-dose tutoring eligibility criteria to determine which students receive the support. The district did not specify how it would measure the program’s success.

The settlement

The high-dosage tutoring that Los Angeles Unified maintains it has been providing relies on money from the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program (ELOP). The lawsuit, which includes other supports outlined in the settlement, gained final approval on Feb. 18 and is intended to help close learning gaps and improve academic performance.

The method specifically caters to students’ individual needs and provides either small group or one-on-one support that complements what they learn in the classroom, according to the National Student Support Accelerator at Stanford University.

“Evidence does suggest that that kind of effort would boost student outcomes,” said Morgan Polikoff, a USC professor of education.

“But I think it’s not likely to fully solve the problem, both because it’s missing a portion of the student population — a pretty sizable one — and also because I don’t know if that’s enough hours to solve the problem,” he said, referring to the fact that only a quarter of the student population will receive these services.

Ned Hillenbrand, a partner with Kirkland & Ellis LLP and one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs, emphasized the importance of accountability moving forward.

“Our families understood that these issues affected students across the district. They admirably pursued remedial programs for those students as well as their own children,” Hillenbrand said in the statement.

“Now that the court has approved the settlement, our goal is to hold LAUSD accountable and to maximize the benefits students receive during the three-year enforcement period.”

Challenges with access

After the pandemic hit, Judith Larson, a plaintiff in the case, said she waited six months for a school computer to arrive, navigated connectivity challenges and even paid out of pocket for tutoring for her daughter. And one of the mentors struggled to help because she learned math in an entirely different way.

Aida Vega found it difficult to access LAUSD’s tutoring services for her daughter, who struggled academically during the pandemic but eventually graduated. But Vega had to take on an extra job to pay for the support.

“I did have the opportunity as a mom to be able to help my student that year because it was just her at that moment. I paid for her,” she said in Spanish. “But other parents had three, four children in schools and didn’t have that opportunity to pay. And now those students aren’t studying.”

LAUSD’s tutoring webpage says schools will contact families whose students qualify, and that parents can contact their local school sites for more information.

But Walt Gersón Rodríguez, the vice president of Innovate Public Schools, which supported parents in the suit, emphasized the importance of improving access, so parents and students don’t have to embark on a “scavenger hunt” to find them.

“My concern would be that this information doesn’t reach the parents; their children don’t get the service and support,” Rodríguez said. “And then, we have another generation of students that either graduate or don’t graduate and don’t go on to college and get a job or career in a competitive economy that we have today.”

Despite LAUSD’s gains in standardized test scores, which showed students are performing better than they did prepandemic, Polikoff noted that students are still “behind where they would have been had Covid not happened.”

Rodríguez added that some graduates have struggled to meet A-G requirements, courses necessary for students to be eligible to attend University of California or California State University campuses, and are having a hard time getting into college or entering the workforce.

If it weren’t for the setbacks, Larson said her daughter would have loved to attend UCLA. But she still considers herself one of the fortunate ones.

“Many moms and dads that I know, that one [dream] we share is we need to do better and change for our children,” Larson said. “But here we are taking steps, one at a time.”

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday agreed to pay $4.9 million to settle four lawsuits by people who were injured in collisions with Sheriff’s Department patrol cars.

The payouts come amid increased scrutiny of crashes by law enforcement officers. It has emerged as a major national issue, with cities across the country paying out hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements and verdicts because of vehicle collisions involving officers, deputies or agents.

In the latest L.A. County payouts, tied to collisions that happened between 2018 and 2020, all plaintiffs said deputies were negligent when they crashed into their cars.

County supervisors settled the lawsuits during an open-session vote Tuesday. The county admitted no wrongdoing.

A collision in Paramount

Freddy Ontiveros and Antonio De La Cruz Zamora were hit from behind in 2018 in the city of Paramount, according to their lawsuit filed in Superior Court. They alleged in the suit that a sheriff’s deputy “rear ended the vehicle which was stopped behind plaintiff's vehicle, pushing the vehicle into plaintiff's vehicle causing plaintiff personal injuries and property damage.”

The deputy was responding to a call of a robbery in progress and had activated the lights and sirens on the vehicle.

A review of the Crash Data Retrieval system found the deputy was traveling south on Paramount Boulevard at 75 mph and slowed to 35 mph at the time of the collision, according to a corrective action plan presented to the board Tuesday.

“The collision investigation concluded that the deputy sheriff caused the collision as he was driving at an unsafe speed for traffic conditions,” the plan stated.

The case settled for $1.75 million.

Later, the Lakewood Sheriff’s Station — which covers Paramount — conducted a review of all traffic collisions for the calendar year 2020 through the end of 2024. The audit revealed there were 196 total collisions for this five-year period, 129 of which were classified as preventable and 67 classified as non-preventable.

“To improve employee safety and reduce the Department's liability and exposure, Lakewood supervisors continue to conduct bi-weekly briefings which focus on the importance of safe driving as well as abiding by all the rules of the road when operating county vehicles,” the plan stated.

Other collisions

In a separate incident, Shannon Story had a green light at Palmdale intersection on Oct. 27, 2019. According to her complaint, a deputy ran a red light and crashed into Story’s vehicle as she entered the intersection. The impact of the collision caused Story’s vehicle to crash into the corner wall of a 7-Eleven convenience store.

“Plaintiff sustained significant injuries as a result of the collision,” her complaint read. She settled the case for $1.2 million.

In another case filed by Jose Gaitan, he says a sheriff’s deputy in a department vehicle rear-ended his car. LAist was not immediately able to get further details on the crash. He settled for $450,000.

The summary corrective action plan for a fourth collision describes how a deputy was backing up to make contact with a suspect when he ran into a car driven by Alejandra Gonzalez. The deputy “reversed approximately two to three feet and collided into the Plaintiff’s vehicle at approximately 5-10 mph.”

Gonzalez settled for $1.5 million.