The Brief

As buying a home becomes more expensive each year, families in California are renting for longer periods of time. According to the most recently available data, more than 40% of Californians are renters — a higher proportion than any other state in the country except New York.

One of the many economic benefits of owning your own home, in addition to boosting your family’s wealth and long-term stability, is building credit through mortgage payments. Now, a recently enacted California law also offers renters a way to use their rent payments to do the same thing — as long as they pay on time.

With the passage of Assembly Bill 2747, tenants can ask their landlord to share rent payments made on time — however, their lease defines that timeframe — to at least one credit bureau. Assemblymember Matt Haney, D-San Francisco, authored AB 2747 to give tenants an additional tool to boost their credit score, said Nate Allbee, Haney’s communications director.

“People take paying rent seriously,” Allbee said. “What we’re hoping is that people who are making this financial commitment and doing the right thing, see their credit increase.”

So, how does sharing your rent payments with credit bureaus work if you choose to take advantage of this new law? Keep reading to learn what’s expected of landlords and what tenants should know before they make a decision about sharing this information.

How does reporting rent payments to credit bureaus work?

In the United States, three major credit bureaus — Equifax, TransUnion and Experian — collect data on individual consumers who take out loans or use credit cards. These companies then use that information to calculate a person’s credit score: a number that impacts their ability to take out a major loan, like a mortgage, or even to secure their next apartment.

Each credit bureau has different ways of calculating somebody’s credit score and may prioritize payments for certain loans — like a mortgage or car payment — more than others. But generally, the better you are at paying back your loans and other financial obligations on time, the easier it will be for you to increase your credit score and have access to more credit — and larger loans — in the future.

A sign advertising an apartment for rent hangs from a fire escape in front of an apartment building on July 8, 2009, in San Francisco, California.

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Landlords can already share late rent payments with credit bureaus, which ends up hurting tenants’ credit scores. However, under AB 2747, a tenant can choose for at least one of these credit bureaus to be notified when they make an on-time rent payment. However, it’s the responsibility of the landlord — not the tenant — to make sure that credit bureaus receive this information.

As of April 1, the law said California landlords must offer their tenants the option to share on-time payments with credit bureaus at the time of signing the lease. And even if the tenant declines at the time, the landlord is expected to then offer this option again at least once a year.

If you’re a tenant on an existing lease, according to the law, your landlord should have spoken to you by now about this option — specifically, at least once between the time span of Jan. 1 and April 1.

If your landlord didn’t do this, the law doesn’t specify any penalties for landlords that failed to have these conversations during that time period — but as a tenant, you can still bring them up now.

“We want people to feel empowered and strong — the law is on your side here,” said Allbee, adding that landlords have “a responsibility to be updated with the laws of the state of California.”

Tenants: Before you make a decision…

The goal behind AB 2747 is to help tenants improve their credit scores. But just how a credit score is calculated is pretty complicated — and can change depending on the credit bureau you’re looking at.

“There are so many different factors that go into your credit score,” said Liu, including “consistency of payments and history of tradelines.”

If you’re concerned about your ability to keep up these consistent, on-time payments over a longer period of time, you should factor this in before making a decision regarding AB 2747, said Leah Simon-Weisberg, legal director for the tenants rights group Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE).

“Are you ready to make a long-term commitment to not only paying on time, but also paying for this reporting?” she said. Simon-Weisberg has joined other housing advocates in criticizing AB 2747 for having tenants themselves cover the costs of sharing payment information with credit bureaus.

“Tenants shouldn’t have to pay for credit reporting, because you don’t pay your credit card company to do the same,” she said.

It’s still unclear how credit bureaus will process on-time rent payment data from tenants, she said. But she urged those who do decide to move forward with sharing their information to take the long view.

“Make a long-term commitment in doing it,” she said. “Because if you’re only reporting positive payments, and then there’s nothing, [credit bureaus] are going to assume that it’s negative.”

Who is exempt from this new law?

Individual landlords who own a property with 15 or fewer units are excluded from this new requirement.

But if your landlord owns 15 or less units as either a corporation, an LLC or real estate investment trust — rather than as an individual — they will have to offer tenants the option to share on-time payments with credit bureaus.

An apartment for rent sign is posted in South Pasadena, California, on Oct. 19, 2022.

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So, to give real-world examples, if you’re renting a room at a friend or family member’s house and that’s the only home they own, this law does not apply to your situation. However, if your landlord is a corporation that owns three different apartment buildings throughout the city, they must follow AB 2747.

What should tenants and landlords know about complying with AB 2747?

If you're a tenant...

If you decide that you do want your landlord to share your on-time rent payments to a credit bureau, you are expected to pay your landlord an additional $10 each time you want your information shared.

This fee is meant to cover the costs for the landlord to pass this information on to a credit bureau, and is intended to cover the costs of their time and any fees charged by the company itself. However, the fee cannot be greater than $10 each month.

The tenant gets to choose when they want their on-time rent payments shared, and how frequently. For example, even if you pay your rent on time every month, you could tell your landlord to report only your payments during the first six months of the year — and you’d only have to pay your landlord the $10 fee for those six months.

Your landlord also cannot penalize you for not paying the $10 fee, and they can’t take it from your deposit or add it to your rent payment. Conversely, if a tenant fails to pay the $10 fee, the landlord is not obligated to report their payment information that month — even if it’s on time.

What if you want to stop having your landlord share your rent payments with credit bureaus? You can opt out at any time, but the law requires you to wait at least six months before you request to have your on-time payments shared once again.

If you’re a landlord …

If your tenant wants you to report their on-time payments to a credit bureau, you’ll have to provide them with a contract that specifies:

• Which credit bureau you’ll be sharing their information with
• The monthly fee you’ll charge them for doing so (which cannot exceed $10)
• Instructions on how to opt out in the future.

The California Apartment Association (CAA) offers its members sample versions of these contracts for both new tenants and existing tenants.

CAA has additional guidance for landlords on complying with AB 2747.

As for passing on your tenants’ information to a credit bureau, each credit bureau has different rules on submitting this type of data. Landlords can also use a paid platform like Piñata, which helps landlords comply with this part of the law.

“Typically, we’re plugging straight into their rent payment processing system or property management software,” said Lily Liu, CEO of Piñata, which has an online system where California landlords can share on-time rent payment history with all three credit bureaus at once.

Michael Gates, a former deputy assistant attorney general, produced a letter Friday that he said confirmed he was not fired for cause, but rather resigned from the Civil Rights Division of the federal Department of Justice.

The Orange County Register last week reported that Gates had been fired for cause, citing an anonymous DOJ source who said Gates repeatedly referred to women colleagues by derogatory and demeaning names and had complained about the department employing a pregnant woman. The Register also published a government employment form, which was undated, that they said showed that Gates was fired for cause.

Gates told LAist the allegations were “100% fabrication.” Then on Friday, he shared a screenshot of a Nov. 21 letter from John Buchko, director of operational management at the DOJ, stating that the department “has accepted your voluntary resignation” and “will remove from your personnel record any previous reference to your termination.”

LAist reached out to Natalie Baldassarre, a DOJ spokesperson, to confirm the letter, sharing that screenshot. She responded by email: “No comment on personnel matters.”

Michael Gates provided this letter. A spokesperson for the department said they would not comment on personnel matters.

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Back to Huntington Beach

Gates told LAist earlier this month that he was resigning from his job with the federal government because he missed Huntington Beach and his family. On Friday, the Huntington Beach City Council confirmed Gates has been hired back as chief assistant city attorney. He starts Monday.

Gates is both loved and loathed in politically contentious Huntington Beach. He has been an outspoken supporter of President Donald Trump and his policies and a continuous thorn in the side of Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who is one of the most prominent critics of the president.

Gates was first elected city attorney in 2014 and has won re-election twice since then, with wide margins. Huntington Beach is among a minority of cities in California that elects rather than appoints a city attorney.

Gates' track record

As city attorney, Gates sued the state over housing mandates and the right to implement voter ID. He also marshalled the city into the center of culture war battles. While he was city attorney, his office sued California over the state’s sanctuary law, as well as a law prohibiting schools from requiring teachers to inform parents of a child’s request to change pronouns or otherwise “out” them as LGBTQ.

Many Huntington Beach residents support his work. But Gates has also faced heavy criticism and legal penalties, for some of his actions. In 2021, the city paid out $2.5 million total in a settlement with one former and one current employee who alleged age discrimination while working at the city under Gates. The city did not concede to any wrongdoing under the settlement.

And last year, Gates helped broker a controversial settlement over the pandemic-era cancelation of the city’s annual airshow, which will cost Huntington Beach taxpayers millions over the coming years.

What’s next?

Gates told LAist he’s looking forward to, once again, heading up the city’s litigation, including a scheduled trial against an effort to force Huntington Beach to adopt by-district elections. He said he plans to run again for city attorney in next year’s election.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican who rose to prominence as one of President Donald Trump's biggest defenders and recently became one of his biggest critics, is leaving Congress.

Greene's announcement late Friday that she would resign effective Jan. 5, 2026, is the latest escalation of months of clashes with the president over his second term agenda — including the release of the Epstein files.

"Standing up for American women who were raped at 14, trafficked and used by rich powerful men, should not result in me being called a traitor and threatened by the President of the United States, whom I fought for," Greene wrote in a lengthy statement shared online.

The third-term Congresswoman also said it would not be fair to her northwest Georgia district, one of the most conservative in the country, to have them "endure a hurtful and hateful primary against me by the president we all fought for," while noting that "Republicans will likely lose the midterms."

Greene is one of a record 40 House members and 10 senators who have indicated they do not plan to return to their seats after the 2026 election, joining a number of lawmakers who are retiring or running for a different office.
Copyright 2025 NPR

Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman filed a motion Friday in Superior Court to dismiss manslaughter charges against two Torrance police officers who fatally shot a Black man in possession of an air rifle in 2018.

Hochman argued in court documents that prosecutors can’t meet the legal standard of proof needed for the officers to be convicted of a crime.

The court has not yet ruled on the matter.

The details

Officers Matthew Concannon and Anthony Chavez were indicted in 2023 in connection with the killing of Christopher Deandre Mitchell, 23, who was suspected of stealing a car.

As the officers approached the car, they saw what was later revealed to be an air rifle between Mitchell’s legs. When Mitchell appeared to reach for the rifle,the officers opened fire, according to police.

The backstory

Former District Attorney Jackie Lacey declined to file charges against the officers in 2019, saying they reasonably believed Mitchell had a gun. Her successor George Gascón, elected in 2020 on a platform of police accountability, assigned a special prosecutor to review the case. The special prosecutor sought the criminal indictment.

When Hochman took office in 2024, he appointed a new special prosecutor, who recommended the charges be dropped.

“We cannot move forward in good faith with prosecuting these two officers because we cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt with admissible evidence that the officers unreasonably believed they were in imminent danger when they saw what looked like a sawed-off shotgun or rifle between Mr. Mitchell’s legs and his hands moved toward the weapon just before the officers shot,” the statement read.

The courts

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Sam Ohta did not immediately make a ruling Friday on the motion to dismiss the charges, saying the state Supreme Court is also considering the case.

The state Supreme Court is considering an appeal filed by one of the officer’s attorneys after Ohta rejected an earlier motion to dismiss by the defense.

As the Palisades Fire was still burning in January, residents saw an eye-grabbing headline: the Santa Ynez reservoir, perched directly above the Palisades, was offline for repairs and empty.

The reservoir’s closure frustrated residents and spurred Gov. Gavin Newsom to announce a state investigation into whether the reservoir being full of water would have made a difference fighting the deadly fire.

After months of analysis, California agencies including the state’s EPA, Cal Fire and the Department of Water Resources issued a report confirming the explanations given by local officials and experts in the aftermath of the fire: the water supply was too slow, not too low — and even a functioning reservoir likely wouldn’t have done much in the face of an unprecedented natural disaster.

Why the hydrants stopped working

The report found that not even a full reservoir positioned uphill from the Palisades Fire could have maintained water pressure and stopped the devastation.

“The water system lost pressure, not due to a lack of water supply in the system, but because of an insufficient flow rate,” the report states.

A reservoir perched at a high elevation, such as the Santa Ynez, can serve an important role in maintaining water pressure for hydrants throughout the system. As water gets used downhill, water from the reservoir flows to towers that maintain water pressure. Because of gravity and physical limitations on flow rates, the pressure towers can't be refilled at the same pace as they are drained and eventually dry up.

In the case of the Palisades Fire, the report states, a full reservoir would have helped keep water pressure up for only a short time.

The report noted that some data points on the demand on the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s system were missing.

However, investigators found that based on experiences with other fires, the high demand across the system meant it was “unlikely that [the reservoir] could have helped maintain pressure for very long.”

The system’s design

The report found that the closure of the Santa Ynez Reservoir was in line with the primary purpose of L.A.’s water infrastructure: maintaining a clean drinking water supply. The reservoir repairs were prompted by a damaged cover. The repairs, the report notes, were required by federal and state laws on drinking water safety.

More broadly, municipal water systems like L.A.’s weren’t built to fight wildfires, as LAist reported in January.

“This report confirms what we and others have been saying more broadly regarding water system expectations and capabilities, but does so completely independently and with new details specific to the L.A. fires,” Greg Pierce, the director of UCLA’s Human Right to Water Solutions Lab, said in an email to LAist.

What’s next

The report makes two major recommendations: continue to follow the California Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan, and make sure firefighters in the state are positioned for year-round fires.

The state stopped short of recommending any changes to L.A.’s municipal infrastructure. Water experts like Pierce say massive amounts of water and a very expensive redesign of L.A.’s water system would be needed to keep fire hydrants working during large urban conflagrations.

For their part, researchers and others have been looking into other solutions, including putting more utility lines underground and redistributing water across the system.

The report about the reservoir comes on the heels of a separate report from the Fire Safety Research Institute about the timeline leading up to and during the January firestorm. That report, which was commissioned by the California governor's office, contains a detailed account of the Palisades and Eaton fires' progressions and emergency services' responses on Jan. 7 and 8.

As for the Santa Ynez Reservoir, the repairs to fix its broken cover and make it usable again are slated to begin in June and finish by May 2027.