California Tenants' Rights

The go-to survival guide for California tenants

California tenants have many rights, especially those lucky enough to have rent control. But knowing and enforcing these rights can be difficult. Fortunately, California Tenants’ Rights, the leading tenant guide for more than 45 years, provides all the information and key forms tenants need to:

• find a good rental in a competitive market
• understand the rules regarding service and support animals
• deal with a problem roommate or noisy neighbor
• stop landlord intrusions of privacy
• get the landlord to make repairs or deal with mold or bedbugs
• fight illegal discrimination, harassment, or retaliation
• break a lease with minimal liability
• respond to a late rent or termination notice
• get as much of the deposit back as possible, and
• fight an eviction, with line-by-line instructions on completing required forms.

The 23rd edition includes updated information on state eviction rules and forms, local and statewide rent control ordinances, and your options when faced with unpaid “Covid rent.”

With Downloadable Forms & Sample Letters
Download a lease and eviction defense forms, plus more than two dozen sample letters and emails inside the book.

Attorney J. Scott Weaver has been a San Francisco tenant and housing activist for over 40 years. He's spent the last 30 years exclusively representing San Francisco Bay Area tenants. Scott has litigated several hundred tenant cases involving eviction, wrongful eviction, and habitability issues (including mold, asbestos, and bedbugs), and has brought tenant class action lawsuits. He has taught landlord tenant law at various legal education seminars.