Tenant Rights in California you should be aware of

I live in the bay area currently and I’ve understood that a lot of people around me are not aware of the tenant rights that landlord’s typically don’t want you to know.

Of course, the definitive source of information should be the official website linked in below, I’ll merely recap some of the things I feel are important to highlight:

1. In rent controlled apartments, even if the original lease signees all move on, if your name exists on the lease or if you have proof of paying at some month’s rent for the apartment which has your name, you have legal succession rights to the lease at that rent.
2. Landlords are liable to tell you explicitly in the lease agreement about any cancer causing materials within your specific apartment.
3. You can withhold rent, pay and deduct or sue the landlord in case they fail to take care of important repairs. The list of those repairs is up on the website.
4. There are very specific laws around how much amount and for what repairs can be deducted from the security deposit of a tenant which depends on the number of years a tenant has stayed in the apartment. This includes things like, you can’t be charged for carpet cleaning or even wear and tear of parts depending on the number of years you’ve stayed at that place or the number of years a single lease has been continued on with the lease holders just changing over time. Definitely read the website linked below for more details on how to calculate that amount.

Read the detailed document on the official ca.gov website here (since this is a direct pdf, please ensure that this is the latest version they have on the website).