Los Angeles County supervisors are looking to tighten the rules on when landlords can start kicking tenants out for unpaid rent, and they want to give renters more breathing room. The Board has directed county lawyers to draft an ordinance that would stop landlords in unincorporated areas from filing an unlawful detainer unless a tenant is at least two months behind on rent. That would double the current one-month trigger and could significantly raise the bar in the county’s priciest neighborhoods.
What the motion would change
The motion, authored by Supervisor Janice Hahn and co-authored by Board Chair Hilda Solis, instructs County Counsel to prepare an ordinance updating the county’s Rent Stabilization and Tenant Protections Ordinance so that the threshold for a nonpayment eviction matches two months of HUD fair market rent. The draft would revise Section 8.52.090 of the County Code so landlords could only initiate an at-fault nonpayment termination once a tenant’s unpaid rent goes beyond the two-month amount, according to a report from Los Angeles County Counsel.
How much would that be in dollars?
HUD’s FY2026 fair market rents set the Los Angeles–Long Beach–Glendale one-bedroom at $2,085 and the two-bedroom at $2,601. Under the proposed formula, a two-month eviction threshold would work out to about $4,170 in unpaid rent for a one-bedroom and roughly $5,202 for a two-bedroom. Those figures come from HUD.
Board politics and reaction
Supervisor Lindsey Horvath tried to go further, pushing a plan to raise the bar to three months and apply the rule across all of Los Angeles County. That proposal did not even get a second at a February meeting, according to City News Service reporting carried by NBC Los Angeles.
Landlord organizations warned that cranking the threshold up too high could hit small, mom-and-pop property owners especially hard. Daniel Yukelson of the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles cautioned that under a higher standard, landlords could be stuck waiting on large amounts of unpaid rent, City News Service noted.
Supporters’ case and next steps
Backers of the two-month plan argue it is a limited but useful tool to keep people housed, particularly as immigrant communities absorb new income shocks tied to recent federal enforcement actions. Hahn described the shift as “a modest but necessary increase” in comments reported by local outlets.
County officials say County Counsel has 30 days to bring a draft ordinance back to the Board. If the supervisors adopt it, the new rule would not wipe out any back rent. Tenants would still owe all arrears, a point highlighted in reporting from Pasadena Now.
