Showing a rental while the tenant still lives there
You are allowed to show a rented home to buyers while the tenant lives in it. California's entry statute covers the mechanics, which mostly come down to written notice and sensible hours. The legal part fits on an index card. Most of the actual work is keeping the tenant willing to let strangers walk through their bedroom for a few weeks.
What the entry law lets you do
Civil Code section 1954 lists showing the unit "to prospective or actual purchasers" as a lawful reason to enter. The rules for doing it:
- Give written notice with the date, the approximate time and the purpose. You can hand it to the tenant, leave it with someone of suitable age at the unit, or leave it at the door where a reasonable person would find it.
- Twenty-four hours is presumed reasonable. If you mail the notice, mail it at least six days ahead.
- Enter only during normal business hours, unless the tenant agrees to another time when you show up.
- Once you have told the tenant in writing that the property is for sale, and that you may contact them by phone or in person, you can give later showing notices orally for the next 120 days. You still need 24 hours, and you have to leave written evidence of the entry inside the unit.
- If the tenant is home and says yes at the door, no notice is needed.
The statute doesn't define normal business hours. I always kept showings to daytime, asked before booking anything on a weekend, and never pushed past six in the evening even when a buyer begged.
The same section says you can't abuse the right of entry or use it to harass. That has teeth. Turning entries into a tactic to get someone to leave is one of the things Civil Code 1940.2 penalizes, up to $2,000 per violation. On the other side, a tenant who refuses lawful entry gives the owner an at-fault cause under state law, and under the city ordinance it counts only after the tenant has been offered three dates. I have never seen an owner come out ahead by going down that road during a sale.
- 24 hours
- notice presumed reasonable before a showing
- 6 days
- lead time if you mail the notice instead
- 120 days
- how long one written for-sale notice lets you give later notices orally
- 15 days
- for the buyer to give tenants its own contact and rent details
Source: Civil Code 1954 and 1962 on California Legislative Information.
Keeping the tenant on your side
Talk to them before the sign goes up. A tenant who hears about the sale from a stranger with a camera has every reason to be difficult, and I wouldn't blame them.
What has worked for me:
- Offer fixed showing windows, say two afternoons a week, instead of a phone call every time an agent has a client.
- Pay for a cleaning before the photos and again before an open house if you hold one.
- Ask before photographing the inside. People's kids, mail and medicine bottles don't belong in a listing.
- Have the agent attend every showing. No lockbox self-tours in an occupied unit.
- Offer a rent credit for the weeks of showings if the disruption is real.
On that last one, write it up as a one-time credit. The state rent cap statute, Civil Code 1947.12, says accepted discounts and concessions are left out when you work out the lowest rent of the past 12 months, and it wants the regular rent and any credit listed separately in the lease or an amendment. Labeled properly, a credit doesn't lower the base the next increase is measured from. A vague "rent is $1,500 for now" note might.
The rent roll and estoppel certificates
A buyer's first request is usually a rent roll: one line per unit with the tenant's name, move-in date, current rent, date and size of the last increase, deposit held, lease end date or month-to-month status, any regular fees, and whether a voucher pays part of the rent. Every number should match the leases and your bank deposits. If they don't, the buyer stops trusting the rest of your file, and the offer drops with it.
Estoppel certificates are the tenant's side of the same story. Each tenant signs a short form confirming the rent, the deposit, the lease term, that no rent was prepaid, and that there are no side deals. Read your lease for a clause that requires one. If there isn't one, you are asking a favor. I filled in the numbers from my records and asked each tenant to correct anything that was wrong, which is quicker than handing them a blank form.
| Document a buyer asks for | Where it comes from | What to check first |
|---|---|---|
| Rent roll | Your own records | Matches leases and bank deposits |
| Leases and addenda | Your files | State notice clause, exemption clause if you claim one |
| Rent increase notices | Your files | Each within the cap on its date, with 30 days' notice if 10% or less |
| Security deposit statement | You prepare it before closing | Amount held, deductions, and whether you transfer or refund |
| Tenant estoppel certificates | Each tenant signs | A request unless the lease requires it |
| City registration and fees | City rent and inspection programs | Paid up, owner and contact current |
| Voucher contract and SHRA forms | Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency | Buyer files the ownership change |
On the city line: most rentals in the city owe the Rental Housing Inspection Program fee, $25 per unit from July 2025, and buildings under the city rent ordinance also owe its $20 per unit fee. The city wants an updated registration when ownership changes, so put that on the buyer's list.
Security deposits when the house sells
In my experience deposits cause more trouble at closing than anything else on this page. Civil Code 1950.5 lays out the steps.
Before the transfer, you give the buyer a written statement of each deposit still held after lawful deductions, an itemized list of any deductions, and which of two choices you are making. Choice one: hand the remaining deposit to the buyer and then notify the tenant, by personal delivery or first-class mail, of the transfer, any claims against it, the amount, and the buyer's names, addresses and phone numbers. Choice two: return the deposit to the tenant with a full accounting.
Skip this and the buyer becomes jointly liable with you for the deposit. The buyer also can't make the tenant post a new deposit to replace money you never passed along. Bad-faith retention can cost up to twice the deposit in statutory damages. In my sale the deposits went over as a credit to the buyer on the settlement statement and I mailed the tenant notices the same week. It took an afternoon.
Voucher tenants and SHRA
In Sacramento the Housing Choice Voucher program, the old Section 8, is run by the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency for both the city and the county. Its page for voucher landlords says AB 1482 applies to voucher tenants and lists the forms an owner uses.
When the property sells, the buyer files an ownership change request. SHRA's ownership change form asks for:
- the completed change form
- a copy of the recorded grant deed or a certified settlement statement
- the notice telling the tenant about the new owner, or a new lease
- a W-9 that matches the tax ID on the form, plus a management agreement if a manager will run the unit
SHRA advises filing at least 30 days before the change takes effect. Payments to the old owner stop on the first of the month after the filing, and if one of SHRA's payments lands with you after closing, SHRA says that's for you and the buyer to settle. Write a proration line for it into the escrow instructions. The buyer signs on to the existing voucher contract, which runs to its original end date if the tenant is still in the first year and month to month after that.
Before the first showing
- Send the written for-sale notice that allows oral notice for 120 days.
- Agree on showing windows with the tenant and put them in writing.
- Build the rent roll and check it against leases and deposits.
- Draft the deposit statement for the buyer.
- Send estoppel forms with your numbers already filled in.
- If a voucher pays part of the rent, give the buyer SHRA's ownership change form early.
Some tenants can't take weeks of strangers, and some houses don't show well with a family's life stacked in every room. In that case a single walkthrough with one buyer may be kinder to everybody. Lorris Home Buyers, a local cash buyer, lays out how the direct-sale process runs and has a guide on how long a fast sale really takes. Whichever way you sell, the deposit statement and the rent roll come first. A buyer who gets clean numbers in the first week rarely comes back with surprises in week four, at least in the sales I've watched.