Landlord Atlas

Oxnard, California: Rent Stabilization Ordinance

Verified September 16, 2026 All California topics →

Oxnard limits rent increases on covered homes to 4% in any 12-month period, and allows only one increase in that period.

Cited to Oxnard City Code § 27-21 (prohibited increases; 4% cap; initial rent after a no-fault termination) and 28 more sources · Verified September 16, 2026

The limit comes from Ordinance No. 3013, adopted May 3, 2022 and in effect since June 2, 2022 as Article II of Chapter 27 of the city code. The 4% is fixed in the ordinance rather than tied to inflation, so no new figure is announced each year; a landlord who says 4% denies a fair and reasonable return may file a fair return petition, pay the city's cost of reviewing it, and get a one-time increase from the city manager, whose decision is final. Homes with a certificate of occupancy issued after February 1, 1995 sit outside the city limit, as do single-family houses and condominiums that can be sold separately, owner-occupied duplexes, subsidized housing and mobile home park spaces, which the city covers under a separate chapter. When a tenant moves out the landlord may set the next rent at market, unless the landlord ended the previous tenancy for a no-fault reason. A companion ordinance adopted the same night requires a stated cause to end a tenancy once a tenant has lived there 30 days, and pays a displaced tenant two months of rent or $5,000, whichever is greater, for a no-fault termination. Owners must register their property with the city, and both articles end on their own terms on December 31, 2030 unless the council renews them.

Current published figures

Figure Value Applies to Source
Maximum rent increase (covered homes) 4%, and no more than one increase in any 12-month period June 2, 2022 – December 31, 2030 (the ordinance's own end date; the figure is fixed and is not recalculated) Official source
Relocation payment for a no-fault termination Two months of the rent in effect when the notice was issued, or $5,000, whichever is greater, paid within 15 calendar days of service June 2, 2022 – December 31, 2030 (set in the ordinance; not adjusted each year) Official source

These figures change on a published cycle; each row states the window it applies to and links the source that published it. Confirm the current figure at the source before acting on it.

What is in force

In force today. The Oxnard City Council adopted Ordinance No. 3013, the Rent Stabilization Ordinance, on May 3, 2022, and it took effect 30 days later, on June 2, 2022, as Article II of Chapter 27 of the city code. The council adopted its companion, Ordinance No. 3012, the Just Cause Eviction and Tenant Protection Ordinance, the same night, and added a tenant anti-harassment article, Ordinance No. 3057, on July 15, 2025. The rent cap article has been amended once, by Ordinance No. 3049 on July 30, 2024; the eviction article was amended in January and February 2024, again on July 30, 2024, and most recently by Ordinance No. 3058 on May 20, 2025. Both the rent cap article and the eviction article end on their own terms on December 31, 2030 unless the council re-enacts them. The Housing Department runs the program and there is no rent board.

The rent increase limit

Rent for a covered home may not be raised by more than 4%, and only one increase is allowed in any 12-month period. The 4% is written into the ordinance itself: it is not tied to inflation, it is not recalculated, and no yearly figure is announced. The ordinance treats 4% as enough to give an owner a just and reasonable return. Rent counts as more than the monthly payment: anything charged for parking, pets, furniture or subletting is part of it. An increase does not take effect at all if the owner has not followed the ordinance, has not kept the home in livable condition under state law, or has not made repairs the city or a court ordered. An owner who believes 4% denies a fair and reasonable return may file a fair return petition. The owner serves a copy on the tenants, who then have 30 days to respond; the owner carries the burden of proof and must supply an independent financial report and supporting financial data; and the owner must pay the city's estimated cost of reviewing the petition, including any experts, before the city will process it. The city manager or the city manager's designee decides within 60 days of a complete application, and that decision is final and cannot be appealed. Under regulations the City Council approved on February 3, 2026, the test is whether the owner's net operating income has kept pace with inflation in the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim area since the 12 months before May 2022; any increase granted is a one-time increase, and the 4% limit applies again the following year. The ordinance says nothing about saving up an increase a landlord chooses not to take.

What housing is covered

The rent limit reaches residential property across the city, and the ordinance has its own list of what falls outside it. Homes with a certificate of occupancy issued after February 1, 1995 are outside the limit, a line state law fixes in place. Also outside it: deed-restricted and subsidized affordable housing; college and school dormitories; homes that can be sold separately from any other dwelling, meaning single-family houses and condominiums; an owner-occupied duplex where neither unit is an accessory dwelling unit; spaces under the city's separate mobile home park system; hotels, motels, inns, tourist homes and rooming or boarding houses rented mainly to guests staying under 30 days; hospitals, medical and residential care facilities, group homes for seniors or people with disabilities, transitional housing, convents and monasteries, and fraternity and sorority houses; and a home the owner or the owner's immediate family lived in as a principal residence when the tenancy began, for as long as that continues. The eviction article has a shorter and different list, so a home can be outside the rent limit and still have eviction protection: it does not apply to transient and tourist hotel stays or permitted short-term vacation rentals, nonprofit hospitals, religious facilities, extended care and licensed residential care facilities for the elderly, adult residential facilities, dormitories, a room where the tenant shares a bathroom or kitchen with an owner living there, an owner-occupied single-family home where the owner rents out no more than two bedrooms, or an owner-occupied duplex while the owner keeps living there. Accessory dwelling units are covered by the eviction article, which also reaches mobile home spaces that are not under the city's mobile home park chapter.

What happens on vacancy

When a tenant moves out, the landlord may set the starting rent for the next tenancy at market, and the 4% limit applies to increases after that. There is one exception written into the ordinance: a landlord who ended the previous tenancy for a no-fault reason, by a state-law termination notice or by noticing a change in the terms of the tenancy, may charge the next tenant no more than the rent that could lawfully have been charged for the previous tenancy plus any 4% increases that would have applied in between. Separate city regulations add two more limits after a landlord withdraws a building from the rental market. If any withdrawn home is offered for rent again within five years, it must be offered at the lawful rent as of the date the withdrawal notice was filed with the city, plus the increases that would have applied, and the city must get 30 days' written notice first. If any withdrawn home is offered again within ten years, tenants who said in writing that they wanted to return must be offered it first, by certified or registered mail, with at least 30 days to accept. A home returned to the market five or more years later may carry a new starting rent. A tenant displaced by a substantial remodel who has a right to return must be offered the home at the rent that would have applied had the tenant never been displaced, with no new application and no fee.

Eviction and termination rules

Once a tenant has lived in a home lawfully for 30 days, the landlord may end the tenancy only for a stated cause, and the cause must be written in the termination notice. Causes that arise from the tenant's conduct are nonpayment of rent; breaking a material term of the lease after written notice to correct it; nuisance; waste; refusing to sign a similar lease extension; criminal activity or a criminal threat, which applies only to the tenant who committed it and only where the landlord reported it to law enforcement within a reasonable time; assigning or subletting against the lease; refusing lawful entry; using the home for an unlawful purpose; an employee, agent or licensee staying on after that role ends; and failing to hand over the home after the tenant's own notice to leave. Adding a roommate who is a dependent under 18, and replacing a departed roommate one for one while the original tenant still lives there, are not lease breaches where the conditions in the ordinance are met, and a landlord may not unreasonably withhold approval of the new occupant. For a curable breach the landlord must first give a written notice to correct that is dated, warns that failure to cure may lead to eviction, tells the tenant about the right to ask for a reasonable accommodation, gives the city's phone number, and states the specific facts. Causes that do not arise from the tenant's conduct are the owner or a close relative moving in, withdrawal of the property from the rental market, complying with a government or court order about habitability, and demolition or substantial remodel. An owner move-in requires a sworn affidavit on a city form, given to the tenant with the termination notice and filed with the city within five business days, promising occupancy as a principal residence for at least 24 months beginning within 90 days. A substantial remodel means work on a structural, electrical, plumbing or mechanical system that needs a permit, or removal of hazardous material such as lead-based paint, mold or asbestos, that cannot be done safely with the tenant in place and forces the tenant out for at least 30 days; painting, decorating and minor repairs do not count. That notice must carry a prescribed paragraph about the right to re-rent, a description of the work, and a copy of the permit or the signed contract, and the landlord must give 60 days' notice of the chance to move back in. For any no-fault termination, whatever the tenant's income, the landlord must pay the tenant two months of the rent in effect when the notice was issued, or $5,000, whichever is greater, within 15 calendar days of serving the notice. Failing to follow these requirements exactly makes the notice void, and a willful failure to pay relocation money carries triple damages. The landlord must also give the city a true copy of every termination notice, with proof of service signed under penalty of perjury, within five days of serving it. Withdrawing a building from the rental market takes 120 days' notice to the city, a notice recorded with the county, and 120-day termination notices to tenants; a tenant who is at least 62 or has a disability and has lived in the home at least a year may extend the move-out date to one year.

Registration and filings

Every residential property in Oxnard that is not exempt from both the rent limit and the eviction article must be registered with the city. Registration is done on the city's online rental registry, signed under penalty of perjury, and the first deadline was April 1, 2025. The form asks for the property address, the number of dwelling units, the owner's name and mailing address, the managing agent's name and address if there is one, and a phone number and email. An owner must file a corrected form within 10 days of finding an error or of any change, including a change of owner, and an owner whose exemption ends must register within 10 days. A property that is exempt from only one of the two articles still has to register, and an owner claiming an exemption files for it through the registry, where staff review it; some exemptions are temporary and have to be claimed again. The city describes registration as an annual step and opens a registration period each budget year. The city code says owners pay a rent stabilization fee and a just cause eviction fee set by City Council resolution, but the council has not set either amount. The city has published only a proposed schedule: $140.00 a year for each fully covered unit, meaning one built on or before February 1, 1995, and $70.00 for each partially covered unit, built after that date, recommended for the city's 2026-27 budget year in a draft study dated June 15, 2026.

Other requirements

At the start of every tenancy the landlord must give the tenant a written notice on a city form covering the rent limit and the tenant's right to respond to a fair return petition, and every rent-increase notice must repeat both points; a rent increase does not take effect until that is done. Notices must be in the language of the lease, or the language the parties used to negotiate if there is no written lease. The landlord must also post a notice about the chapter, including the protections for tenants regardless of immigration or citizenship status, in English, Spanish, Tagalog, Mixteco, Zapoteco, Nahuatl, Purepecha and Otomi, and must add a paragraph in at least 12-point type to the lease explaining that a cause is required to end a tenancy and that no-fault evictions carry relocation payments. A separate article of the same chapter, added on July 15, 2025, bars a landlord from harassing a tenant with intent to vex, annoy, injure or intimidate. The 19 listed forms include cutting back services, failing to make repairs, abusing the right of entry, entering outside 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. on weekdays or 8:00 a.m. to noon on Saturday without consent, misleading a tenant into leaving, threatening eviction without a proper factual and legal basis, asking about immigration or citizenship status, pointing cameras into a home, construction meant to drive tenants out, and retaliating against tenant organizing. A violation is a misdemeanor carrying up to a $1,000 fine or six months in county jail or both, and a tenant may sue for actual damages or $10,000, whichever is greater, plus punitive damages, attorney fees and costs, with another $5,000 where the tenant is a senior citizen or has a disability. Retaliating against a tenant for using these protections is barred, any lease term waiving them is void, and a landlord's failure to comply is a defense to an eviction case. The city enforces first by civil citation, which can be contested within 30 days, and a landlord who intentionally collects rent above the lawful amount owes the tenant three times the overcharge plus attorney fees.

Notes and caveats

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Oxnard, California: Rent Stabilization Ordinance (verified September 16, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/california/oxnard/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified).

Citations

This page records local law. Statewide laws — deposits, notice periods, late fees, entry, evictions — live on the California hub, and the state-level position on local rent regulation appears there with its own citations and verification date.