Landlord Atlas

West Hollywood, California: pet and assistance-animal laws

Verified September 21, 2026 California pet and assistance-animal law →

West Hollywood bars a landlord from banning a dog because of its breed, and for any tenancy that began on or after March 24, 2022 it bars an extra pet deposit entirely.

Cited to West Hollywood Municipal Code § 17.32.020 (Security Deposits; Additional Pet Deposit) (Ord. 22-1177 §§ 3–5, 2022) (1), (2)(a)–(b), (5) and 3 more cited sources · Verified September 21, 2026

The breed rule covers dogs and breed only: a size or weight limit, or a rule about a cat or another animal, is untouched, and the rule does not protect a dog that interferes with other residents' quiet enjoyment or is a nuisance or a threat to health or safety. It is also not absolute, because a landlord may apply to the city's rent stabilization department for an exemption for a breed by showing good cause that a current insurance policy, or the covenants on a separately sold unit, would be violated if that breed were allowed. On money, a tenancy that began before March 24, 2022 could carry an extra pet deposit of up to one month's rent, but only with the tenant's written consent, only in exchange for allowing pets that were not allowed before, and never beyond the California maximum for the total deposit; a deposit once set cannot be raised during the tenancy. The city sets no rule on monthly pet rent. Both rules reach every rental in the city, including buildings and separately sold homes that are otherwise outside rent stabilization, and a tenant can recover triple an unlawful payment with fees, or $1,000 in statutory damages, under the title's general remedies.

West Hollywood pet law at a glance

What the local law is called Pet deposit bar and dog breed rule
Status In force
Who it binds Both rules reach every rental in the city, but by different routes.
Pet deposit Not allowed
Pet rent No local rule
Non-refundable pet fee No local rule
Breed rule Barred, with an exemption route
In the lease Nothing is required in the lease
In the published code Yes — cited to the published compilation

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, West Hollywood, California: pet and assistance-animal laws (verified September 21, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/pets/california/west-hollywood/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified and what the topic covers). Everything above is cited in the citations section below.

What would change it

A 2026 California law requires every landlord to have a written pet policy or pet addendum from April 1, 2027, adding a statewide layer over both of these rules. At the city level the thing to watch is how the breed exemption is administered, since the section sets no standard beyond good cause, no time limit and no appeal route on its face, and no published decisions were found.

Where a change in this status would appear: West Hollywood Municipal Code ch. 17.52 (§ 17.52.150, Dog Breed Restrictions Prohibited) — § 17.52.150 and the code edition line.

The instrument

Two sections of title 17 of the West Hollywood Municipal Code. Section 17.32.020, subsection 2, Additional Pet Deposit, enacted in its present form by Ordinance 22-1177, sections 3 through 5, in 2022, bars an extra pet deposit for tenancies beginning on or after March 24, 2022 and allows one of up to a month's rent for tenancies that began before then. Section 17.52.150, Dog Breed Restrictions Prohibited, enacted by Ordinance 23-13, section 4, in 2023, bars a landlord from prohibiting a specific breed of dog, with an exemption route. Both are printed in the current code, whose edition line says it includes legislation through Ordinance No. 26-11, adopted June 29, 2026. The council adoption dates and the effective dates of the two enacting ordinances are not stated here because they could not be read.

Who it binds

Both rules reach every rental in the city, but by different routes. The breed rule sits in a chapter that the code's exempt-property section carves back in for units that are otherwise outside rent stabilization, including buildings first occupied after July 1, 1979 and separately sold houses and condominiums, so no landlord in the city is outside it. The deposit rule binds every rent-stabilized unit, and for an otherwise exempt unit it binds where the tenancy began on or after March 24, 2022, which is the same date the rule itself turns on. The practical result for an exempt unit is the same answer: no extra pet deposit.

Which leases it reaches

The deposit rule turns on the date the tenancy began, not the date of the lease document: March 24, 2022 divides the two limbs, and the same date decides when the rule reaches an otherwise exempt unit. The breed rule has no date trigger at all and applies to every tenancy.

Pet deposit

For a tenancy that began on or after March 24, 2022 a landlord may not collect an additional security deposit at any point in the tenancy to let the tenant have a pet the chapter allows, even if pets were not permitted before. The tenant may keep the pet only if it does not interfere with other residents' quiet enjoyment of the premises or become a nuisance or a threat to the health, safety or welfare of people living in or lawfully visiting the property. For a tenancy that began before that date the older rule still governs what was collected: an extra deposit of up to one month's rent, but only with the written consent of the tenants paying it and only where the landlord agreed in return to allow pets that had not been allowed before. Even then the total security deposit could never exceed the California maximum, so the pet month sat inside the state cap rather than on top of it, and a deposit once set cannot be raised for the rest of the tenancy.

Pet rent

West Hollywood sets no rule on monthly pet rent; neither chapter mentions it. California does not cap pet rent either, so nothing limits the amount, though rent itself is controlled for rent-stabilized units by the city's own rent rules, which are a different subject and are on the rent pages.

Non-refundable pet fee

The city writes no separate rule on a non-refundable pet fee. For a tenancy beginning on or after March 24, 2022 there is little room for one in any event, because no additional deposit may be collected to allow a pet, and California separately bars a landlord from labeling an up-front pet charge non-refundable. The California page carries that rule.

Breed, size and weight

No specific breed of domesticated dog may be prohibited by a landlord where the pet is otherwise permitted under the tenancy or under local, state or federal law. Two limits matter. The rule is about dogs and about breed only, so a limit on size or weight, or a restriction on a cat or another animal, is untouched by it. And the rule does not protect a dog that interferes with other residents' quiet enjoyment of the premises or is a nuisance or a threat to the health, safety or welfare of people living in or lawfully visiting the property. The exemption route: A landlord may apply to the city's rent stabilization department for an exemption for a particular breed or breeds, on a showing of good cause that a current property insurance policy would be violated if the breed were permitted at the property, or, for a separately sold rental unit, that the covenants, conditions and restrictions would be violated. The section sets no standard beyond good cause, no deadline and no appeal route, and no published decisions or forms were found.

What the lease must, or may not, say

Neither section requires anything to be written in a lease, waives a no-pets clause after a period of time or makes a landlord admit a pet that the tenancy does not otherwise allow. What they do is limit the money and the breed rule, on the conditions stated above.

Assistance animals

Neither section carves assistance animals out, because neither needs to: one bars a charge and the other bars a restriction, and a landlord gains nothing from either against a tenant who needs an assistance animal. West Hollywood writes no assistance-animal rule of its own anywhere in these chapters. What a landlord must allow and may ask for a service, assistance or support animal is answered by the California page and the federal rules, unchanged by the city.

Who enforces it and how

Neither pet section carries its own remedy; the title's general remedies section supplies a strong one. A person or entity that willfully demands, accepts or retains a payment in violation of the title is liable in a civil action for three times the amount by which the payment exceeds what could lawfully be demanded, together with reasonable attorney fees and costs, and holding onto the money counts as a continuing violation until it is refunded, which is the route for an unlawful pet deposit. Separately, any person, including the city, may sue to enforce the title, with actual damages or statutory damages of $1,000, whichever is greater, plus punitive damages and fees, which is the route for a breed restriction since it involves no payment. A violation is also a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 or up to six months in jail or both, with each day a separate offense, and the City Attorney may seek an injunction on behalf of the city or of tenants.

How this fits with California law

California does not preempt either rule. The state statute that says no program regulating any dog may be specific as to breed is aimed at a city's own dog-control program, such as licensing, leashing or dangerous-dog designation, and this section does something different to a different party: it stops a private landlord from excluding a breed in a lease, and it runs in the same direction as the state rule rather than against it. No California statute preempts or authorizes local pet-in-housing rules at all, so both sections rest on the city's own authority. Where state law does bind is the deposit figure, by the ordinance's own words: the amount allowed is the amount the state deposit statute allows, and the total may never exceed the state maximum, so the older pet month sat inside the state cap. The state rent-cap statutes are about rent and have nothing to say about pets.

Notes and caveats

Federal law on pets and assistance animals, in every state

The federal layer for the pets and assistance-animals topic, carried once for the whole site. It is a dated history rather than a single rule: the Fair Housing Act's accommodation duty has not changed since 1988 and the regulation under it has never contained the word animal, while the HUD guidance that most writing on this subject still quotes was withdrawn in September 2025, permanently rescinded in May 2026, and replaced by an enforcement position that governs HUD's own cause determinations and nothing else. Every row names who it binds, and most of the rows that carry real figures bind only federally assisted, public or rural-development housing. No state record restates these rows; a state record says only where its own law references or extends them. Each row below says who it binds before it says what it does. The full text of each row, with its citations, is on the 50-state page.

Citations

How this record was verified: Both sections were read in full on the city's contracted code publisher's own site on September 21, 2026: section 17.32.020 in the chapter on limits on rents, security deposits and fees, with its whole credit line, and section 17.52.150 in the chapter on tenant protections, with its credit line. The chapter on exempt property was read for the sentences that carve the two chapters back in for otherwise exempt units, and the remedies chapter was read in full for what a tenant can recover. The code edition line, read from the page's own version record, says the code includes legislation through Ordinance No. 26-11, adopted June 29, 2026, imported September 11, 2026, and the publisher's own list of adopted legislation awaiting codification is empty. The city's own document site and the council's legislation system would not serve records, so the council adoption dates and the effective dates of the two enacting ordinances were not read; the dates the rules actually turn on come from the ordinance text itself. The California answers come from the state reading: the deposit statute the ordinance cross-references and the statute that limits breed-specific dog programs.

What was read to state each absence on this page: Chapters 17.24, 17.32, 17.52 and 17.68 of title 17 were read on September 21, 2026 and the terms run over them were pet, pets, animal, dog, guide dog, service dog, service animal, assistance animal, support animal, emotional support, companion animal, breed, weight, size, deposit, fee, nonrefundable, pet rent and pet fee. Pet occurs only in section 17.32.020, subsection 2, and in section 17.52.150. Breed occurs only in section 17.52.150. Assistance, service animal, emotional support, pet rent and pet fee do not occur at all. The earlier reading of eight chapters of the title located breed in that one chapter only. The city's own document site and the council's legislation system would not serve records, so no reading of council business since June 29, 2026 was possible and the statement that nothing is pending rests on the publisher's empty list of adopted legislation awaiting codification, which is a partial answer.

This page records West Hollywood's own law on pets and assistance animals in rentals. The statewide position — California has no separate pet deposit: money taken at move-in for a pet is security like any other money, so it counts in full toward the deposit cap and has to be refundable — lives on the California pets and assistance-animals page with its own citations and verification date.