California’s Anti-Harassment Law: Protection From Landlord Pressure Tactics

California Tenant Defense System | Justice Foundation

California Civil Code Section 1940.2 prohibits landlord harassment — the use of pressure, threats, or interference with a tenant’s rights to force them out of a rental unit. For tenants in rent-controlled units or long-term tenancies that have become valuable to a landlord for redevelopment or market-rate conversion, harassment is a common landlord tactic. California law gives you specific remedies when it occurs.

What Constitutes Illegal Harassment

Section 1940.2 prohibits landlords from: using force, threatening to use force, or engaging in conduct that interferes with a tenant’s quiet enjoyment of the premises with the intent to cause the tenant to vacate. More specifically, illegal harassment includes: making repeated phone calls or visits to disturb the tenant’s quiet enjoyment, interfering with the tenant’s right to privacy, removing a tenant’s personal property from the unit, removing doors, windows, plumbing, or other amenities, threatening to report a tenant (or their household members) to immigration authorities, and substantially and willfully failing to make required repairs with the intent to cause the tenant to vacate.

Local Harassment Ordinances

Many California cities with rent control have additional local harassment protections that exceed state law. San Francisco’s Rent Ordinance, Los Angeles’s RSO, and ordinances in Oakland, Berkeley, and other cities provide broader definitions of harassment and additional remedies. If you live in a rent-controlled jurisdiction, check your local ordinance — you may have stronger protections than state law alone provides.

Remedies and Enforcement

A tenant who is harassed in violation of Section 1940.2 or a local harassment ordinance can: file a complaint with the local rent board (if applicable), file a civil lawsuit against the landlord for damages, seek a court injunction ordering the harassment to stop, and claim attorney’s fees if successful. Damages can include actual damages (moving costs if forced to leave, emotional distress), and punitive damages in cases of particularly egregious conduct. Courts have imposed substantial damage awards against landlords who engaged in systematic harassment campaigns. The Justice Foundation kit includes harassment documentation guides and complaint filing instructions for state and local remedies.