Hollywood Property Management

Property Management in Hollywood, Los Angeles

Bessa Properties manages apartment buildings, condos, and houses in Hollywood: leasing, rent collection, maintenance, and the City of Los Angeles Rent Stabilization Ordinance, handled by a California DRE-licensed company.

Hollywood is the City of Los Angeles, and that decides the rules

Hollywood is a neighborhood, not a city. West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and Culver City each write their own rent and eviction rules; Hollywood does not. Your building is governed by the Los Angeles Municipal Code and administered by the Los Angeles Housing Department, and for most of the older stock here that means the Rent Stabilization Ordinance.

The line matters because it moves. A building a block east of La Brea is in the City of Los Angeles. A block west, it may be in West Hollywood, on a different rent formula and a different registration system. ZIP codes are no help here: 90028, 90038, and 90068 sit entirely inside the City of Los Angeles, but 90046 carries addresses in both the city and West Hollywood, so mail delivery tells you nothing about which rent ordinance applies. Before we set up a file we check the parcel on ZIMAS, confirm the certificate-of-occupancy date, and write down which ordinance applies, because everything after that — what you can raise, what notice you serve, what you owe if you need the unit back — follows from that one answer.

The owners who call us are usually holding one of a few things. A 1920s Spanish courtyard off Franklin or Cherokee with tenants who have been in place for fifteen years. A dingbat with tuck-under parking in the flats south of Santa Monica Boulevard. A condo in one of the Yucca corridor or Hollywood and Vine towers that used to be a residence and is now a rental. Or a house in Whitley Heights, Hollywood Dell, or Beachwood Canyon that came through a family and is worth more rented than sold in a slow month.

How the Los Angeles rules affect you as an owner

The RSO applies to residential units in buildings whose first certificate of occupancy was issued on or before October 1, 1978. That takes in apartments, condominiums, townhomes, duplexes, accessory dwelling units, two or more single-family homes on the same parcel, residential units attached to commercial buildings, and hotel or motel rooms occupied by the same tenant for thirty consecutive days or more. A detached single-family house that is the only dwelling on its parcel is exempt, and so is most construction after that 1978 date. Exempt does not mean unregulated: those units generally fall under the city's Just Cause Ordinance for evictions, and often under the state rent cap as well.

The annual increase. A covered unit can be raised once every twelve months, by a percentage the city sets between 1% and 4% based on the CPI average for the twelve months ending September 30. For July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027 that figure is 3%. It is not cumulative and not retroactive: a year you skip is a year you lose. The security deposit may be raised by the same percentage at the same time. Notice is thirty days for an increase under 10% of the current rent, ninety days for anything above that.

What changed on February 2, 2026. The annual increase can no longer include an extra percentage for utilities. Adding a dependent to the household is no longer grounds for any increase. For an additional adult who is not a dependent, the rent and the deposit may go up 10% per person, but the notice has to go out within sixty days of the owner learning about them, and the rent comes back down when that person moves out. These are easy to get wrong in a building where households change quietly.

Registration is the one that bites. Under LAMC 151.05 an owner of RSO units must register annually, pay the fees, and give the tenant a copy of a valid registration statement before legally demanding or accepting rent. Rent amounts and tenancy information go into the city's rent registry by the last day of February each year. The RSO registration fee is $38.75 per unit, half of which can be recovered as a $1.61 monthly surcharge. The Systematic Code Enforcement fee is $67.94 per unit, half recoverable at $2.83 a month. Units not under the RSO pay the Just Cause Ordinance fee of $31.05 per unit. Unpaid registration or SCEP fees can be raised by a tenant as a defense against eviction, which is how a paperwork lapse turns into a case you cannot win.

Ending a tenancy. Evictions run through LAMC 151.09 for RSO units and 165.03 for Just Cause units. Since March 2023 a tenant behind on rent cannot be evicted for nonpayment unless the amount owed is higher than the federal Fair Market Rent for that unit size; the current values took effect May 21, 2026. Every no-fault termination — owner or family move-in, an Ellis Act removal, a government order to vacate, demolition or conversion — requires relocation assistance and a Declaration of Intent to Evict filed with LAHD before any notice is served, with a copy of the notice filed within three days after service. The relocation amount depends on whether the tenant is a qualified tenant, how long they have lived there, and their income, and LAHD publishes the current chart. Owner move-in cases carry their own restrictions under LAMC 151.30. We will help you plan one and tell you honestly what it costs; get an attorney involved before anything is served.

Harassment and short-term rentals. The Tenant Anti-Harassment Ordinance, adopted in 2021 as Ordinance 187109, covers every residential unit in the city, not only rent-stabilized ones, and it is why we document repairs, entries, and communications the way we do. Home-sharing is limited to a host's own primary residence, capped at 120 days a year without an extended permit, and not permitted at all in RSO buildings. If you have been advertising a stabilized unit by the night, that needs to stop before it becomes an enforcement matter.

Rules change. We confirm the current figures with LAHD before a notice goes out rather than working from last year's numbers, and anything touching an eviction or a tax position should be run past your attorney or CPA.

Who we work with here

Houses and condos. A single house on its own lot in the hills is usually outside the RSO, which makes it the most flexible thing to own in Hollywood and the easiest to mismanage — the flexibility is in the rent, not in the eviction rules or the habitability standard. Condos in the newer towers come with an HOA, and we work inside its rules on move-ins, elevator reservations, and parking.

Small multifamily, two to about twenty units. This is most of Hollywood. Long tenancies, rents well under market, deferred maintenance on 1920s plumbing and 1960s electrical, and a registration file that has to be right every year. When a unit finally turns, the turn is the event of the year for that building, and we treat it that way.

Larger buildings. More units means more compliance surface: SCEP inspections, per-unit registry filings, vendor scheduling that does not shut down half the parking, and monthly reporting an owner or an asset manager can actually read.

Flat-fee management

Most management in Los Angeles is priced as a percentage of the rent you collect, which means the fee moves every time the rent does and is hard to budget against. We also offer flat-fee management: one predictable monthly amount per property, covering maintenance coordination and rent collection. Leasing a vacant unit is quoted separately, so you only pay for it in the years you need it.

What the flat fee should be depends on the building — unit count, age, condition, and how much of the work is ongoing. Tell us what you own and we will send a written number.

What a month looks like

• Rent collected, with the follow-up on a late payment handled by us and documented
• Maintenance requests taken, triaged, and dispatched, with the vendor followed up until the work is finished
• An owner statement you can hand to your CPA, and year-end documents that match it
• RSO registration, rent registry filings, and fee deadlines tracked per unit, not per building
• Increase eligibility watched by unit, so the twelve-month window is not missed
• Leasing when a unit turns: pricing against real comps on your block, marketing, showings, screening under state and city fair housing law, and the lease

Questions Hollywood owners ask

Is my Hollywood building under rent control?

If the first certificate of occupancy was issued on or before October 1, 1978 and there is more than one dwelling on the parcel, almost certainly yes. A detached single-family house alone on its lot is exempt. The reliable check is the parcel record on the city's ZIMAS system plus the certificate of occupancy; we do that before quoting, and LAHD will confirm it.

How much can I raise the rent this year?

On an RSO unit, 3% for increases effective July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027, once in any twelve-month period, with thirty days' written notice. The city sets the figure each year between 1% and 4%. On a unit that is exempt from the RSO, the state cap applies instead and is calculated differently, so the two should never be assumed to match.

I bought a building and the prior owner never registered it. What now?

Registration follows the property, and unpaid fees become your problem at closing. Until the units are registered and the fees are paid, rent collection and any eviction are exposed. This is fixable and it is one of the first things we work through on a new file, but it should be priced into the purchase, not discovered after it.

Can I move into my own rental unit, or put a family member in it?

Under the RSO, yes, within limits: it has to be you, your spouse, children, grandchildren, parents, or grandparents; relocation assistance is owed; and a Declaration of Intent to Evict must be filed with LAHD before any notice is served. LAMC 151.30 adds further conditions. Allow for every one of those steps before you set a move-out date. Talk to us and to an attorney before you serve anything.

Can I rent the unit on Airbnb between tenants?

Not if it is an RSO unit — home-sharing is not permitted in rent-stabilized buildings. Elsewhere in the city, home-sharing is limited to your own primary residence and capped at 120 days a year unless you hold an extended home-sharing permit. A furnished lease of a year or more is a different matter, and we manage furnished units on the same terms as unfurnished ones.

Do you manage buildings with ground-floor retail?

Yes. Mixed-use is common along Hollywood Boulevard, Sunset, and Santa Monica. The residential units above are usually under the RSO if the building predates October 1978; the commercial space is governed by its own leases. We manage both sides and keep the accounting separate.

We also manage in nearby West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Studio City, Culver City, Santa Monica, and Inglewood.