Ending a Tenancy in Inglewood: The Grounds, the Filings, and What a No-Fault Costs

For Owners · Inglewood · October 2026 · 13 min read

Say you own a 1958 fourplex off Centinela. Good building, long tenancies, and a son finishing a degree who needs somewhere to live. The plan is a 60-day notice in November and a move-in over the holidays. The plan is also going to cost you roughly half a year of that unit’s rent, which you have not budgeted for, because in Inglewood a relative move-in is a no-fault ground and every no-fault ground carries a relocation payment.

That is the single most important thing to understand about ending a tenancy here, and it is what separates Inglewood from the cities around it. The list of allowable reasons is long. The consequences of picking one from the back half of the list are expensive. Below is how the ordinance actually works, with the figures and deadlines the city publishes as of October 2026.

The twelve-month line

Inglewood’s just cause protections attach once at least one existing tenant has continuously and lawfully occupied the unit for twelve months or more. Before that point, the ordinance’s just cause requirements do not govern the tenancy. After it, a tenancy can only end for one of the reasons written into section 8-121.

So the move-in date is a number you need for every unit you own, including the ones that came with the building. An owner who bought an Inglewood fourplex in the last two years may have no idea when the back-unit tenant actually moved in, because the seller’s file was thin and nobody thought to ask. Find out before you plan anything.

Selling is not on the list. Once a tenancy has vested, a sale does not end it and a buyer’s preference for an empty building is not a ground. The tenancy transfers. If you are selling an occupied Inglewood building, that is what you are selling, and pricing it as vacant-ready is how deals fall apart in escrow.

Which of your units this actually covers

Three exemptions matter in practice.

New construction is out: a unit is exempt if its certificate of occupancy was issued within the last fifteen years. This is a rolling window, not a fixed date, which is a real difference from the City of Los Angeles, where the RSO’s cutoff is a certificate of occupancy on or before October 1, 1978 and never moves. An Inglewood building that was exempt in 2019 can be covered now.

Owner-occupied small properties are out, where the owner-occupant rents no more than one dwelling unit on the property. The classic case is a duplex where you live in one half.

Single-family houses and condominiums can be out, but only on two conditions, and the second one is where owners lose the exemption. Every owner has to be a natural person, so a unit held by an LLC, a corporation, or a real estate investment trust does not qualify. And the tenant has to have been given written notice of the exemption, in the rental agreement for tenancies starting after June 1, 2021, or as an addendum for tenancies that predate it. The notice has to say the property is not subject to the rent limits in section 8-127 and is not subject to the just cause requirements of section 8-121.

The ten at-fault grounds

Section 8-121(a) lists fourteen bases for termination. The first ten turn on something the tenant did:

• Default in the payment of rent
• Breach of a material term of the lease, after written notice to correct it
• Maintaining or committing a nuisance, as the term is used in Code of Civil Procedure section 1161(4)
• Waste, under the same section
• Criminal activity in the unit, or criminal threats directed at the owner or the owner’s agent
• Assigning or subletting the unit without authorization
• Refusing the owner reasonable access for repairs, inspections, or showings to prospective buyers or lenders
• Unlawful use of the unit
• An employee, agent, or licensee failing to vacate after the employment ends
• Failing to vacate after giving notice to leave or accepting a written offer to surrender

Two of these are worth slowing down on. The second ground requires a notice to cure first, where the breach is curable, and the ordinance is explicit that the tenant gets an opportunity to fix the problem before a three-day notice to quit can be served. Skipping the cure notice is one of the quickest ways an Inglewood case dies on a technicality rather than on the facts. We wrote up the mechanics separately in our guide to lease violation cure timelines.

The ninth ground is the on-site manager situation. If you employ a tenant to look after the building and the employment ends, the tenancy can end with it. That only works cleanly if the employment agreement and the rental agreement were separate documents to begin with. An owner who wrote the free rent into the lease cannot easily do either thing cleanly afterward. More on that split in our piece on the resident manager rule.

The four no-fault grounds

Bases eleven through fourteen are the no-fault terminations:

• Owner or close relative intends to occupy the unit
• Compliance with a government agency order, a court order, or a local ordinance requiring the unit be vacated
• Withdrawal of the property from the rental market under the state’s Ellis Act
• Intent to demolish the unit

Every one of the four triggers permanent relocation assistance under section 8-123. There is no small-owner discount in the ordinance and no exception for a first-time landlord. If you are using a no-fault ground, you are writing a check.

The demolition ground has a sequencing requirement that catches people. The owner has to have applied for and received all necessary permits for the work, and obtained Board approval, before serving the termination notice. Not after. If you are planning a redevelopment, the entitlement timeline sets your tenancy timeline, not the other way around. Call the department and confirm which body signs off on your project before you build a schedule around it.

Owner and relative move-in is the narrow one

This is the ground with the most conditions attached.

The relative list is closed: spouse, domestic partner, child, grandchild, parent, or grandparent. A sibling is not on it. Neither is a niece, a nephew, a cousin, or an in-law. If the person you have in mind is not on that list, this ground is not available to you and no amount of paperwork changes that.

The person moving in has to intend in good faith to occupy the unit within sixty days after the tenant vacates, and to live there for at least twenty-four consecutive months. Both numbers are in the ordinance. An owner who moves a relative in for eight months and then re-rents at market has a problem, and it is the kind of problem that produces a lawsuit two years later with a paper trail already built.

Then there are the blocks. You cannot use this ground if:

• The owner or relative who intends to move in already occupies a unit on the same property, or a comparable unit on the property is vacant
• A comparable unit on the property is occupied by a tenant who moved in more recently than the tenant you are noticing
• The tenant has lived in the unit at least five years and is a senior or a disabled person, unless the person moving in is also a senior, disabled, or terminally ill
• The tenant is certified as terminally ill, subject to the same narrow exception

And it is once per property every four years. On a fourplex, that means you get one of these, not four.

The second block is the one to watch. If you have a vacant unit in the building, or a newer tenancy in a comparable unit, the city expects the relative to take that one or the newer tenant to be the one who moves. The ordinance protects length of tenancy, deliberately.

What a no-fault actually costs

Section 8-123 sets permanent relocation assistance for terminations under bases eleven through fourteen. As the city publishes it, the calculation has three parts.

The base is three times the monthly rent in effect when you issued the termination notice. Add $2,000 if a minor lives in the unit.

Then one additional amount, the highest the household qualifies for:

• $2,000 for a tenancy of two to four years
• $3,000 for five to ten years
• $5,000 for eleven years or more
• $7,500 where a tenant is a senior or a disabled person

Only the single highest tier applies. It does not stack.

Payment is due within fifteen calendar days of serving the termination notice. Not at move-out, not when the keys come back. Fifteen days from service, which is why the number has to be settled before anything goes out the door.

Run the fourplex from the opening through that. A unit renting at $2,100 with a tenant of fourteen years and a child in the household: $6,300 base, $2,000 for the minor, $5,000 for the eleven-plus tier. That is $13,300, due within fifteen days of the notice, before you have collected a dollar of the new rent. Against a unit grossing $25,200 a year, it is a meaningful share of the year.

Because the amount turns on rent at the date of notice, tenancy length, and household composition, the city publishes a relocation calculation sheet, and the Housing Protection Department will confirm a figure. Get your number in writing from them before you serve. The termination notice itself has to disclose the amount and how you calculated it, so a wrong figure is not a billing dispute, it is a defective notice.

There is a second, separate category. Where tenants have to leave temporarily because of a government order or a health and safety condition, the ordinance puts the reasonable costs of that displacement on the owner: hotel, meals, laundry, pets, moving, and storage. That one tends to arrive without warning, usually attached to an inspection, and it is a good argument for keeping reserves against the older buildings in your portfolio.

The paperwork is what voids the notice

Section 8-122 is short and unforgiving. Its last line is that an owner’s failure to strictly comply with the section renders the notice of termination void.

What it requires:

• A written notice of a curable violation, with an opportunity to cure, before a three-day notice to quit on that violation
• A termination notice stating each just cause basis you are relying on
• On an owner or relative move-in, the intended occupant’s name, address, and relationship to the owner
• On any of the four no-fault bases, the relocation amount and the details of how it was calculated, including the ages and disability status of occupants where those drive the figure
• Copies of the notice filed with the Housing Protection Department within three calendar days of service

That three-day filing window is the easiest deadline to miss, because it runs on calendar days and it runs from service. Serve on a Friday and the clock does not wait for Monday. It is also the easiest one to protect against: file the same day you serve, and keep the proof.

Violations of the article are a misdemeanor, and the city can enforce by administrative citation or other action. Separately, nothing in the enforcement section limits a tenant’s own civil remedies. A defective notice does not simply fail, it can become the tenant’s case.

How much notice, and from where

The ordinance does not set its own notice period. That comes from state law. Under Civil Code section 1946.1, a termination of a month-to-month tenancy takes 30 days’ notice where the tenant has lived there less than a year, and 60 days where the tenant has been there a year or more.

Since Inglewood’s just cause requirements only attach at twelve months, a no-fault termination of a vested Inglewood tenancy is effectively always a 60-day notice. Plan on 60, plus the relocation payment inside the first 15 of them.

When no ground is available: the buyout route

Plenty of real situations do not fit any of the fourteen bases. The relative is a brother. The tenant is simply difficult rather than in breach. You want the unit back on a timeline the demolition ground cannot deliver. In those cases the honest answer is that you cannot end the tenancy, and the question becomes whether the tenant will agree to leave.

Inglewood regulates that too, in section 8-123.1. A buyout agreement cannot pay a tenant less than they would be entitled to in relocation assistance under section 8-123, so the relocation figure is the floor, not the opening offer. Before making an offer you have to give the tenant a written disclosure covering their right to decline, their right to consult an attorney and propose changes, their access to the program administrator, and a thirty-day right to rescind. The tenant can rescind within thirty calendar days of signing, and if the agreement does not meet every requirement of the article, they can rescind at any time afterward. You give the tenant a copy once everyone has signed and file the signed agreement with the program administrator within three calendar days.

Three days again. The city built this ordinance around short filing windows, and they are the part most at risk when an owner runs the file alone. The broader mechanics, including the city and county versions, are in our guide to LA tenant buyout agreements.

Questions owners ask

My tenant’s lease expires in January. Can I just not renew?

No, not if the tenancy has vested. Expiration of a fixed-term lease is not one of the fourteen bases. The tenancy continues month to month and you still need a ground to end it. It is worth saying plainly: a lease end date is not an exit.

The tenant has not paid rent in two months. Do I owe relocation?

No. Nonpayment is the first at-fault ground, and relocation attaches only to bases eleven through fourteen. What you do owe is a correctly served notice, and the court process if the tenant neither pays nor leaves. A case lost on the notice is lost before the facts are ever heard. We walk through the court side in how eviction works in Los Angeles.

I want my brother in the unit. Does that work?

Not under this ground. The ordinance’s list of close relatives is spouse, domestic partner, child, grandchild, parent, and grandparent. Siblings are not included. If your brother needs the unit, your realistic path is a negotiated buyout at or above the relocation floor, or waiting for a vacancy.

I rent out a house in Inglewood. Am I exempt from all of this?

Possibly, and it depends on two things rather than one. All owners have to be natural persons, so title held in an LLC or a corporation disqualifies the unit. And the tenant has to have received the written exemption notice, in the lease for tenancies beginning after June 1, 2021, or as an addendum for older ones. If you have never served that disclosure, assume you are covered until someone confirms otherwise. The registration question is separate again, and we cover it in our post on Inglewood rent increases and registration.

Can I raise the rent to market after a no-fault?

That is a rent question, not an eviction question, and the answer depends on whether the unit is under Inglewood’s rent limits at all and what happened to the tenancy. Do not assume a no-fault termination resets anything. Check the rent side before you plan around a number, starting with how Inglewood’s allowable increases work.

What if I want the unit for short-term rental instead?

Inglewood regulates short-term rentals on their own terms, and “I plan to list it” is not one of the fourteen bases for ending a tenancy. The two questions are unrelated and both have to come out in your favor. The rules are in our post on Inglewood short-term rental rules.

If you own in more than one city: the sequences do not transfer. Culver City has five at-fault and five no-fault grounds with no catch-all, and an owner move-in there is an application to the city rather than a notice to the tenant. Beverly Hills ties relocation to the specific ground rather than to the at-fault label, and its Chapter 6 has no buyout procedure. Inglewood pays relocation on every no-fault and files everything in three days. Three cities inside ten miles, three different files, and nothing you learned in one of them is safe to apply in another.

Sources and disclaimer. Inglewood Municipal Code, Chapter 8, Article 9, Just Cause Eviction Protections, sections 8-120 through 8-124 (twelve-month vesting; the ten at-fault and four no-fault bases in 8-121(a); exemptions in 8-121(b) including the fifteen-year certificate of occupancy window, owner-occupied properties, and the natural-person and written-notice conditions for single-family residences and separately alienable units; owner and relative occupancy conditions, the sixty-day and twenty-four-month requirements and the four-year limit; notice contents, the cure requirement and the three-calendar-day filing rule in 8-122, with the strict-compliance voiding provision; temporary and permanent relocation assistance, amounts and the fifteen-calendar-day payment deadline in 8-123; buyout disclosure, the thirty-day rescission and three-day filing in 8-123.1; enforcement in 8-124). City of Inglewood Housing Protection Department, Housing Protection general information FAQs (covered and exempt property types, relocation amounts, the three-day filing requirement, department contact details) and the city’s published relocation calculation sheet. Judicial Council of California, Types of eviction notices; California Civil Code sections 1946.1 and 1946.2; California Code of Civil Procedure section 1161(4). Current as of October 2026. This article is general information for property owners, not legal advice, and published figures change. Confirm your unit’s status and your relocation figure with the Inglewood Housing Protection Department at (310) 412-4330 or housingprotection@cityofinglewood.org, and review any termination notice with a California landlord-tenant attorney before you serve it.