Right to Counsel — what LA landlords must post and serve

On August 20, 2025, Los Angeles began requiring every residential rental landlord to give tenants written notice about the Right to Counsel program — both at the start of tenancy, and any time the landlord serves an eviction notice. The compliance ask is small but specific, and the cost of getting it wrong is real: a tenant who didn't receive the notice can raise it as an affirmative defense to an eviction, and win.

What triggers this rule

The Right to Counsel program ordinance applies to every residential rental unit inside the City of Los Angeles. Not the County. Not Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, or other independent cities. The City of LA, specifically.

Unlike rent stabilization, there is no exemption based on year built, unit count, or owner occupancy. A single-family home rented out in Mid-Wilshire is covered. A 200-unit apartment building in Koreatown is covered. The same rule applies to both.

What you have to do

There are four moments when the notice must be provided. Get all four right; missing any one creates a defect that can void an eviction.

1. At the start of every tenancy, give the new tenant the Notice of Right to Counsel.

   Must be in the tenant's primary language if LAHD has published a translation. The program supports English, Spanish, Korean, Farsi, Armenian, Russian, Cantonese, Mandarin, and Tagalog. If the tenant's language isn't one of those, give them the English version plus all the translations LAHD publishes.

   Proof Signed acknowledgment, dated copy in the lease folder, or a copy of the lease that includes the notice as an attachment.

2. Post the Notice of Right to Counsel in a conspicuous common area of the building.

   Lobby, mailroom, laundry area, or another high-traffic shared space. The point is visibility — a notice posted inside a closet doesn't satisfy the requirement.

   Proof Photo of the posting in place, dated, showing the building location.

3. When you serve any eviction notice (notice to pay or quit, notice to cure or quit, termination of tenancy), attach the Right to Counsel notice.

   This is the requirement most landlords miss. Posting the notice in the lobby is not enough — every eviction notice served on a specific tenant must include the RTC notice attached.

   Proof The eviction notice itself, with the RTC notice attached as an exhibit, plus the proof-of-service record.

4. If you administer Section 8 or other rental subsidy and the subsidy might terminate, attach the Right to Counsel notice to that correspondence too.

   This is less commonly applicable but high-stakes when it is. Subsidy termination can effectively end a tenancy; the notice goes with it.

   Proof A copy of the subsidy correspondence with the RTC notice attached.

The common mistakes

How to prove you did it

For each property, the defensible record is:

• For tenancy-start service: a signed acknowledgment from the tenant, or a copy of the lease that incorporates the notice as an attachment.
• For the posting: a dated photo showing the notice in the conspicuous common area.
• For eviction-notice service: the eviction notice itself with the RTC notice attached as an exhibit, plus your proof-of-service record (mail receipt, personal-service declaration, etc.).

Keep the file per property. If you ever have to defend an eviction, you'll want to produce all of the above in one pull. The LandlordOS proof log is built for exactly this — log the photo, the date, and the file reference, and it's there when you need it.

What happens if you skip this

In any unlawful detainer action you bring, an eligible tenant who didn't receive the required notice can raise the failure as an affirmative defense. If they succeed, your eviction is denied — and a tenant who successfully asserts the defense is entitled to their reasonable attorney's fees and costs, which you pay. Beyond the direct cost of the failed eviction, you've now invested time and filing fees in a case you've lost, and you have to start over after curing the defect.

In other words: this is a small process step that you'll do hundreds of times correctly without consequence — but the one time you skip it on a tenant who later faces an eviction, the bill arrives.

Test yourself

Question

Which properties does Right to Counsel apply to?

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Question

Name the four moments when a landlord must provide the RTC notice.

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Question

What's the most common landlord mistake on this rule?

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Question

What's the consequence of failing to provide the notice when you should have?

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