Civ. Code 1962(a) requires an owner to disclose in a lease the name, street address and telephone number of the property manager, owner, and the person to whom rent should be paid. Subdivision (c) requires any successor owner to disclose the same information about itself within 15 days of succeeding to the prior owner and bars the successor owner from serving a three-day notice to quit based on rent that fell due during any period of noncompliance by the successor owner with that requirement. This decision holds that “successor owner” for these purposes means only a new owner that succeeds to rights under an existing lease, and not a new owner that enters into a new lease with an existing tenant. The evil at which the statute was aimed was the tenant’s not knowing to whom rent should be paid when a new owner takes over the property. When the new owner enters into a new lease with an existing tenant, the tenant does not have that problem.
Los Angeles County Superior Court, Appellate Division (Richardson, J.); September 17, 2018 (published November 28, 2018); 29 Cal. App. 5th Supp. 1