California AB 628 Compliance: What Property Managers Need to Document Now

What Does AB 628 Require?

AB 628 amends California Civil Code Section 1941.1, adding a working stove and refrigerator to the legal definition of a "tenantable" dwelling. For any lease signed, renewed, amended, or extended on or after January 1, 2026, your rental unit must include both appliances in good working order.

The stove has to be capable of safely generating heat for cooking. The refrigerator has to safely store food at proper temperatures. "Good working order" means all burners fire, the oven heats, the fridge holds temperature. Two working burners out of four doesn't cut it. California's been slow on PM accountability, and this law forces documentation habits that should've been standard a decade ago.

If either appliance is under a manufacturer recall, you've got 30 days from receiving notice to repair or replace it.

The law covers single-family homes, condos, duplexes, and multifamily buildings. Exemptions are narrow: permanent supportive housing, SROs, and units with communal kitchens like assisted living facilities.

Where Will PMs Get Caught?

I've been through enough habitability complaints to know the pattern. The PM who gets caught can't prove the stove worked when the tenant moved in. Or they can't show they responded to the repair request within a reasonable timeframe. The appliance itself is rarely the problem. The documentation gap is.

AB 628 creates new documentation requirements that most property managers aren't set up to handle.

The tenant-provided refrigerator exception is where I expect the most disputes. Tenants and landlords can agree at lease signing that the tenant will supply their own fridge. But four conditions have to be met:

1. The agreement has to be written into the lease with clear language stating it was the tenant's choice. I've seen PMs handle this with a handshake at move-in. That won't hold up. Get the addendum signed before the tenant carries the fridge through the door, with language specifying the tenant initiated the arrangement.

2. The tenant can reverse the decision with 30 days' notice and request a landlord-provided fridge

3. You can't require tenants to bring their own appliance

4. You're not responsible for maintaining or replacing tenant-provided units

Miss any one of those four, and your "agreement" falls apart. The tenant-provided fridge clause is the single biggest liability trap in AB 628, worse than the appliance mandate itself, because PMs think they're covered when they're not.

What Documentation Does AB 628 Require?

Don't bother with the 40-field compliance form somebody's going to try to sell you. Five things for every unit, on every lease event after January 1, 2026:

At move-in or lease renewal:

• Photograph every appliance. Front, model plate, serial number. GPS-stamped if your system supports it.

• Test the stove. Every burner, the oven, any broiler element. Note which ones work and which don't. I test all four burners, the oven at 350°F for ten minutes, and the broiler. Takes about fifteen minutes per unit and I've caught dead igniters in three units this year that would've turned into habitability complaints.

• Check fridge temperature. Stick a thermometer in there. Anything above 40°F isn't "good working order" under any reasonable definition.

• Log make, model, serial number for each appliance. You'll need these for recall tracking.

Ongoing:

• Run recall checks quarterly. The CPSC recall database is free. 30 days to repair or replace doesn't leave room for "we didn't know."

• When a tenant reports an appliance issue, treat it like any maintenance request. Timestamped receipt, dispatch record, vendor check-in, completion photos.

• Keep records of every repair. Not "fixed stove" in your notes app. Documented work orders with what was wrong, who fixed it, when, and proof it was tested after.

At turnover:

• Test everything again before the next tenant moves in. The stove that "worked fine" for the last tenant might have a dead igniter nobody reported.

• If the tenant is providing their own fridge, get the lease addendum signed before they move in, not after.

How Much Does Missing Documentation Cost?

A tenant reports their stove doesn't work. You send a vendor out three days later. Vendor replaces a faulty igniter, bills you $340, and leaves. Everybody moves on.

Six months later, the tenant files a habitability complaint claiming the stove was broken for two weeks before they reported it and you ignored multiple requests. You pull up your records. You've got the vendor invoice. That's it. No timestamp on the original request. No record of when you dispatched. No before/after photos.

Under California Civil Code 1942.4, if a habitability violation goes unresolved for more than 35 days after notice, you can't collect rent or serve a pay-or-quit notice. The tenant can repair and deduct up to one month's rent under Section 1942. Or they can withhold rent entirely and dare you to try an eviction, which you'll lose without a documented response timeline.

We had an HVAC no-show last summer that drove this home. Scheduled an emergency AC repair for a 94-degree day. Vendor confirmed twice. Never showed. By 4pm the tenant had checked into a hotel and I was on the hook for $189/night until we got a replacement tech out the next morning. Total cost: $378 in hotel bills plus $450 for the after-hours service call, on top of the original $280 repair. AB 628 appliance issues follow the same pattern. Slow response compounds fast.

Do Pre-2026 Leases Have to Comply?

If you've got month-to-month tenancies that haven't been formally renewed or amended since January 1, 2026, those leases aren't technically covered yet. But the moment you send a rent increase notice, update a lease term, or the tenant signs any amendment, AB 628 kicks in.

Audit your appliances now across every unit. Don't wait for the trigger event. Fix what's broken and document what works. Get your tenant-provided fridge agreements in writing while you're at it.

We did a full appliance audit across 48 units last December. Found six fridges running warm, two stoves with non-functioning ovens, and one unit where the tenant's "personal fridge" situation had zero documentation. Took us about 12 hours total to inspect, photograph, and log everything. We replaced the two stoves for about $1,400 combined. Twelve hours and $1,400 versus a habitability defense that starts at $5,000 in legal fees before anyone files a motion.

How Should You Track Appliance Recalls?

Everyone's focused on the stove-and-fridge mandate, but the 30-day recall provision is where PMs are going to get blindsided. Most managers I know don't have a system for tracking appliance recalls. They find out when the tenant Googles their model number after seeing a news story. Or they don't find out at all.

You need a process. Log every appliance serial number. Check the CPSC database quarterly. It takes about 20 minutes for a 50-unit portfolio. When a recall hits, you've got 30 calendar days. That's tight if you need to source a replacement stove or schedule a manufacturer repair, especially when the recall affects a popular model and everyone's competing for parts.

I had a contractor's liability policy lapse go unnoticed for three months once. During that window, his crew damaged a tenant's car in the parking lot and we were looking at $200K in exposure before our own policy covered it. Recalls are the same kind of invisible risk. You don't notice the gap until something goes wrong, and then you're scrambling with a 30-day clock ticking.

The Five-Question Self-Audit

Pull up your records for any unit right now. Can you answer these in under two minutes?

• Make and model of the stove and refrigerator in Unit 14B?

• Last inspection or service date for each appliance?

• Recall status?

• If the tenant provides their own fridge, is there a signed addendum on file?

• When's the lease renewal, and does it trigger AB 628?

If you can't answer all five, you've got gaps. And gaps are what habitability complaints feed on.

A solid maintenance platform like Revoscape that tracks work orders with GPS-verified timestamps and vendor verification turns this from a manual audit into a running record. But even a spreadsheet beats no system at all.