What most AB 2801 guides get wrong
Two claims about California's security deposit photo rules keep turning up in the guides written about them — by law firms, inspection companies, rental associations and management companies. Neither appears in the statute. Both make landlords do work the law doesn't ask for, and one of them, by inventing a records duty, quietly implies the real deadlines are softer than they are.
How we know: on 19 August 2026 we read the results Google returned on the first page for “AB 2801” and for “AB 2801 landlord checklist”. Both claims below appeared in that set, repeatedly, including in material published by organisations landlords are told to rely on. We haven't counted every article on the internet and we don't claim to — but these are not fringe misreadings, and if you've researched this law you have probably met both.
Below is each claim, and the text of §1950.5 next to it. Check us rather than trust us: the section is published in full by the Legislature, free, and the relevant subdivisions are short.
Commonly repeated, not in the statute
“You must give the move-in photos to your tenant.”
The move-in requirement is one sentence long, and the verb is take:
“For tenancies that begin on or after July 1, 2025, the landlord shall take photographs of the unit immediately before, or at the inception of, the tenancy.”
No delivery, no sharing, no deadline for either. Handing photos over appears in a different subdivision entirely, and only in one situation — when you deduct:
“If a deduction is made for repairs or cleanings allowed by this section, the landlord shall provide photographs taken pursuant to subdivision (g), along with a written explanation of the cost of the allowable repairs or cleanings ... The landlord may provide such photographs to the tenant by mail, email, computer flash drive, or by providing a link where the tenant may view the photographs online.”
Why it matters. The trigger is the deduction, not the move-in. If you return the deposit in full, we can find nothing in (h)(2) that requires you to send a photo to anyone. If you do deduct, the photos go out with the itemized statement — and note that (h)(2)(D) covers photographs taken under the whole of subdivision (g), so your move-in set goes too. Later, with the statement. Not at move-in.
Being told to do it at the start of the tenancy sends people chasing a step that doesn't exist — and once a landlord discovers one requirement was invented, they stop believing the ones that are real.
Sharing them early is still worth doing. A tenant who agreed the condition up front argues about it less later. It just isn't the law, and a compliance checklist should say which is which.
Commonly repeated, not in the statute
“Photos must be date-stamped and kept for four years.”
No photo retention period and no date-stamp requirement appear anywhere in §1950.5 — not in the photo subdivision, not in the itemized-statement subdivision, not in the definitions. The four years looks like it came from Code of Civil Procedure §337, the limitation period for suing on a written contract, restated as though it were a records duty in the deposit statute.
One honest qualification, since this page is in the business of them. The statute does create a practical floor: you must produce the photos with the statement when you deduct, you may owe corrected figures up to 14 days after work completes, and a tenant who asks within 14 days of the statement is entitled to the documentation within 14 days of asking. A landlord who deletes everything on day 22 can still land in breach. What doesn't exist is a fixed retention term.
Keep them 4 years anyway
The advice is sound even though the rule is imaginary. Roughly 4 years is how long someone has to sue you on a written lease, so it's how long you might need the photos. Date-stamping is likewise good practice — a photo that can't be placed in time proves less. Do both. Just know you're doing them because they're smart, not because §1950.5 says so.
Why it matters. A landlord who has diligently filed four years of date-stamped photos and missed the 21-day statement deadline has complied with the invented rule and broken the real one. The deadlines are where the money is.
Real, live since 1 January 2026, rarely mentioned
If they paid you electronically, you must return the deposit electronically
This one isn't AB 2801 — it's AB 414, which amended the same section effective 1 January 2026. It binds almost every landlord reading this, because almost everybody now takes rent by Zelle, transfer, or an app:
“If the landlord received the security or rental payments from the tenant electronically, the landlord shall return the remainder of the security electronically to a bank account or other financial institution designated by the tenant in writing, or by any electronic or virtual method available to the landlord if agreed to in writing by the tenant. Alternatively, the landlord and tenant may, by written agreement, designate another method of return, including, but not limited to, by personal delivery or by a check made payable to the tenant and mailed by first-class mail, postage prepaid, to an address provided by the tenant.”
Read it closely, because it isn't unconditional. The account has to be one the tenant designates in writing — so if they've gone quiet and given you nothing, you can't simply push the money somewhere and call it done. And the same sentence lets you and the tenant agree another method in writing, cheque included.
There's a further wrinkle if more than one adult lived there. The default is a single cheque payable to all of them, unless all the adult tenants have signed up to something else:
“Except as provided in clause (iii) and unless the landlord and all adult tenants residing in the unit enter into a written mutual agreement pursuant to clause (ii), if multiple adult tenants reside in the unit, the landlord shall return the remainder of the security by a check made payable to all adult tenants on the rental or lease agreement at the time the tenancy terminates and furnish the itemized statement by personal delivery or first-class mail, postage prepaid, to any one of the adult tenants chosen by the landlord.”
Then there's a second obligation, in the next subclause, and it's the one that catches people: before the tenancy ends you have to tell the tenant in writing that this right exists.
“Pursuant to subclause (I), if the landlord received the security or rental payments from the tenant electronically ... the landlord ... shall, within a reasonable time after notification of either party's intention to terminate the tenancy, or before the end of the lease term, notify the tenant in writing of the tenant's right to receive the security electronically to a bank account or other financial institution designated by the tenant, or by any electronic or virtual method available to the landlord ... if agreed to in writing by the tenant, pursuant to subclause (I). The requirements of this subclause do not apply when the landlord ... and tenant have previously entered into a written agreement designating another method of return of the security pursuant to subclause (I) or when the tenancy is terminated pursuant to subdivision (2), (3), or (4) of Section 1161 of the Code of Civil Procedure.”
It's a separate notice from the walkthrough notice — different content, different exceptions — but it falls due in the same window, so in practice the two go out together. For comparison, here is the walkthrough one you already owed:
“Within a reasonable time after notification of either party's intention to terminate the tenancy, or before the end of the lease term, the landlord shall notify the tenant in writing of the tenant's option to request an initial inspection and of the tenant's right to be present at the inspection.”
So if you've been collecting rent by bank transfer and you post a cheque at move-out having never mentioned the electronic option, you have probably missed two things that most guides to this law don't list at all. Probably, because the carve-outs are not the same for each, and this is where a summary that flattens them does damage:
- A prior written agreement designating another method excuses both the notice and the electronic return.
- A tenancy ended on a three-day notice (CCP §1161(2), (3) or (4)) excuses only the notice. That carve-out appears in subclause (II) and not in (I) — so read carefully before assuming an eviction lets you post a cheque.
What the law actually asks for
Stripped of the additions, it's shorter than most summaries make it look.
Move-out photos — from 1 April 2025, on our reading every California tenancy
Photograph the unit after the tenant leaves and BEFORE you clean or repair anything, then again after the work. Photographing after you've cleaned proves nothing about what they left. (We say "on our reading" because (g)(2) ties the photos to work you'll deduct for, so whether the duty survives a full refund is arguable. Take them anyway — it costs a minute.)
Move-in photos — only tenancies beginning 1 July 2025 or later
A tenancy that started in 2023 has no move-in obligation. Nobody can photograph the past, and the law doesn't pretend otherwise. Taking them is enough — there's no duty to hand them over at move-in. If you later deduct, they go out with the statement like the rest.
The itemized statement — 21 calendar days
This is the deadline that actually costs money. If work you or your employee are doing won't finish in time, or a third party's paperwork hasn't arrived, send a good-faith estimate with the statement and follow up with real figures within 14 days. Sending the statement late is the expensive mistake.
Photos and paperwork go WITH that statement — but only if you deduct
Bills, invoices or receipts, and a written explanation of cost. Did the work yourself? The statement has to describe it, with the time spent and a reasonable hourly rate. If your repair-and-cleaning deductions come to $125 or less you're excused from the backing documents — that threshold counts repairs and cleaning only, not unpaid rent — though a tenant who asks within 14 calendar days of the statement is owed them within 14 days of asking.
The rule that catches more landlords than the photo rule
Photos govern how you evidence a deduction. They say nothing about whether you were entitled to take it — and that's decided somewhere else in the same section:
“The landlord shall not require a tenant to pay for, or assert a claim against the tenant or the security for, professional carpet cleaning or other professional cleaning services, unless reasonably necessary to return the premises to the condition it was in at the inception of tenancy, exclusive of ordinary wear and tear.”
A routine “professional carpet clean on every move-out” charge is among the most commonly challenged deductions in California. Immaculate before-and-after photos of that clean document a charge you may not have been allowed to make in the first place. The same subdivision bars deducting for anything already there when they moved in, and for ordinary wear and tear — including wear accumulated across several tenancies.
Then there's the walkthrough, which almost nobody covers. You owe the tenant written notice that they may request an inspection before they move out. If one is then actually carried out under this subdivision, and nothing of theirs is in the way, you generally can't later deduct for anything you didn't flag at it — so the inspection you skipped notifying them about is also the one that would have bounded your own liability.
Where we'd rather show our working than sound certain: (f)(4) binds where an inspection is conducted “pursuant to this subdivision”, and (f)(1) frames that as one the tenant requested, adding that if they don't request one your duties under the subdivision are discharged. Whether a walkthrough you did on your own initiative binds you the same way is, on the text, arguable. We don't know, and anyone who tells you flatly either way is going further than the words do.
Which of these apply to your tenancy?
The dates are the hard part — the two phases bind different tenancies, and a lease that started before July 2025 has one obligation and not the other. Answer four questions and see which apply to yours, with the reasoning shown for the ones that don't. Free, no account.
Check my tenancyHow this page was checked
Every quotation above is rendered from a verification record stored in our source code alongside the compliance logic it feeds, checked against Cal. Civ. Code §1950.5, as amended by Stats. 2025, Ch. 340, Sec. 1 (AB 414), eff. 2026-01-01 on 14 August 2026. Not one of them is retyped for this page: the strings you've read are the same strings our software is tested against, so the marketing and the engine cannot drift apart. An earlier draft of this page did quote one subclause inline, outside that record — which made this very paragraph false about the single quote most likely to be challenged. It's in the record now.
The limits of that, stated plainly: a published code edition lags the Legislature, and a bill chaptered since could have changed this. We are not lawyers and this has not been reviewed by one. This page can tell you a step named in the statute looks skipped. It cannot tell you that you're safe — and you should be wary of anything that claims it can. For your own situation, a California landlord-tenant attorney is worth the hour.
Found something here that's wrong? Tell us and we'll fix it and say we did. That's the entire point of the page.
If you'd rather not track this by hand
SmartLeaseFlow keeps the move-in and move-out photo sets against the tenancy, warns you which ones that tenancy actually needs, counts the 21 days for you, and builds the itemized statement with the photos and receipts attached. It also notices when you've been taking rent electronically and flags the AB 414 return rule before you post a cheque.