{"id":481097,"date":"2025-12-30T23:29:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T23:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/481097\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T23:29:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T23:29:09","slug":"new-california-law-requires-working-fridge-in-all-apartments-la-landlords-fought-it-orange-county-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/481097\/","title":{"rendered":"New California law requires working fridge in all apartments. LA landlords fought it \u2013 Orange County Register"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Nadia Lathan<\/strong> | CalMatters<\/p>\n

Fridge-less apartments dotting the pricey California rental market will soon be a head-scratching relic.<\/p>\n

Beginning Jan. 1, landlords will be required to provide all apartments with a working stove and refrigerator thanks to a new state law.<\/p>\n

It marks the end of an unusual, decades-long phenomenon mostly in the Los Angeles area where some tenants have had to buy their own appliances after signing a lease.<\/p>\n

The law, Assembly Bill 628<\/a>, takes effect Thursday, and of the numerous housing reform measures passed by the Legislature in 2025, is one of the more unusual ones.<\/p>\n

\u201cA working stove and a refrigerator are not luxuries,\u201d Assemblymember Tina McKinnor<\/a>, a Democrat from Inglewood, said in a statement earlier this year after she introduced the bill. \u201cThey are a necessary part of modern life.\u201d<\/p>\n

California has the fewest available apartments with refrigerators in the country, according to a 2022 report from the Los Angeles Times<\/a> that was cited in the bill proposal. There is not a clear reason why, and the mysterious trend is largely region-locked to Los Angeles and Orange counties.<\/p>\n

Most tenants don\u2019t have to buy their own bulky appliances. But California law previously required only plumbing, heat and certain other utilities be available. Apartments without the staple appliances will now be illegal unless they are part of housing with communal kitchens, single-room occupancy units or hotels.<\/p>\n

Tenant rights groups say the law will help reduce housing costs for low-income residents who have to pay for a refrigerator \u2014 which can easily run in the hundreds of dollars \u2014 in addition to the first month\u2019s rent and a deposit before moving in.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo have an added cost of trying to buy a refrigerator and a stove is really economically unfeasible for many tenants,\u201d said Larry Gross, executive director of the Los Angeles housing advocacy group Coalition for Economic Survival.<\/p>\n

Realtor groups have said it will spur burdensome litigation for mom-and-pop landlords.<\/p>\n

The requirement \u201cwill lead to heavier burdens on the courts and a dramatic reduction in the state\u2019s availability of rental housing supply,\u201d Bernice Creager, a lobbyist for the California Association of Realtors, said at a Senate judiciary committee hearing earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Enforcement will be up to local governments. In Los Angeles, residents will be able to file a complaint with the city\u2019s housing department if a landlord refuses to provide cooking and refrigerated storage appliances.<\/p>\n

Tenants can still bring their own refrigerator and stove if they please, but they will be on the hook for maintenance if they do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Nadia Lathan | CalMatters Fridge-less apartments dotting the pricey California rental market will soon be a head-scratching…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":481098,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[64,1582,276,7065,2961,224,5337,50,8167],"class_list":{"0":"post-481097","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-housing","12":"tag-la","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-losangeles","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-rent"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115811122489896740","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}