What Fresno's Rental Housing Improvement Act Asks of Landlords
This guide walks through registration, inspections, fees, exemptions and fines under Fresno Municipal Code Chapter 10, Article 16 and the City's March 2025 regulations. If you decide to sell, you can sell to us with tenants in place, even difficult ones.
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Fresno's Rental Housing Improvement Act, codified as Fresno Municipal Code Chapter 10, Article 16, requires every residential rental property in the city to be registered with the City at no charge, including rentals exempt from inspection, and the registration has to be updated when ownership or contact information changes. Under the regulations in effect since March 1, 2025, every non-exempt rental is subject to a baseline inspection picked by random sampling, the City's fee schedule effective July 1, 2026 charges $100 per unit inspected, and routine inspections come no sooner than three years apart. Homes lived in by their owners are outside the program. A California landlord-tenant attorney can explain how the Act applies to your property.
Where the Act Comes From and What It Covers
Fresno's City Council approved the Rental Housing Improvement Act on February 2, 2017. It is codified as Fresno Municipal Code Chapter 10, Article 16, added by Ordinance 2017-5 (effective March 13, 2017) and amended by Ordinance 2021-023 (effective July 8, 2021), and the regulations the City enforces under it took effect March 1, 2025.
The code frames the program as a proactive and reactive inspection program for finding substandard housing, and the standards it applies are the habitability standards in California Civil Code 1941.1.
It covers residential rental units in the City of Fresno: single-family homes, duplexes, triplexes and buildings of four or more units, rented as homes for more than 30 days. Owner-occupied units are not rental units under the Act, and mobile home parks, units in buildings registered as vacant under FMC 10-617, transient hotels and motels, certain medical and care facilities, and housing that educational, religious or medical institutions run for their own people are excluded as well.
Clovis is a different city with its own code enforcement, run as part of the Clovis Police Department's services and covering substandard housing and code violations there. A California landlord-tenant attorney can tell you whether a particular unit falls under Fresno's Act.
Registering a Rental With the City
Every residential rental property has to be registered, even one that is exempt from inspections. There's no fee to register, and the City encourages registering online through its Residential Rental Registry at rhr.fresno.gov.
The registration lists the property's street address and parcel number (APN), the number and type of rental units, the owner's current contact information, a local contact representative with full authority to act for the owner, including accepting City notices, and the date of first occupancy. Any outstanding fees, business taxes or other money owed to the City for the property has to be paid as part of registering.
Once the City mails a notice, the owner has 30 days from receiving it to register by mail or online. The City's FAQ says registering every rental is ultimately the owner's responsibility, notice or no notice.
A registration stays valid unless the owner goes more than 30 days without reporting a change in the information or fails to pay required fees. Anyone can look up which properties are registered, but the owner's and local representative's contact details stay confidential for City use, to the extent the law allows. A California landlord-tenant attorney can review what your registration says.
Registration Fines Under FMC 10-1612
The code attaches a fine to each registration problem in the table below. Late-registration fines carry interest of 10% a year, and the code states them per unregistered rental unit, while the City's web page lists them per property and its fee schedule calls the penalties cumulative. If you've been fined, a California attorney can go over the citation with you.
| Registration problem | Fine in the code |
|---|---|
| Registering up to 30 days late | $100 |
| Registering 31 to 60 days late | $200 |
| Registering 61 to 120 days late | $500 |
| Registering more than 120 days late | $1,000 |
| Incomplete information in the registry, including the owner's current contact details | $100 per rental unit |
| Not updating the registry within 30 days of a change, such as new ownership or new property management | $100 per rental unit |
| Knowingly false statement on an exemption affidavit or a self-inspection report | $100 per unit for a first offense; $250 per unit for later offenses by the same owner on the same property |
Amounts from Fresno Municipal Code 10-1612.
How Inspections Work Under the 2025 Regulations
Every non-exempt rental property is subject to a baseline inspection, chosen through a random sampling formula, and the order of those inspections is up to the City alone. The code tells the City to put properties first when they've drawn complaints or excessive police or fire calls, and lets it weigh other information, such as a building's age.
How many units get inspected at a property depends on its size, rounded up to a whole unit, and every common area is inspected too. After the baseline, routine inspections come no sooner than three years after the previous baseline or routine inspection, and a complaint can bring an inspection at any time.
Older City documents describe a tier system from the December 2017 regulations, with Tier 1 properties re-inspected no sooner than five years later, Tier 2 every two years and Tier 3 every year; the March 1, 2025 regulations have no tiers and set the three-year minimum instead.
The City gives the owner and the tenants of the affected units at least 14 days' written notice of the inspection date and time, and it's the owner's job to give tenants actual notice so the units can be reached. The City's FAQ says the owner or the listed local contact representative has to be present. An owner can ask to reschedule no later than seven days ahead; approval is up to the City, and an approved new date falls within 30 days of the original. The regulations call these inspections a necessary service, for which an owner may enter on proper notice under Civil Code 1954.
The City's Master Fee Schedule effective July 1, 2026 charges $100 per unit inspected, $50 per unit for an optional courtesy re-inspection and $100 per unit for a compliance re-inspection. An invoice comes with the notice of inspection, payment goes to the City by the inspection date (inspectors can't accept it), and a unit can't pass until its fees are paid. A California landlord-tenant attorney can answer questions about notice and entry for your units.
| Units at the property | Share of units inspected |
|---|---|
| One | 100% |
| Two to six | 50% |
| Seven to twenty | 25% |
| Twenty-one or more | 15% |
Percentages from the RHIA Regulations effective March 1, 2025, rounded up to the next whole unit.
Corrections, Referrals and Appeals
Violations found in an inspection go on a Correction Notice that generally allows 30 calendar days to fix them, though certain imminently dangerous violations have to be corrected right away. A fix only counts once any permits it needs have been applied for and finaled.
Instead of waiting for the compliance re-inspection, an owner can submit a Proof of Correction application with labeled photos, signed work orders or vendor invoices; if the City accepts it, the unit has passed, and the City lists that optional form at $0.
A unit that fails both its inspection and its compliance re-inspection can send the property to the Code Enforcement Division or the Anti-Slum Enforcement Team for further review, and the code gives owners who still haven't corrected after the first re-inspection 15 more days before a referral to the Reactive Rental Housing Unit. When the randomly inspected units show numerous or pervasive violations, the City may inspect more units or all of them, along with other properties under the same ownership or management.
If violations aren't fixed after a Correction Notice, the City may use administrative citations, abatement, civil injunctions or criminal prosecution, except for violations caused by a tenant's breach of the tenant's own legal duties. The City Attorney can charge a violation as an infraction or a misdemeanor, and the City recovers its attorney's fees when it is the prevailing party.
An owner, or anyone with a legal interest in the unit, can appeal to the City's Administrative Hearing Officer; the City says the request is due within 15 calendar days after the order, citation or decision is served. A California attorney can review a Correction Notice or citation with you before that window closes.
This is general information about how the process works, not legal or tax advice. Every situation is different — talk with a California attorney (and a tax professional) about yours.
Inspection Exemptions and the Self-Certification Program
Some rentals must register but are exempt from inspections: newly constructed buildings for ten years, and properties already routinely inspected by another government agency, such as the Housing Authority, or by government-sponsored enterprises such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The 2025 regulations add rentals of 30 days or less and units occupied by the owner's spouse, siblings, half-siblings, ancestors or descendants, and an owner claims an exemption with an affidavit signed under penalty of perjury. If a notice and order is issued for the property, an exempt unit becomes subject to the program again.
The Self-Certification Program is free. A property qualifies when its last inspection found no violations or substantial timely compliance, the owner certifies compliance and owes the City nothing, the owner has gone 12 months without an active Anti-Slum Enforcement Team case at any property, and the units are inspected at least every 12 months and at each change of tenancy; single-family rentals may be allowed to enroll before a baseline inspection.
Self-certifying owners complete the self-certification form, give copies to the unit's occupants and to the City, and keep the forms for at least four years, and knowingly falsifying one may be prosecuted as a misdemeanor. Each year the City randomly inspects 10% of self-certified properties; one that passes is exempt from further random-sampling inspections for at least five years, and the City's fee table lists that inspection at $100 per unit.
A property can be dropped from the program for missing a correction deadline, getting two or more notice and orders in 12 months, filing forms late or no longer qualifying, and it is removed at once if any unit has violations posing imminent danger of death or serious injury. A California landlord-tenant attorney can tell you whether an exemption or self-certification fits your rental.
Selling a Registered Fresno Rental
For the Act, the owner is the person or entity the latest Fresno County property tax assessment roll lists as holding title. A change of ownership is one of the changes the registration has to reflect, and failing to update the registry within 30 days of a change carries a fine of $100 per rental unit. A California real estate attorney can explain how that update fits into your sale.
Spark Home Offers buys rentals with the tenants in place, even difficult ones, from single-family homes and condos to duplexes and small multifamily. We buy as-is, so there are no repairs, no showings and no agent commissions.
Our offer comes after a walkthrough of about five minutes: we look at the condition, the repairs it needs and what similar homes nearby have recently sold for, then show you how we got to the number. We close at a reputable local title company on the date you choose. The offer is free with no obligation, and if selling to us isn't the right fit, we'll still try to point you toward a better option.
This is general information about how the process works, not legal or tax advice. Every situation is different — talk with a California attorney (and a tax professional) about yours.
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Fresno Rental Registration Questions
Does the Rental Housing Improvement Act apply to the house I live in?
Not to the unit you live in: the Act covers rental units, and its definition leaves out units occupied by their owners. If part of the property is rented out, a California attorney can tell you how the rules apply to that unit.
What does it cost to register a rental in Fresno?
Nothing: the City charges no registration fee, though failing to register brings penalties. Inspections are billed separately, at $100 per unit inspected under the fee schedule effective July 1, 2026.
How often will the City inspect my rental?
A non-exempt rental gets a baseline inspection when the random sampling formula selects it, then routine inspections no sooner than three years after the previous baseline or routine inspection, and a complaint can prompt an inspection at any time. The five-year tier cycle in older City materials comes from the December 2017 regulations, which the 2025 regulations replaced.
What is the fine for registering late?
FMC 10-1612(b) sets $100 for up to 30 days late, then $200, $500 and finally $1,000 once a registration is more than 120 days late, plus interest of 10% a year.
Does the Act apply in Clovis?
The Act covers rental units within the City of Fresno. Clovis is a separate city, and its code enforcement runs through the Clovis Police Department's services.
What changes when a registered rental is sold?
The registration has to be updated when ownership changes, and failing to update the registry within 30 days of a change carries a fine of $100 per rental unit. A California attorney can explain how that step is handled in your sale.
Selling a Fresno Rental?
Tell us about the property and the lease, and a real person on our local team will get back to you within 24 hours, usually much sooner. Call (559) 420-7887 or fill out the form to get started.