Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in California

It is rather unusual for tenants to be displaced due to repairs on the outside of the building. You are not legally displaced unless the landlord directs you to vacate the unit, or it becomes legally uninhabitable (which is a much higher - or lower depending on how you look at it - standard than you would think). I am hard pressed to think of an exterior repair that would render a unit uninhabitable, although I supposed it is possible.

If you are, in fact, legally displaced, the first thing to look at is your lease. Most leases have provisions that govern what happens if the property is temporarily uninhabitable for repairs. If the lease is silent, then you are entitled not to pay rent for the time you do not have access to your unit.