Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: Renters Rights?

A landlord's duty to disclose seems to be limited to:

(a) environmental hazards, such as lead and asbestos;

(b) presence of registered sex offenders;

(c) other dangerous conditions, e.g. open wells, porches and decks with limited capacity, and the like;

(d) known dangers from criminal activity; and

(e) Possible presence of unexploded ordnance (e.g., around former military training areas).

I would say there is probably a common-law duty to disclose certain other conditions, if failure to disclose could be considered negligent or even malicious.

However, I am far less sure that a tenant has a right to have other easily self-dicoverable factors disclosed. If the apartment is on a busy street, there will be traffic noise. If it is less than a block from a railroad track, there will be train activity and noise.

If the track had been out of service for five years, and looked abandoned, but the landlord knew that it was soon to be re-opened and heavily used, then I would say there was a duty to disclose, because the facts were not readily discoverable upon reasonable inspection of the neighborhood. In your situation, I would say that the failure to disclose would be defensible if you took legal action to rescind your lease or seek damages.

You are almost correct in your belief that "in a real-estate purchase, all facts about the property have to be revealed." Civil Code section 2079 requires that real estate brokers and salespersons to investigate and disclose a wide range of factors to prospective buyers of one-to-four unit residential properties. The disclosure requirements scale back substantially if (a) it is an owner and not an agent doing the selling; (b) the owner isn't an occupant; or (c) the property isn't a one-to-four unit residential structure. Even under 2079, however, obvious factors don't need to be disclosed; for example, if the house is on an unpaved street, that would be considered obvious. Further, the duty to inspect and report on inaccessible parts of the property, off-site neighborhood conditions, or look into public records affecting the property, is limited by CC 2079.3.

Depending upon the size of the apartment building, there may be a requirement for an on-site resident manager. I think it's 12 or more units. Maybe this is helpful.