Tenant Resources

The following resources are available to support Palo Alto Tenants.

Palo Alto Tenant Guide: Find frequently asked questions about rental housing.

Project Sentinel: Project Sentinel assists individuals with housing problems such as discrimination, mortgage foreclosure & delinquency, rental issues including repairs, deposits, privacy, dispute resolution, home buyer education, post purchase education and reverse mortgages. Contact (888) 324-7468 or go to https://www.housing.org/ for more information.

Palo Alto Mediation Program: Palo Alto Mediation Program offers conciliation and mediation services to help resolve a variety of disputes including landlord/tenant, roommates/shared housing, neighborhood, personal, consumer, small business employer/employee, and community. The program services are free and available to anyone who lives, works, or does business, or owns property in Palo Alto. Contact (650) 856-4062 or email pamediation@housing.org. Please visit the Palo Alto Mediation Program for more information. Landlords and tenants residing in Palo Alto are required to participate in mediation to resolve many types of disputes that may arise.

City of Palo Alto Rental Requirements & Policies   

What's New: Recently, renter protections were expanded. Lowering the security deposit limit for unfurnished rental units in Palo Alto to one and a half times (1.5x) the monthly rent helps reduce the total move-in costs for a renter and goes beyond the State security deposit limit (which sets the limit at 2x the monthly rent). The City Council approved extending just cause eviction protections to more renters in our community than currently covered under State law. And, while State eviction protections end in 2030, they made Palo Alto protections permanent. These changes went into effect July 20, 2023.

Long-Standing Existing Requirements

One Year Lease Requirement: The Palo Alto Municipal Code (PAMC) Section 9.68.030 requires all landlords to offer their tenant or prospective tenant a lease that which has a minimum term of one year. If a tenant would prefer to have a rental agreement of less than one year, they must first reject the one-year lease before they are offered a short term lease.

Mandatory Response Program: Palo Alto Mandatory Response Program is a program that requires a mandatory response in many types of disputes involving rental housing properties. A tenant, owner, or property manager can start the process, at no cost to any party, by filing a petition form with the Palo Alto Mediation Program. 

Tenant Relocation Assistance Requirement: The City has local Tenant Relocation Assistance (TRA) requirements that come into effect when a renter experiences a no-fault eviction on a property containing 10 or more rental units. The TRA requirements are listed in Palo Alto Municipal Code (PAMC) Section 9.68.035. Common reasons for no-fault evictions include demolition or permanent removal of unit from rental market, significant renovations to the building making the unit uninhabitable, and landlord occupancy. To learn more about the TRA program and calculations, see this PDF.

A "no-fault" eviction is defined as an action by a landlord to recover possession of a rental unit for any reason other than:

• The tenant has failed to pay rent to which the landlord is legally entitled

• The tenant has violated a lawful obligation or covenant of the tenancy

• The tenant has refused the landlord reasonable access to the unit for the purposes of making repairs or improvements, for any reasonable purpose as permitted by law, or for the purpose of showing the rental unit to any prospective purchaser or tenant

• The tenant is permitting a nuisance to exist in, or is causing damage to, the rental unit

• The tenant is using or permitting a rental unit to be used for any illegal purpose

• The landlord seeks in good faith to recover possession of the rental unit in order to comply with regulations relating to the qualifications of tenancy established by a governmental entity, where the tenant is no longer qualified.

No fault evictions include actions in which the landlord seeks in good faith to recover possession of the rental unit:

• To demolish or otherwise permanently withdraw the rental unit from offer for rent or lease

• To perform work on the building or buildings housing the rental unit that will render the rentable unit uninhabitable

• For use and occupancy by the landlord or the landlord's spouse, grandparents, brother, sister, father-in-law, mother-in-law, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, children, or parents provided the landlord is a natural person

• For no specified cause.

Additional Renter Resources

For examples of rental documents that a landlord or tenant may use, look at our collection of sample rental documents below. You may want to examine these to see if any of them apply to you.

Housing terms can refer to very specific situations. To help, here are a few glossaries providing definition of some commonly used terms:

The City of Palo Alto has worked with several area service providers to produce webinars about who Palo Alto renters are and how the current eviction moratoriums impact them. If you missed out on those webinars the first time, don’t worry! We have collected them here for you to watch.

• Who Are Palo Alto Renters (PTC Video).
• Explaining Eviction Moratoriums Video (Webinar).
• Palo Alto Mediation Program Renter Resources Webinar Passcode: s4Zy*ifk

Find more housing resources here.