It’s 104° outside and 91° in your living room. The AC either doesn’t exist, or it died in June and your landlord has stopped answering. Somewhere along the way you heard that California passed a law about indoor heat — so surely they have to do something. The real answer is more complicated, and more useful, than what most websites will tell you. Here’s where California actually stands in the summer of 2026.
Statewide, no. California’s habitability law requires working heating — it says nothing about cooling, and no state law makes a landlord install AC. But: if AC came with your unit or was promised in your lease, the landlord generally has to keep it working. And local law is moving fast — Palm Springs already requires cooling, and unincorporated LA County protects your right to install your own unit right now, with an 82°F standard arriving January 1, 2027.
Does California Require Landlords to Provide AC?
California’s implied warranty of habitability sets the floor for every residential rental in the state, and the specific things a landlord must provide are listed in Civil Code §1941.1. It’s a finite list. A dwelling is legally untenantable if it substantially lacks any of the enumerated characteristics — weatherproofing, plumbing, hot and cold running water, sanitary grounds, safe floors and stairways, and so on.
Heating is on that list. Cooling is not. The statute requires “heating facilities that conformed with applicable law at the time of installation, maintained in good working order.” State housing regulations put a number on it: heating equipment must be capable of maintaining roughly 70°F in habitable rooms. There is no counterpart for summer. No statewide statute sets a maximum indoor temperature for an existing rental, and none requires a landlord to install an air conditioner, a wall unit, or an evaporative cooler.
If you moved into a unit that simply never had AC, the landlord is not violating the statewide warranty of habitability by declining to add one.
The Legislature knows how to add appliances to the habitability list when it wants to. Effective January 1, 2026, it did exactly that — amending §1941.1 to require a working stove and refrigerator in most rentals. It had the statute open. It added two appliances. Air conditioning was not one of them. That silence is meaningful, and it’s why claims that AC is already required under existing habitability law don’t hold up.
The “New Heat Law” Myth
You may have read that California recently made excessive indoor heat a habitability violation, handing tenants immediate repair-and-deduct and rent-withholding rights. That is not what happened, and acting on it could cost you your home. This claim is circulating widely — including on some law firm blogs — so it’s worth being precise.
The law people are referring to is SB 655, signed in October 2025. Here’s what it actually did: it added a single new section to the Health and Safety Code (§17914) declaring it “the established policy of the state” that dwelling units should be able to attain and maintain a safe maximum indoor temperature. It then directs a list of state agencies to consider that policy when they develop future regulations, beginning January 1, 2027.
Read that again, because the gap between it and the internet’s version is enormous. SB 655 did not amend the habitability statute. It did not define a safe maximum temperature. It did not create any duty your landlord owes you this summer, and the statute expressly says it doesn’t expand obligations beyond directing that future rulemaking. It is a signal about where California is headed — a real one, and probably the foundation of a future standard — but it is not a tool you can use against a hot apartment today.
The 82°F workplace rule isn’t about your home. California’s indoor heat regulation requiring cool-down areas and water at 82°F is a Cal/OSHA workplace standard. It protects you at your job. It has no application to your apartment.
The 70°F heating rule doesn’t run in reverse. The regulation requiring heaters capable of reaching 70°F is about warming a cold room in winter. It does not obligate a landlord to cool a room down to 70°F in July.
If AC Came With Your Unit, That’s a Different Question
Here is where most tenants actually live — and where the law is genuinely on your side. The rule that AC isn’t required answers only one question: whether a landlord has to install cooling that was never there. It says nothing about a landlord who gave you AC and then let it die.
When air conditioning is included with the unit, written into the lease, advertised in the listing, or simply working on the day you got the keys, it becomes part of what you agreed to pay for. It’s part of the bargain, priced into your rent. A landlord who lets it break and won’t repair it within a reasonable time isn’t just being unhelpful — they may be in breach of the agreement. Whether the AC was named in the lease or was simply there at move-in usually matters less than tenants expect; what matters is that it was part of what you rented.
Three routes tend to matter most here:
- Breach of the lease. If the AC is an included amenity and the landlord stops maintaining it, that’s a contract problem — regardless of whether state law would have required the AC in the first place.
- Breach of the covenant of quiet enjoyment. Every California lease carries an implied promise (Civil Code §1927) that the landlord won’t substantially interfere with your use and enjoyment of the home. A supplied AC that fails during a serious heat wave, met with refusal or unreasonable delay, can substantially impair your ability to actually live in the unit. Our guide to breach of quiet enjoyment explains how that claim works.
- A decrease in housing services. This is the sleeper remedy. If you live in a city with rent stabilization, supplied amenities are typically treated as “housing services” you’re paying for. When a landlord removes one or lets it fail without repair, that can be an unlawful reduction in services — effectively a backdoor rent increase — and you may be able to petition your local rent board for a rent reduction. For many tenants this is the most direct route available.
Worth noting: a landlord who removes or shuts off cooling you already had is in a weaker position than one who never provided it. Taking away a service you’ve been paying for is its own problem.
LA County’s 82°F Rule — and What’s Actually Live Today
In August 2025, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously adopted the most significant indoor-heat protection in the state: an ordinance requiring rental units to be able to maintain a maximum indoor temperature of 82°F in habitable rooms, measured about three feet above the floor. It was genuinely a landmark. But the headlines left out the timing, and the timing is the whole story.
The 82°F requirement is not being enforced yet. Enforcement begins on the later of January 1, 2027 or the approval of an associated fee — meaning it could start then, or later. Landlords with ten or fewer units only have to cool one habitable room at the outset, with full compliance phased in by 2032. If your apartment is 90° today, this ordinance is not the answer — yet.
A few details worth knowing before 2027 arrives:
- It applies to unincorporated LA County only. This is the detail that trips people up. Incorporated cities — including the City of Los Angeles, Santa Monica, and Pasadena — are not automatically covered. Each city would have to adopt the rule itself. The Los Angeles City Council has begun exploring whether to opt in, but as of now nothing is in effect there.
- “Habitable room” is defined narrowly — spaces used for living, sleeping, eating, or cooking. Bathrooms, hallways, closets, and storage areas don’t count.
- Central air isn’t mandated. Landlords can meet the standard with passive cooling, weatherization, shading, or by providing portable cooling devices — whatever gets the room to 82°F.
- Landlords generally can’t bill you for it. In fully covered rent-stabilized units, the cost of required portable cooling devices isn’t treated as a pass-through capital improvement.
Enforcement will run through the County’s public health rental housing program rather than through your own lawsuit, so the practical path once it’s live will be a complaint and an inspection.
The Part That Is Live: Your Right to Install Your Own
Buried under the 82°F headlines is the piece of the LA County ordinance that took effect back in September 2025 — and it’s the one that can help you this week.
If you rent in unincorporated Los Angeles County, your landlord may not prohibit or restrict you from installing or using a portable cooling device at your own expense. That flatly overrides the standard lease clause banning appliances or alterations. The conditions are reasonable:
- Give your landlord five calendar days’ advance written notice before installing;
- Comply with building and safety codes and the manufacturer’s instructions;
- Don’t make permanent structural modifications to the unit.
Meet those, and the unit stays your property, your landlord can’t charge you unreasonable fees for it, and they can’t retaliate against you for exercising the right. Non-mechanical measures like blackout curtains and window films are protected too.
Outside unincorporated LA County, the default is different: under a typical California lease, a landlord generally can enforce a valid restriction on appliances or alterations — subject to disability accommodation law, discussed below. Mobilehome residents are an exception statewide. A 2025 law makes lease terms that prohibit or restrict installing, upgrading, or using a cooling system in a mobilehome void and unenforceable, bars management from charging fees for it or dictating which contractor or product you use, and requires parks with common areas to provide at least one cooled indoor common area during extreme heat.
Where Cooling Is Required
A handful of California jurisdictions already require cooling outright. The clearest is Palm Springs, where the municipal code requires landlords to supply air conditioning at all times, capable of maintaining a maximum of 80°F in all habitable rooms. In a city like that, a broken AC isn’t a comfort complaint — it’s a code violation, which changes the remedies available substantially.
Most of the state is not there yet. Cities like San Francisco set minimum heat requirements but no maximum temperature. Oakland, San Diego, and Sacramento currently rely on the baseline state habitability rules. Because this area is changing quickly — and because the state’s own housing agency has recommended an 82°F standard, though so far only for new construction — it’s worth checking your city and county directly rather than assuming.
When Heat Itself Becomes a Violation
Even with no cooling mandate, extreme indoor heat is rarely a standalone condition. It usually has a cause — and the cause is often something the law already prohibits.
Ventilation is the most common route. State law declares a building substandard when it lacks proper operation of required ventilating equipment, or lacks minimum natural light and ventilation. Windows painted shut, windows broken or blocked, a dead exhaust fan, a bedroom window the landlord covered over — those are violations in their own right, and they are frequently the reason a unit is unbearable. Unlike “my apartment is hot,” a broken ventilation system is something a code inspector can cite.
The same is true of general dilapidation. A failing roof, deteriorated weatherproofing, or electrical defects that can’t safely run a fan can each be independently substandard, and each can be what’s cooking your unit. And the substandard housing statute reaches conditions that endanger the life, limb, health, or safety of occupants — a standard that indoor heat capable of causing heat illness can implicate, particularly for older tenants, children, and people with medical conditions.
The strategic point: you will usually get further by naming the defect than by naming the temperature. “The unit is 92 degrees” is hard for an inspector to act on. “The bedroom windows are painted shut and the exhaust fan doesn’t work” is not. Our guides to habitability violations and failure to repair cover how to document and push those.
When Heat Is a Medical Issue
If heat isn’t just uncomfortable for you but genuinely dangerous, fair housing law may give you leverage that habitability law doesn’t — even where cooling isn’t otherwise required.
California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act and the federal Fair Housing Act require housing providers to make reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities. Disability is defined broadly, and conditions meaningfully worsened by heat — cardiovascular disease, respiratory conditions, multiple sclerosis, and many others — can qualify. The distinction that decides who pays:
- Reasonable accommodation = a change to a rule or policy. If your lease bans window appliances and you need a window AC for a medical condition, asking the landlord to waive that rule is an accommodation request. There’s no structural work involved, and the landlord generally must grant it at no cost to you unless it would be an undue burden.
- Reasonable modification = a physical change to the unit. Installing a dedicated HVAC system that requires an electrical upgrade and cutting into walls is a modification. In private housing, the tenant generally pays for it, and the landlord may be able to require restoration when you move out.
Ask in writing. Once you do, the landlord must engage in a good-faith interactive process — they can request reliable verification that you have a disability and need the accommodation, but they are not entitled to your diagnosis or your medical records. Flatly refusing to engage is itself a fair housing violation. If that’s what you’re facing, see housing discrimination.
What to Do About a Hot Apartment
The instinct to do something drastic is understandable in a heat wave. It’s also how tenants lose their homes. Here’s the sequence that protects you.
- Put the request in writing. Text or email — something with a timestamp. Describe the problem specifically (“the AC unit installed in the living room stopped cooling on June 28”), not just that you’re hot. Keep every reply.
- Document the conditions. Photograph a thermometer in the room with a date visible. Note outdoor temperatures. If windows are painted shut or a fan is dead, photograph that too — those defects are often stronger than the temperature itself.
- Name the underlying defect. If ventilation, wiring, or weatherproofing is the real cause, say so. That’s what code enforcement can actually cite.
- Check your local rules. Are you in unincorporated LA County (you have install rights now), Palm Springs (cooling is required), or a rent-stabilized city (a lost amenity may support a rent reduction petition)? Location changes everything here.
- If it’s medical, make a written accommodation request. That obligation exists independent of whether cooling is required in your city.
- Be careful with self-help. Repair-and-deduct and the statutory habitability penalties are tied to the defects listed in the statute — and cooling isn’t on that list. Withholding rent because your apartment is hot can hand your landlord a 3-day notice to pay or quit and an eviction case. Don’t improvise on the electrical, either: unauthorized wiring or overloaded circuits create real fire risk and can make the damage your financial problem.
- Talk to a tenant attorney before you act. Which remedy fits depends on your lease, your city, and what broke. A free review costs you nothing and can keep a bad summer from becoming an eviction.
If you ask for repairs or report conditions to a public agency in good faith, and your landlord responds within 180 days with an eviction, a rent increase, or cut services, California law presumes retaliation and puts the burden on them to prove an honest reason (Civil Code §1942.5). In unincorporated LA County, tenants exercising cooling rights have retaliation protection as well. See landlord retaliation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Statewide, no. Civil Code §1941.1 requires working heating facilities but says nothing about cooling, and no state law requires a landlord to install AC. Two things change the picture: if AC was supplied with your unit or promised in your lease, the landlord generally has to keep it working; and some local governments do require cooling — Palm Springs now, and unincorporated LA County starting January 1, 2027.
No — this is a widespread misunderstanding. SB 655, signed in October 2025, added Health & Safety Code §17914, declaring it state policy that dwellings should maintain a safe maximum indoor temperature and directing agencies to consider that policy in future rulemaking beginning January 1, 2027. It did not amend the habitability statute, did not set a maximum temperature, and does not by itself give you a repair-and-deduct or rent-withholding remedy for a hot apartment.
Generally yes. AC that’s included with the unit, in the lease, or advertised is part of what you pay for. A landlord who lets it break and won’t repair it in a reasonable time can face a breach of contract claim and a claim for breaching the covenant of quiet enjoyment. In rent-stabilized cities, an unrepaired or removed AC can be a decrease in housing services supporting a rent reduction through the rent board. These remedies differ from the ones for enumerated habitability defects, so get advice before acting.
Not the temperature standard. LA County adopted it in August 2025, but enforcement begins on the later of January 1, 2027 or approval of an associated fee — and landlords with ten or fewer units only need to cool one habitable room at first, with full compliance phased in by 2032. What is already in effect is the tenant’s right to install a portable cooling device. The ordinance covers unincorporated county areas, not automatically incorporated cities like Los Angeles or Santa Monica.
It depends where you live. Under a typical California lease, a landlord can enforce a valid restriction on appliances or alterations, subject to disability accommodation law. But in unincorporated LA County they may not prohibit a tenant from installing or using a portable cooling device at their own expense — you generally give five calendar days’ written notice, follow safety codes and manufacturer instructions, and avoid permanent structural changes. No unreasonable fees, no retaliation. Mobilehome residents have separate statewide protections.
This is risky and usually the wrong move. Repair-and-deduct and the statutory habitability penalties are tied to the defects listed in Civil Code §1941.1 and the substandard housing statute — cooling isn’t on that list. Withholding rent over a hot apartment can expose you to a 3-day notice to pay or quit and an eviction case. Better routes usually exist: a written repair demand, a code complaint where there’s a real violation like broken ventilation, a rent board petition in a rent-stabilized city, or a disability accommodation request. Talk to a tenant attorney first.
“They don’t have to give you AC” isn’t the whole story.
If your landlord supplied cooling and let it fail, stripped an amenity you pay for, ignored a medical accommodation request, or is punishing you for complaining, you may have real claims — and real leverage. Find out before you do something that puts your tenancy at risk. Reviews are free, and you owe nothing unless we win.
Get Your Free Case ReviewThis guide is general information about California law, not legal advice, and it doesn’t create an attorney-client relationship. Cooling and indoor-heat rules vary significantly by city and county, several are newly enacted or not yet operative, and they are changing quickly — for advice about your specific situation, talk to a tenant attorney licensed in California.