California · Davis-Stirling Act

Who repairs what, and the one line that splits a balcony in two.

Every allocation below opens with the same five words — unless otherwise provided in the declaration. What follows is the default, and the default governs whenever the declaration is silent, which is more often than boards expect.

The default allocation

1. Common areaThe association repairs, replaces and maintains it — § 4775(a)(1).
2. Separate interestThe owner repairs, replaces and maintains it — § 4775(a)(3).
3. Exclusive useThe owner maintains it. The association repairs and replaces it — § 4775(a)(4).

When the gas, heat, water or power goes out

SB 900 rewrote this part in 2024 and it took effect in 2025. Before it, an interruption that began in the common area but manifested inside a unit could sit while the parties argued. § 4775(a)(2)(A) now makes the association responsible for the repairs and replacements needed to restore interrupted gas, heat, water or electrical services that begin in the common area — even if the matter extends into a separate interest or its exclusive use common area. Two exceptions: the declaration may say otherwise, and the duty does not reach a failure the utility provider is required to fix. (B) adds that nothing here relieves a utility company or a local government of its own obligations.

Then the section does something unusual: it supplies the machinery for a board that cannot easily act.

1. 14 days. The board shall commence the process to make the repairs within 14 days of the interruption — § 4775(b)(1).
2. Money without a member vote. If reserves are insufficient, the association may obtain competitive financing under § 5735 without requiring a vote of the members, and levy an emergency assessment to repay it — § 4775(b)(2). First the board must pass a resolution containing written findings on the nature of the expenses and how reserves fail to cover them, and distribute that resolution to the members with the notice of the emergency assessment.
3. A quorum of whoever turns up. If the board cannot meet a quorum within 14 days, then at the next duly noticed board meeting after the fourteenth day the quorum is reduced to the directors actually present — § 4775(b)(3). It applies only to the vote to commence, and the notice must say a reduced quorum is being used.
4. A vote by email. Notwithstanding § 4910, which otherwise forbids the board acting outside a meeting, directors may vote by electronic means — email is named — to initiate these repairs. The records of that vote are association records, open to inspection and subject to retention under § 5210 — § 4775(b)(4).

Two provisions that cut the other way

§ 4775(c): the cost of temporary relocation during repair, replacement or maintenance of an area the association is responsible for is borne by the owner of the separate interest affected. The association does the work and pays for it; the owner pays to be elsewhere while it happens.

§ 4775(e): the section does not apply at all where the association is in an area affected by a federal disaster declaration, a Governor's proclamation under Government Code § 8625, or a local emergency under § 8630 — and the condition materially affects its ability to perform. That is the same three-route definition of a disaster the Legislature used in § 4752. The fourteen-day clock is written for a burst main, not for a fire that took the street.

§ 4775(d) adds that nothing in the section creates personal liability for a director.

Termites, and who moves out

§ 4780(a): in a community apartment project, condominium project or stock cooperative, the association repairs and maintains the common area where wood-destroying pests or organisms are present.

§ 4780(b) flips it for a planned development: each owner is responsible for their own separate interest. That responsibility may be handed to the association — but only on the approval of a majority of all members under § 4065, and the association may then recover the cost as a special assessment. A majority of all members, note, not a majority of those who vote.

The notice before you are told to leave

§ 4785(a) lets the association cause the temporary, summary removal of any occupant for as long as prompt, effective treatment needs. The limits are in the notice, and they are precise:

1. Delivered not less than 15 nor more than 30 days before the relocation date — to the occupants and to the owners.
2. Stating the reason, the date and time treatment begins, the anticipated date and time it ends, and that the occupants are responsible for their own accommodation.

§ 4785(c) makes delivery complete on personal delivery to the occupants, or individual delivery under § 4040 at the address of the separate interest — and in either case, where the occupant is not the owner, individual delivery to the owner as well. § 4785(d) defines "occupant" broadly: owner, resident, guest, invitee, tenant, lessee, sublessee, or anyone else in possession.

Access to maintain your own telephone wiring

§ 4790 is one sentence and it opens notwithstanding the provisions of the declaration. A member is entitled to reasonable access to the common area to maintain the internal and external telephone wiring that § 4145(c) makes part of the exclusive use common area of their separate interest. The access needs the association's consent, which shall not be unreasonably withheld, and the association may attach conditions it determines reasonable — including approving wiring on the exterior of the common area.

Where else the association's authority is limited

§ 4700 opens this article of the Act by saying what the article is: a set of limits on the authority of an association and its governing documents to regulate the use of a member's separate interest. It then points outside the Act, to six other provisions that do the same and are easy to miss because they are not in Davis-Stirling at all:

1. §§ 712, 713display of signs
2. §§ 714, 714.1solar energy systems
3. § 714.5structures built offsite and moved to the property in sections or modules
4. §§ 782, 782.5, 6150racial restrictions — with Government Code § 12956.1
5. Gov. § 12927modification of property to accommodate a disability
6. H&S § 1597.40operation of a family day care home

The list is expressly not exhaustive — § 4700 says the article is not intended to affect any other provision that limits that authority. A covenant can be void for a reason that appears nowhere in the Act.