What Assembly Bill 968 Actually Is

AB 968 was a 2023 to 2024 session bill titled “Single-family residential property: disclosures.” The Governor approved it on July 21, 2023, and it was chaptered the same day as Chapter 95, Statutes of 2023[1]. LegiScan’s record of the bill lists Tim Grayson and Alex Lee as its authors[1]. The earlier version of this post named a different legislator, and I could not find anything supporting that, so it is gone.

The bill did one thing. It added section 1102.6h to the California Civil Code[1]. That section sits inside the same article of the Civil Code that governs disclosures when single-family residential property is sold, which starts at section 1102[5].

So what is it for? Read the four subdivisions and the target is obvious, even though the statute never uses the word. It is the flip. A home that changes hands, gets a contractor’s attention and is listed again within a year and a half is exactly the home where a buyer has the least information about what was done to it and by whom. The legislature’s answer was to make the seller name names.

I think it is a good law. Narrow, cheap to comply with, and useful to the person who most needs it.

Who AB 968 Applies To: The 18 Month Window

The trigger has two parts, and both have to be present.

• The property is single-family residential property.
• The seller accepts an offer within 18 months of acquiring it[2].

Notice what starts and stops the clock. It starts when the seller acquired the property. It stops when the seller accepts an offer, which is earlier than closing and usually earlier than the moment the listing goes live in people’s minds. A seller who bought in March 2025 and accepts an offer in August 2026 is inside the window, even if escrow does not close until October.

The statute does not care whether you meant to flip. An owner who bought a house in Tustin, got relocated for work eight months later and sold is covered exactly like an investor who bought a tired ranch house in Fountain Valley to renovate and resell. The difference in practice is that the relocating owner usually has done little or no contractor work, so the disclosure is short. Sometimes it is a single line saying no such work was performed.

Single-family residential property

Section 1102.6h uses the same phrase the rest of the disclosure article uses, “single-family residential property”[2][5]. If you are selling something that does not fit that description, or only part of what you are selling fits it, the article’s own exemption list addresses that too[6]. When the property type is unusual (a mixed-use building in Santa Ana, a lot with a house and a commercial structure), get a real estate attorney’s read before deciding the law does not apply.

What Sellers Must Disclose Under AB 968

This is the core of the law. Within the 18 month window, the seller has to disclose, in addition to every other disclosure California already requires, the following[2]:

1. Any room additions, structural modifications, other alterations or repairs made to the property since the seller took title, when the work was performed by a contractor the seller hired.
2. The name of each of those contractors, together with any contact information the contractor gave the seller.

The name requirement has a floor. It applies only to contracts where the aggregate contract price for the whole project is in excess of the dollar amount specified in Business and Professions Code section 7027.2[2]. That section currently sets the figure at $1,000, measured against the combined contract price for the project[3].

The work itself, though, has no dollar floor in the text. A $600 repair by a handyman you hired is still a repair performed by a contractor you hired, so I list it, even though the handyman’s name is not required. Disclosing more than the statute requires has never hurt one of my sellers. Disclosing less has hurt plenty of sellers I did not represent.

The contractor’s list shortcut

Subdivision (b) lets the seller satisfy the work disclosure by providing a list of the work the contractor performed[2]. In practice this is the cleanest way to comply. Ask every contractor, at the end of the job, for a written scope of what they actually did. Their invoice often already reads that way. Then the disclosure is in the contractor’s words rather than your memory of a conversation in a dusty kitchen.

What the law does not ask for

It does not ask for a repair history going back before you owned the home. It does not ask about environmental hazards or energy upgrades. The old version of this article claimed all of those, and none of them are in the section[2]. California has other disclosure rules that reach some of those subjects, and they still apply, but they are not AB 968.

Permits: What to Hand Over, and What to Do When You Never Got Them

Subdivision (c) adds the permit piece, and it has two branches[2].

If the seller obtained a permit for disclosed work, the seller has to give the buyer a copy of it. Simple enough.

The second branch is the practical one. If the seller hired a third party to do the work and never received the permits, the seller can instead tell the buyer that permit information may be obtained from that third party, and give the buyer the third party’s contact information as the third party provided it[2]. That reflects how renovation actually works in Orange County: the general contractor pulls the permit in the city’s portal, the city signs off, and the homeowner never sees a piece of paper.

My advice to anyone renovating a house they may sell soon: before you pay the final invoice, get the finaled permit, or at least the permit number, in writing. It takes the contractor two minutes. Chasing it eighteen months later, when the company has changed its phone number, takes a lot longer than that.

AB 968 Timing: The July 1, 2024 Start Date

The section applies to offers the seller accepts on or after July 1, 2024[2]. An offer accepted on June 30, 2024 was outside it, even if the home closed in August.

That date matters less every month, because by now nearly every resale inside the 18 month window has an acceptance date well after it. Where it still comes up is in disputes. If a buyer is looking back at a 2024 purchase from a flipper and asking whether the seller should have disclosed contractor names, the first question is the date the seller signed the acceptance, not the closing date and not the date the listing went live.

Our original article said the law “went into effect on July 1st.” That was close. More precisely, the bill was chaptered in July 2023, and the new section by its own terms reaches offers accepted from July 1, 2024 forward[1][2].

How AB 968 Fits With California's Other Seller Disclosures

Section 1102.6h says its disclosures come in addition to the ones already required[2]. It does not replace anything. The article it belongs to applies to transfers of single-family residential property by sale, exchange, real property sales contract, lease with an option to purchase, any other option to purchase, or ground lease coupled with improvements[5].

One line in section 1102 deserves more attention than it gets: any waiver of the requirements of the article is void as against public policy[5]. In plain terms, a seller cannot get a buyer to sign away the AB 968 disclosure, not in the purchase agreement and not in an “as is” addendum. I have seen investors try to sell “as is, no disclosures” to an eager buyer. On a covered sale, that waiver language does not do what the seller thinks it does.

Where AB 968 sits in the paperwork

Practically, the 1102.6h disclosure travels with the rest of the seller’s disclosure package. The statute does not prescribe a form, so how it is presented varies by brokerage. What I care about is that it is in writing and specific to each job, with the seller’s signature on it, so nobody is arguing later about what was said at a showing.

For a full picture of what goes into a sale here, including disclosure costs, see what it costs to sell a house in Orange County.

Sales AB 968 Does Not Reach: Probate, Trusts, Divorce and Family Transfers

This is the part of the law that matters most to the families I work with, and the original article missed it completely.

Civil Code section 1102.2 lists transfers the disclosure article does not apply to[6]. Because section 1102.6h sits in that article, those exemptions are where to start when you ask whether AB 968 reaches a particular sale. A summary of the ones I see most:

The trustee exception inside the exemption

The fiduciary exemption has a carve-out that catches people. A trustee who is an individual, acting for a revocable trust, and who is a former owner of the property or lived in it within the preceding year, does not get the exemption[6]. Think of a surviving spouse in Laguna Niguel who is trustee of the family trust and moved out of the house six months ago. That is not the same as a professional fiduciary selling a decedent’s house in Mission Viejo, and the disclosure analysis is different.

Even in an exempt sale, I want the buyer to have whatever renovation history exists. Being exempt from a statute is not a reason to hide anything, and a trustee who discloses fully is a trustee who is much harder to sue. If you are a trustee, my trust sale checklist for California trustees walks through the rest of the process, and probate versus trust sales in California explains why the two paths are handled so differently.

What AB 968 Means for Buyers

For a buyer, AB 968 is a lead list. That is the most useful way to think about it.

The disclosure tells you which contractors touched the house and what they say they did. It does not tell you the work was done well. A new kitchen in a Huntington Beach tract home can be beautiful and still sit on top of a drain line nobody looked at. Your inspector’s job is to test what the disclosure claims, and the disclosure gives the inspector a map of where to look first.

• Compare the disclosed work against what you can see. A remodeled bathroom that does not appear on the list is a question for the listing agent, in writing.
• Look up each named contractor’s license status with the Contractors State License Board before you remove your inspection contingency.
• Match each permit copy to the work it covers, and ask the city for its permit history on the address if anything looks thin.
• Note any job where the seller used the third party branch for permits, and follow up with that third party yourself.
• Ask the seller’s agent when the seller acquired the property, so you know whether the 18 month rule applies at all.

One caution. If the seller is outside the 18 month window, say they bought 20 months ago and renovated, the AB 968 disclosure is not required[2]. The house can still be a flip. Ask the same questions anyway; the seller’s other disclosure duties do not disappear because 1102.6h does not apply.

What AB 968 Means for Flippers and Investors

If you renovate homes for resale in Orange County, AB 968 changes your paperwork more than your business model. The compliance cost is small. The cost of not tracking it from day one is not.

Here is the system I recommend to every investor client, before the first contractor walks in:

1. Open a file on the day you close. Note the date you acquired the property; your 18 month window runs from there[2].
2. Get every contractor’s name and contact information in writing at the start of the job, together with a license number.
3. Ask for a written scope of work at completion. Under subdivision (b), the contractor’s own list of work satisfies the disclosure[2].
4. Collect the permit and the final inspection sign-off before the last payment, or at least the permit number and the contractor’s confirmation of who pulled it.
5. Track contract totals per project. Anything in excess of the section 7027.2 amount, currently $1,000, needs the contractor’s name on the disclosure[2][3].
6. Build the disclosure as you go, so it is ready the day you list rather than reconstructed from bank statements.

Do not split jobs to get under the number

The $1,000 figure echoes the minor work exemption in the contractor licensing law, which lets unlicensed people do casual, minor work only when the aggregate price of the job, materials included, is under $1,000 and no building permit is required[4]. That exemption does not apply where a job is split into contracts under $1,000 to evade the licensing law, or where the work is part of a larger operation[4]. An investor who breaks a bathroom remodel into four $900 invoices to avoid a licensed contractor has a licensing problem, and that problem will show up the moment the AB 968 disclosure is drafted.

I will say it directly: if a renovation only pencils out when it is done by unlicensed crews without permits, it does not pencil out. AB 968 just makes that visible to the buyer before closing instead of after.

What the Earlier Version Got Wrong About Tenants and Rent Caps

The first version of this article told readers that AB 968 limits annual rent increases and restricts evictions. It does not[2]. Because people still land on this page searching for that, here is where the statewide rent cap actually lives.

The statewide cap is in Civil Code section 1947.12. Over any 12 month period, a landlord may raise gross rent by no more than the lower of 10 percent or 5 percent plus the change in the regional consumer price index, measured from the lowest gross rent charged in the prior 12 months, and a tenant can receive no more than two increases in any 12 month period[7]. The section as currently published remains in effect until January 1, 2030[7].

It has exemptions that matter to Orange County owners of single-family rentals. Housing issued a certificate of occupancy within the previous 15 years is exempt[7]. A separately alienable property such as a single-family home or condominium can also be exempt, but only if the owner is not one of the corporate entities the statute lists (a real estate investment trust is one) and the tenants received the written exemption notice the statute prescribes[7]. Skip the notice and you lose the exemption, which is a mistake I see more often than I should.

None of that comes from AB 968. If you are selling a home with a tenant in it, the rules that matter are covered in selling a house with tenants in Orange County.

A Seller's AB 968 Checklist Before You List

If you acquired the home less than 18 months ago and plan to accept an offer soon, run through this before your agent prepares the disclosure package.

• Confirm the date you acquired the property and the earliest date you might accept an offer. If the second date is inside 18 months, section 1102.6h applies to a covered sale[2].
• List every room addition, structural modification, other alteration or repair done since you took title by someone you hired.
• For each job above $1,000 in total contract price, write down the contractor’s name and the contact information they gave you[2][3].
• Gather copies of every permit you obtained. For work where a third party pulled permits you never received, note that party’s contact information[2].
• Ask whether the sale falls under one of the section 1102.2 exemptions, and if you are a trustee, whether the revocable trust carve-out applies to you[6].
• Do not try to waive the disclosure in the purchase contract. Waivers of the article are void[5].

A few minutes with this list can save a lot of explaining later.

If the repairs you are planning before a sale are the real question, my guide to home upgrades that add value before selling in Orange County is the better starting point, and every one of those upgrades, if done by a contractor inside the window, belongs on this disclosure.

How I Handle AB 968 on a Listing

When a seller tells me they bought the house last year, my first question is not the price. It is the date on the grant deed, then the folder of invoices.

From there it is mostly organization: building the contractor list with the seller, matching each job to a permit or a third party contact, and flagging any job where the permit story is incomplete while there is still time to do something about it. With my legal background I read the statute alongside the seller’s attorney when the facts are unusual, such as a trustee who also lived in the home, or a sale with a divorce in the background. I am not the seller’s lawyer, and on those files I say so early.

The sellers who get through AB 968 easily are the ones who kept their paperwork. The ones who struggle bought from someone else’s flip, did their own work on top of it, and cannot remember who did what. Start the file early.