I Own an 18-Unit Long Beach Building That Needs a Title 25 Live-In Manager. What Should I Look For in a Property Manager Who Handles This?

By Miles Williams | Broker/Owner, Real Property Management Southland | CA DRE #01968830

Updated July 2026 | Cal. Code Regs. Title 25, Section 42 (Caretaker Requirement)

Does an 18-Unit Long Beach Building Need a Live-In Manager Under Title 25?

California Code of Regulations Title 25, Section 42 sets the trigger, and it is a bright line, not a judgment call. An apartment house with 16 or more apartments must have a manager, janitor, housekeeper or other responsible person residing on the premises, whenever the owner does not live there. An 18-unit building in Long Beach clears that threshold by two units. There is no phase-in period and no exception for an owner who visits frequently or has never had a complaint.

The same regulation sets a separate, lower threshold for hotels: 12 or more guest rooms triggers the identical resident-caretaker requirement. That distinction matters if your Long Beach property mixes apartment units with any short-term or extended-stay rooms, because the hotel trigger sits four units below the apartment trigger (Cal. Code Regs. tit. 25, § 42).

If you own more than one building on a single contiguous parcel under common ownership, Section 42 allows one caretaker to serve all of them. That provision does not extend to buildings on separate parcels, even if you own both and they sit across the street from each other. For an 18-unit Long Beach building standing on its own parcel, you need a caretaker living inside that specific building, not a manager stationed at a different property nearby.

What Does “Residing on the Premises” Actually Require?

The regulation names four acceptable roles: manager, janitor, housekeeper or other responsible person. It does not require a real estate license, a property management certification or any specific job title. What it requires is residency. The person has to live in a unit inside the building, not visit on a schedule, not live a few blocks away in Long Beach and stop by daily, and not split time between two properties in a way that leaves the building unattended overnight.

Owners who manage remotely sometimes assume a property manager who inspects the Long Beach building every week satisfies this rule. It does not. Section 42 is a residency requirement, not a supervision-frequency requirement. An owner who does not reside on site, and who has not placed a manager, janitor, housekeeper or other responsible person living on site, is out of compliance at 18 units regardless of how often anyone checks in.

The resident does not have to be the property owner and does not have to be a professional manager. Some Long Beach owners of 16-plus-unit buildings house a maintenance employee on site who also handles caretaking duties. Others contract with a management company that recruits, screens and houses a dedicated resident manager as part of the management agreement. Both approaches satisfy Section 42, provided the person genuinely resides in the building.

What About Buildings With 5 to 15 Units? The Posted-Notice Rule

Section 42 sets a second, lower threshold for smaller buildings. An apartment house with more than four but fewer than 16 apartments, meaning 5 to 15 units, does not need a resident caretaker at all. Instead, the owner must post a notice in a conspicuous place on the premises giving the owner’s name and address, or the name and address of the owner’s managing agent.

That rule matters for context, not for your 18-unit Long Beach building. If you own a property at 14 or 15 units, you fall under the posted-notice rule and stay there until a unit count change pushes you to 16. At 18 units, your building sits well past that boundary and inside the resident-manager requirement instead. This article does not cover the posted-notice mechanics in depth; if that lower threshold applies to a different Long Beach property you own, treat it as a separate compliance question with its own notice requirements.

The dividing line at 16 units is absolute: below it, a posted notice bearing the owner’s or agent’s name and address satisfies Section 42 entirely. At 16 or above, a living person must occupy a unit in the building. There is no substitute, no visit schedule, no remote arrangement.

What Are the Employment Law Consequences of Installing a Live-In Manager?

A resident manager who lives in your Long Beach building and performs caretaking duties for you is, in nearly every real-world arrangement, your employee under California law, not an independent contractor. That status brings the full range of employer obligations with it. This is the part of Title 25 compliance where owners get hurt, because the caretaker rule reads like a housing requirement and functions like a payroll requirement.

California’s Industrial Welfare Commission Wage Order 5-2001, covering the public housekeeping industry including apartment building employees, allows an employer to credit the value of provided housing against minimum wage only under specific conditions. Section 10 requires a voluntary written agreement between the employer and the employee before any lodging credit applies, caps the credit at two-thirds of the unit’s ordinary rental value, and sets a dollar ceiling that the state updates periodically. The exact current dollar cap moves as the state minimum wage moves, so do not assume free rent alone satisfies your wage obligation for a full-time resident manager.

Workers’ compensation follows the same logic. Once your Long Beach building has a resident manager who is your employee, Labor Code Section 3700 requires you to carry workers’ compensation coverage for that person, the same as for any other employee. This applies whether the resident manager works full time or a reduced schedule alongside a rent credit.

Three overlapping obligations come with a resident manager’s first day on the job: a voluntary written lodging-credit agreement under Wage Order 5, Section 10; workers’ compensation coverage under Labor Code Section 3700; and a payroll record of actual hours worked to establish the credit calculation. All three attach at day one. None has a grace period.

How Does a Property Management Company Handle Title 25 Compliance?

A property management company that regularly works with 16-plus-unit buildings in Long Beach typically takes on five distinct functions for the resident manager position, not just one.

1. Recruiting

   Sourcing candidates specifically for a live-in role, since the position requires someone willing to reside on site, not just work a shift and leave.

2. Screening

   Background and reference checks appropriate to a role with keys to every unit in the Long Beach building and daily contact with tenants.

3. Housing

   Administering the unit the resident manager occupies as part of the compensation package, including the written lodging agreement Wage Order 5 requires.

4. Supervising

   Ongoing oversight of caretaking duties, tied to regular property evaluations so an owner has documented proof the resident manager is actually performing the job.

5. Paying and carrying the employment relationship

   Running payroll, tracking hours worked, and holding the employer obligations, including workers’ compensation, so the compliance exposure does not sit on the owner personally.

Some management companies formally employ the resident manager themselves and provide the position as part of the management agreement. Others administer payroll and the written lodging agreement while the building owner remains the employer of record. Both structures can be compliant. What matters is knowing which one you are getting before you sign, because the difference changes who carries the wage-and-hour and workers’ compensation exposure if something goes wrong later.

RPM Southland manages over 730 properties across SE Los Angeles County and has run ADU and multifamily compliance work in Long Beach for over five years. Property evaluations happen every six to eight months across the portfolio, a schedule that gives an owner documented proof a resident manager is performing caretaking duties, not simply occupying a unit. For Long Beach buildings with 10 or more units, the management fee is a flat 4.9%, with a $399 flat leasing fee and no setup fee. On an 18-unit building collecting a hypothetical $2,700 average monthly rent per unit, that fee structure runs roughly $2,381 a month against approximately $48,600 in gross scheduled rent, an illustration of the math, not a quote for your specific building.

How Does Long Beach Just Cause Affect a Resident Manager’s Unit?

Installing a resident manager is a tenancy question as much as an employment question, and Long Beach adds a local layer on top of state law. If the unit you plan to house your resident manager in currently has a paying tenant, ending that tenancy to make room is very likely a no-fault termination under the Long Beach Municipal Code’s Just Cause for Termination of Tenancies ordinance, Chapter 8.99.

Under Long Beach Municipal Code Section 8.99.020(e), a no-fault termination requires relocation assistance equal to the greater of $4,500 or two months’ rent at the rate in effect when the termination notice was served, payable within 15 calendar days of serving that notice. This provision was amended in March 2022, principally to raise relocation amounts for substantial-remodel terminations, and it applies only to no-fault terminations, not to terminations for a tenant’s own lease violation.

Separately, once you bring a new resident manager on site, California Civil Code Section 1962 requires you to give every tenant in the Long Beach building written notice of the new manager’s name, address and telephone number for service of notices, within 15 days of the change. If you do not comply, you cannot serve a nonpayment notice for rent that accrues during the period you were out of compliance. This procedural step gets skipped often when an owner is focused on the Title 25 side of the problem and forgets the tenant-notice side entirely.

The numbers that matter in Long Beach: $4,500 is the relocation floor (or two months’ rent, whichever is greater), payable within 15 calendar days of serving the notice, not at move-out. At any monthly rent below $2,250, the flat $4,500 applies; above $2,250, two months is the larger number.

Common Title 25 Mistakes Long Beach Owners Make

After managing multifamily compliance across SE Los Angeles County, the same handful of errors show up repeatedly on Long Beach buildings crossing the 16-unit line.

Each of these four gaps has a specific cure: satisfy the Section 42 residency requirement by placing a qualifying person in a unit; meet Wage Order 5 by executing the written lodging-credit agreement before the first day; comply with Labor Code Section 3700 by adding a workers’ compensation policy; and satisfy Long Beach Municipal Code Section 8.99.020(e) by paying the relocation amount within the 15-calendar-day window before you terminate any tenancy.

What Should You Ask a Property Manager Who Handles Title 25 Buildings?

Not every property manager who serves Long Beach handles 16-plus-unit compliance work routinely. Before you hire one for your 18-unit building, ask direct questions and pay attention to how specific the answers are.

• Do you currently staff resident managers in other Long Beach buildings at or above 16 units, and how many?
• Do you employ the resident manager directly, or does the owner remain the employer of record, and what does that mean for my liability?
• How do you structure the written lodging-credit agreement Wage Order 5 requires, and who tracks hours worked?
• Do you carry or coordinate workers’ compensation coverage for the resident manager?
• If I need to convert an occupied unit for the resident manager, how do you handle the Long Beach just cause and relocation process?
• What is your California DRE broker license number, and can I verify it independently?
• How often do you physically inspect the building and the resident manager’s performance?

A manager who answers each of these with a specific process is one who handles Title 25 buildings routinely. A manager who is vague on the employment structure, or who suggests free rent alone with no written agreement is enough, is handing the compliance exposure back to you the moment there is a dispute. Verify any broker’s California DRE license directly rather than taking a business card at face value; a company managing a Long Beach building for another owner for compensation must hold an active broker’s license under Business and Professions Code Section 10131(b).

“Committing to a property manager is a big, big deal. When done right, it can be one of the best things you’ve ever done for your asset. When done wrong, it can be catastrophic.”
Miles Williams, Broker/Owner, Real Property Management Southland

Frequently Asked Questions About Title 25 Live-In Managers in Long Beach