CA self-manager (~15 units): How do you track AB 1482 + AB 2801?

[Julian Sanchez]

Hey BP,My uncle's been self-managing ~15 units in CA for a decade while working his day job. The 2025 law changes have him stressed and I'm helping him tighten up his systems virtually from Jersey. Curious how other small landlords at that scale (5–30 units, no PM, no assistant) are actually handling compliance day-to-day.AB 1482: He has units across multiple cities and is paranoid about applying the wrong local cap. Right now he keeps handwritten notes with each city's rate and cross-checks city housing pages every January. For those of you with units in different jurisdictions (Oakland, Berkeley, LA RSO, etc.), how do you verify the exact legal max before sending a notice? Are you checking each city's AGA annually, or mostly using the statewide CPI + 5% and hoping local preemption doesn't bite you?AB 2801 photos: This is where he's bleeding time. He takes move-in and move-out photos, but when he's writing the itemized statement two weeks later, he's scrolling through thousands of phone photos trying to match the "before" kitchen shot to the "after" damage. He tried Dropbox folders per unit, but pairing specific photos to specific deductions still takes a couple hours per turnover.What's your actual photo workflow at this scale?

• Phone gallery and memory?
• Organized cloud folders by unit/room?
• Attaching photos directly to your itemization letter somehow?
• Paper checklist so you don't miss rooms or appliances?

And how are you tracking the 21-day countdown — phone reminder, calendar block, sticky note? He almost missed the window last month while traveling for work.I told him a notepad + camera roll is probably fine at 15 units and he's overthinking it. He disagrees — says tenants are getting more legally savvy and he doesn't want to wing the documentation anymore.What's your system? Where does it actually break down or annoy you? Open to pushback if I'm making this more complicated than it needs to be. Just trying to help him sort it out.