LA landlords: are you ready for El Niño?

Question

Forecasters are saying this could be one of the strongest El Niños on record for Southern California. For those of you with rentals in the LA area, what are you doing to get ready, if anything?

Roof inspections? Gutters? Talking to tenants? Reviewing your insurance? Or just waiting to see what happens?

And for anyone who owned property here during the 1997-98 or 2023 storms, what did you learn the hard way?

(Disclosure: I'm a public adjuster in LA, so I'm curious how owners are thinking about this ahead of time.)

Leo Stein · Answer

For SoCal rentals I treat storm season like a short punch list, not a hope cycle: roof/flashing walk or vendor check, gutters and yard drains cleared, weatherstripping on obvious drip points, and a one-page tenant note on how to report a leak (photo + exact location + call/text path). The ops piece that fails in storms is ownership of the after-hours call — who answers, who can authorize a board-up or water-mitigation vendor, and how fast you document for insurance. Review loss-of-rents and water backup / ordinance-law limits before the first atmospheric river, not after. Waiting to "see what happens" is how a $400 gutter cleaning turns into a two-week vacancy and a claim fight.

Richard (Ryszard) Cieplechowicz · Answer

I'd check the gutters and drains before the rain, then tell tenants how to report a leak or standing water right away. The part that gets missed is who takes the call and who follows up when the first person isn't available. A short dated note beats trying to piece it together after the storm.

Isaac P. · Answer

Really solid list, and I'm glad you mentioned ordinance or law coverage, because that's the one I see catch owners off guard the most. A lot of LA rentals are older buildings, and when you repair storm damage, the city can require you to bring that section up to current code. That upgrade cost often isn't covered under the base policy, or the limit is way too low for what the work actually costs.

Same with water backup. People assume a backed-up drain or sewer line during a storm is covered like any other water damage, and it often isn't unless you added that endorsement.

Question for the group: has anyone actually pulled their declarations page this year and checked those limits? I'd be curious what people are carrying, especially on older properties.

Isaac P. · Answer

Great point about the dated note. From the claims side, that timeline matters more than most people realize. When a leak turns into a claim, one of the first things the carrier looks at is when the damage started and how quickly the owner acted. If a tenant reported it on day one but nobody responded for a week, that gap can become the carrier's argument that the extra damage wasn't sudden, it was neglect.

A few things I'd add to that note: when the tenant reported it, who responded and when, and photos or video before anything gets cleaned up or moved. Even quick phone pictures with timestamps help a lot.

Curious, do you have a set vendor lined up for water mitigation, or do you find someone when it happens? After big storms those companies get booked up fast.

LA landlords: are you ready for El Niño?

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