Photograph everything. That was good advice for twenty years, and as of 2025 it stopped being advice.
What the law now requires
California wrote photo documentation into the security deposit law, phased in beginning in 2025: photographs of the unit around move-in for newer tenancies, photographs at move-out before any repairs or cleaning behind a deduction, photographs after the work is done, shared alongside the itemized statement. The exact requirements depend on when the tenancy started, which is worth confirming for your situation.
Why the state did it
The legislative theory is simple: deposit disputes were being decided on memory against memory, and memory loses to photographs every time. The practical effect for owners is that a deduction without the required photo trail is not a weaker claim. It is increasingly no claim at all.
What it means for San Diego owners
Here is the part I want San Diego owners to sit with: this law formalizes what disciplined operators already did, which means it punishes only casual documentation. If your move-in process was a signed checklist and a walkthrough, and your move-out process was a look around and a judgment call, the law just raised your standard of proof and you have no file to meet it with.
What compliance looks like in practice
What compliance actually looks like in practice. Move-in: a dated photo set covering every room, every appliance, every floor surface, every wall with anything on it, shot the day before keys or the day of. Move-out: the same set, same angles, before anyone touches the unit. After repairs: the work, documented. The photo sets attach to the itemization, and the whole file lives somewhere retrievable, because the dispute that needs it may arrive months later.
The part most owners miss
The angle most owners miss: this law protects good landlords as much as it constrains bad ones. A complete photo file ends most disputes before they start, because a tenant looking at time-stamped photographs of the damage stops arguing about whether it existed. The documentation burden falls hardest on owners running rentals from a phone’s camera roll and a memory. It falls lightest on anyone running a process, which was already the difference between owners who keep deposits defensibly and owners who write checks to close disputes.
One month of deposit, photo-documented on both ends. The state has effectively published the operating manual for the deposit relationship. The owners who win under it are the ones who were already running it.
Joe Wiseman is a licensed California broker (DRE #02043323) and owns Best Nest Property Management in San Diego.