A little over a year ago, no one in Hermosa Beach could sign a residential purchase agreement without a piece of paper from the city first. The seller had to request it, wait for it, and hand it to the buyer before ink went on the contract. It listed what the city's own records showed about the house: permitted square footage, occupancy, zoning classification, sometimes the kind of open permit or unresolved violation that changes a buyer's offer. As of January 1, 2026, that step is gone. Not the report itself, but the requirement to get one.
That is a small sentence with a large effect on how a Hermosa Beach sale actually closes, and most people listing a home this year have no idea it happened.
What the city actually changed
On December 9, 2025, the Hermosa Beach City Council adopted an urgency ordinance to bring the city's building codes current with the state's 2025 California Building Standards Codes. Most of that ordinance is the kind of housekeeping every city does every three years when the state updates its code cycle. Buried inside it, though, was a change to Chapter 15.26 of the municipal code: the Residential Building Report program moved from a required step before any sale or exchange agreement to an optional service a property owner can still request if they want one.
The city's own applications and permitting page spells out the cutoff cleanly. Any Hermosa Beach property that entered into an agreement of sale or exchange before January 1, 2026 still needed the report under the old rule. Anything signed on or after that date does not, unless the owner asks for it anyway.
If you have sold a house in Manhattan Beach or Redondo Beach in the past few years, this will sound familiar, because both of those cities still run the version Hermosa Beach just retired.
The same coastline, three different rules
This is the part that surprises agents who work all three cities without checking the fine print on each one. The point-of-sale paperwork looks identical from a distance and behaves differently in practice.
| City | Building report at point of sale | Who initiates it |
|---|---|---|
| Manhattan Beach | Still required before entering a sale or exchange agreement | Seller or authorized representative, per the city's building and safety requirements |
| Redondo Beach | Still offered as a standard or accelerated paid report through the city's building division | Whoever submits the request through the city's citizen portal |
| Hermosa Beach | Optional as of January 1, 2026 | Only if the owner chooses to request one |
Manhattan Beach's building and safety department still states plainly that before entering into a sale agreement, the seller or their representative must obtain a report of the residential building record from the city showing authorized use, occupancy, and zoning classification. Redondo Beach still runs a fee-based version of the same idea, with a standard turnaround of seven to ten business days or an accelerated option for a higher fee. Hermosa Beach used to sit in that same column. Now it doesn't.
Why this happened quietly instead of loudly
None of this was pitched to residents as a change for buyers and sellers. The urgency ordinance's stated purpose was adopting the 2025 state building codes, the 2024 International Property Maintenance Code, and reorganizing an outdated Title 15 into a cleaner structure. The Residential Building Report shift rides along inside that reorganization as one line among many, filed under administrative modernization rather than real estate policy.
That is worth sitting with for a second. A rule that used to sit between every seller and every closing in this city changed as a side effect of a code-numbering cleanup, not as its own public debate. It is exactly the kind of change that a seller finds out about from their agent or their escrow officer, usually after they have already asked why the city report never showed up.
What used to happen with that report, and what replaces it now
The old Residential Building Report was never a home inspection. It was a records pull: what the city's permit history said the house was built as, whether that matched what was standing on the lot, and whether anything on file flagged unpermitted work or an open violation. For a buyer, it functioned as a quiet check against the seller's own disclosures, generated by a party with no financial stake in the sale.
Take that check away and the same information does not disappear. It just stops arriving automatically. In practice, three things now carry the weight the city report used to share:
- The seller's Transfer Disclosure Statement and any supplemental disclosures, which still legally require disclosure of known material facts about the property's condition and history
- A buyer's independent inspection, which can flag unpermitted alterations a records search alone might miss, particularly in additions or conversions done without a final sign-off
- A permit history pull that the buyer's agent or attorney now has to request directly from Hermosa Beach's Building Division rather than receiving as a matter of course
Hermosa Beach has its own reasons a permit history matters more here than in some inland cities. The Building Division requires a geotechnical report before construction in parts of town because groundwater sits as shallow as six to fifteen feet below grade, with subterranean streams running from inland sources to the ocean. A basement or lower-level addition that skipped proper review is not a cosmetic problem in this city, and it is exactly the kind of thing the old required report sometimes caught before a buyer got deep into escrow.
What this means if you are listing a home in Hermosa Beach now
For a seller, the practical shift is that no city checkpoint will do this work for you anymore, which means it is worth doing before a buyer's inspector finds it for you. Pulling your own permit history at the Building Division before you list, rather than waiting to be asked, keeps you in front of any question a buyer's agent raises rather than reacting to it mid-escrow. If a past addition or remodel does not have a clean paper trail, resolving it before the home goes live gives you time to handle it on your own schedule instead of a five-day contingency clock.
This is also where a pre-listing pass through Compass Concierge earns its keep in a market like this one. Straightening out a permit gap, finishing a final inspection sign-off, or simply having documentation organized before the first showing removes friction that used to get absorbed by a mandatory city report. It costs nothing upfront and gets settled at closing, which fits a seller who wants a clean file rather than a surprise at week three.
For a buyer, the shift means the diligence period does more work than it used to. Requesting a permit history directly, ordering an inspection that specifically checks for unpermitted work, and reading the seller's disclosures with more attention than you might in a city that still hands you a city-generated report are no longer optional habits. They are the whole safety net now.
None of this makes Hermosa Beach a riskier place to transact. It makes it a city where the paperwork that used to arrive automatically now has to be requested on purpose, and where knowing that difference before you write an offer or sign a listing agreement is the entire advantage.
A few questions worth answering directly
Does this apply to a home I am selling right now? If you have not yet signed a purchase agreement, the optional rule applies to you. If your agreement was signed before January 1, 2026, the old requirement still governs your transaction.
Can I still request a Residential Building Report if I want one? Yes. The city's Building Division still processes them as an optional service. If you would rather have that record in hand before you list, you can request it the same way sellers always have.
Does Manhattan Beach or Redondo Beach plan to make the same change? Neither city has announced a similar shift as of this writing. Manhattan Beach's building and safety requirements still call for the report before a sale agreement, and Redondo Beach still runs its standard and accelerated report service through its building division.
If you are weighing a sale in Hermosa Beach and want a clear read on how this affects your specific property, or you are comparing what a move here looks like against Manhattan Beach or Redondo Beach, the Stearns Lieb Team can walk through the permit history, disclosure package, and pre-listing steps that fit your home before you put it on the market. Request Your Home Valuation to start that conversation.
