Civ. Code, § 1940.45 · Chapter 2. Hiring of Real Property
Civ. Code, § 1940.45
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
(a) Except as otherwise provided by this section, a property owner shall not enforce or adopt a restrictive covenant or any other restriction that prohibits one or more religious items from being displayed or affixed on any entry door or entry door frame of a dwelling.
(b) To the extent permitted by Article 1, Section 4, of the California Constitution and the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, this section does not prohibit the enforcement or adoption of a restrictive covenant or other restriction prohibiting the display or affixing of a religious item on any entry door or entry door frame to a dwelling that:
(1) Threatens the public health or safety.
(2) Hinders the opening or closing of any entry door.
(3) Violates any federal, state, or local law.
(4) Contains graphics, language or any display that is obscene or otherwise illegal.
(5) Individually or in combination with any other religious item displayed or affixed on any entry door or door frame that has a total size greater than 36 by 12 square inches, provided it does not exceed the size of the door.
(c) As used in this section, the following terms have the following meanings:
(1) “Property owner” means all of the following:
(A) An association, as that term is defined in Section 4080.
(B) A board, as that term is defined in Section 4085.
(C) A member, as that term is defined in Section 4160.
(D) A landlord, as that term is defined in Section 1940.8.5.
(E) A sublessor.
(2) “Religious item” means an item displayed because of sincerely held religious beliefs.
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Added by Stats. 2019, Ch. 154, Sec. 1. (SB 652) Effective January 1, 2020.
Source of truth
- Edition
- As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
- Official file
- https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=CIV§ionNum=1940.45.
- Text hash
- sha256 f03e4448d129147d59986290edbb6362b7cda3207a341aa9fd0967c3fd3930d1
- Composed by
- compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section
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