A Los Angeles Superior Court judge issued a ruling last week blocking the City of Los Angeles from implementing a state law that would have allowed it to dismantle abandoned recreational vehicles valued at up to $4,000 saying that the law never authorized the city to act in the first place.
Judge Curtis A. Kin issued the peremptory writ Feb. 19 after the city failed to show cause why it should be permitted to move forward with its program to remove and dispose of abandoned RVs. The ruling orders the city to revise its instructions to multiple departments to implement Assembly Bill 630 and instead to comply with existing state law, which limits vehicle disposal to those valued at $500 or less.
"AB 630 unambiguously states that the Counties of Alameda and Los Angeles may implement a program to dispose of recreational vehicles," Kin wrote in his ruling. "AB 630 provides no such authority to the City of Los Angeles."
The ruling centers on a 2025 law authored by Assemblymember Mark González. AB 630, was designed to address what supporters called a "vanlord" pipeline — a cycle in which investors purchase dilapidated RVs at lien-sale auctions for as little as $50 and rent them to vulnerable people without plumbing, electricity or basic safety standards.
Under existing state law, abandoned vehicles valued at more than $500 must be sold through a lien sale process rather than destroyed. Because even deteriorated RVs frequently exceed that threshold, supporters argued the law allowed junk vehicles to cycle back onto city streets repeatedly.
AB 630 created a new section of the Vehicle Code — Section 22851.5 — raising the disposal threshold to $4,000 for recreational vehicles as a pilot program set to expire Jan. 1, 2030. It passed the Legislature with overwhelming bipartisan support, clearing both chambers without a single "no" vote.
It applies exclusively to the counties of Alameda and Los Angeles, not to municipalities within those counties. The Legislature made the limited reach explicit, finding that a special statute was necessary due to the "unique needs" of those two counties — a constitutional requirement for laws that apply to fewer than all jurisdictions statewide.
The law also includes a range of procedural protections. Before a vehicle can be removed, authorities must post a 72-hour notice. After removal, the registered owner has 30 days — up from 15 under prior law — to reclaim the vehicle. Disposal is permitted only for vehicles determined to be inoperable, with an exception for those posing environmental or public safety hazards. Dismantled RVs must go to a licensed dismantler and cannot be reconstructed.
A lawsuit challenging the City of Los Angeles’ implementation was filed early this year by the CD11 Coalition for Human Rights, a coalition of organizations and individuals in Los Angeles that advocates for people experiencing homelessness, including those living in RVs.
The coalition argued the city was recklessly moving ahead with a program the state Legislature never authorized it to run. In its petition, the group noted the City Council voted 12-3 on Dec. 9, 2025, to instruct city departments to begin implementing AB 630 immediately — even before any written procedures or implementation plan had been established. An amendment adopted alongside the motion specified that a subsequent status report to the Housing and Homelessness Committee "will not delay implementation and will be for informational purposes only."
After sending a demand letter to the city on Dec. 18, 2025, and receiving no response, the coalition turned to the courts.
Beyond the jurisdictional argument, advocates raised broader concerns about what the program would mean for the thousands of Angelenos who call RVs home. Critics argued that disposing of vehicles valued up to $4,000 would destroy functional shelter for some of the city's most vulnerable residents, often without adequate notice or housing alternatives in place.
The Judge had issued a previous ruling in the lawsuit and the city's response to the earlier show-cause order amounted to a single half-page document arguing that because it had not yet fully implemented AB 630, no ruling preventing it from implementing it could be applied. City attorneys contended the City Council had only instructed departments to "report back" on how to implement the law.
Kin rejected that characterization as factually inaccurate. He said the record showed the City Council had instructed the City Administrative Officer to "immediately implement AB 630 and report back in 30 days with an overview of its implementation plan" — language the court found left no ambiguity about the city's intent to act.
The judge also noted the city did not contest the core legal question: that AB 630 grants disposal authority only to the counties of Alameda and Los Angeles, not to municipalities within those counties. Nor did the city challenge that, without authority under AB 630, it remains bound by Vehicle Code Section 22851.3, which permits disposal only of vehicles valued at $500 or less.
Kin further cited newly proposed legislation — AB 647 — as additional evidence that the city lacked authority under the existing law. The proposed bill explicitly extends AB 630's disposal authority to public agencies within Alameda and Los Angeles counties, an expansion that would be unnecessary if the city already possessed that power.