Eligibility is a file, not a ZIP code

Urban lot split pathways can include owner-occupancy requirements. We assess your ownership and occupancy scenario before recommending a route.

If the property is held as a rental or investment asset, an SB 9 urban lot split may have additional restrictions. We can screen potential duplex, ADU, conventional subdivision, or alternative development pathways.

Urban lot splits are commonly discussed alongside an owner-occupancy affidavit and a three-year occupancy intention. Confirm the current statute and how title is held before you rely on that summary. An LLC, a trust, or a co-owner who will not sign can change the route even when the map looks simple.

Tenancy matters. Properties with current tenants, or tenants in a recent look-back period that the statute describes, are a frequent reason to stop a lot-split plan. “Not sure” is an honest answer. We treat it as review required. A month-to-month rental and a fixed lease are both tenancy. Either one is enough to move a file off a clean lot-split headline.

Geometry matters, and we do not have it from an address. State law has been widely described as requiring resulting parcels to meet minimum-area concepts, including figures such as 1,200 square feet and a share of the original lot. Those are not measurements of your parcel. A licensed survey is the measurement. Frontage, flag lots, and access easements are the same kind of fact: real, and not visible in a search box.

Zoning context, historic status, farmland, hazardous waste sites, high fire hazard areas, and other statutory carve-outs are map and record checks. This product does not run those layers unless a provider is connected, and the current build does not pretend that it does. A hillside street, a coastal address, or a house in a specific plan is a reason to slow down, not a reason for us to invent a yes.

Local agencies apply objective standards to a complete application. Subjective design preference is a different fight. A blog post is not the standard. SB 450 is discussed on its own page because it changed how some of those local standards and the timing of a complete application are talked about. It did not turn this website into the counter.

Questions the screen actually asks

Do you own it, are you under contract, or are you advising someone else? Is it a primary residence? Are tenants there now, and were they there in the past three years? What is the goal: a parcel to sell, a home to rent, family housing, or research? When would you start, and what value band are you working from? The value band is for prioritizing a review. It is not an appraisal.

For eligible SB 9 projects, California law generally requires local agencies to approve or deny a complete application within 60 days. Final eligibility and approval remain subject to statutory requirements, complete application materials, and applicable local objective standards.

SB9Split.com provides educational information and preliminary feasibility services. Results are not legal advice, a survey, a title policy, engineering advice, an appraisal, financing approval, a municipal determination, or a guarantee of property eligibility, subdivision approval, construction feasibility, project profitability, sale value, or return on investment.