The Sausalito Floating Home Rule That Turns Your Sale Price Into Someone Else's Rent Bill

On Richardson Bay, a floating home's sale price has always carried more than one job. It sets what a lender will finance, what an appraiser will defend, and what a seller walks away with at close. As of this year, on berths with long-term leases, that same number takes on a second job most buyers and sellers never see coming: it becomes a direct input in the formula that sets the next owner's monthly berth rent, for as long as they hold the home. Two people negotiating over price on the docks right now are negotiating two things at once, and one of those things doesn't show up on the purchase agreement.

What Changed, and When It Started Mattering

The mechanism comes from AB 754, an amendment to California's Floating Home Residency Law authored by Assemblymember Damon Connolly and written specifically for Marin County. The governor signed it in 2025, it took effect January 1, 2026, and its provisions apply retroactively to rent increases and lease turnovers occurring on or after July 1, 2025. It runs until January 1, 2038.

The law it replaced, AB 252 from 2022, capped annual berth rent increases across Marin, Alameda, and Contra Costa counties at a single formula and blocked any rent adjustment when a home changed hands. That uniform approach created real friction in Marin, which has 425 floating homes compared with 42 in Alameda County and 11 in Contra Costa. Without any way to reset rent at sale, some marinas started converting long-standing 10 and 20-year leases into one-year terms and layering in new fees just to recoup the revenue they'd lost the ability to capture at turnover.

The fix took two years of negotiation between the Floating Homes Association's Legislative Action Committee and the marina owners, and it went to a resident vote before it went to Sacramento. More than 400 floating home owners responded, a 67% turnout, and 93% approved the deal. Marin County administrative analyst Talia Smith called the bill's unanimous passage through both legislative chambers "a rare feat," a line that undersells how unusual it is for a landlord-tenant rent fight to end with everyone signing the same letter to the governor.

The Formula Nobody Reads Until They Have To

Here's the part that actually reaches into a transaction. For a berth under a lease of 10 years or longer, when the home sells, the marina can reset the rent for the incoming owner. But the new rate is capped at whichever number is lower: 25% above the previous rent, or 0.15% of the home's certified sale price.

That "whichever is lower" clause is the whole story. It means the sale price doesn't always drive the outcome. Consider a berth currently renting for $1,200 a month.

• If the home sells for $900,000, 0.15% of that price is $1,350 a month, higher than the 25% ceiling of $1,500. The rent resets to $1,350, and the price is the binding number.
• If the home sells for $500,000, 0.15% of that price is $750 a month, well under the 25% ceiling. The rent resets to $750, and the price is still the binding number, just working in the opposite direction.
• If the home sells for $1,500,000, 0.15% of that price is $2,250 a month, but the 25% ceiling caps it at $1,500. Above roughly $1,000,000 in this example, further increases in sale price stop moving the rent at all. The ceiling takes over.

That crossover point exists in every one of these formulas, and it means the sale price only sets the next owner's rent up to a threshold determined by the current rent. Push the negotiated price past that threshold and it has zero further effect on carrying cost. Two buyers paying very different prices for the same berth could end up with the same rent bill, and neither would necessarily know why without doing the math the marina is doing behind the scenes.

The Buyer Signs Their Name to the Number

This isn't a formula the marina applies quietly after the fact. The law requires that the final sale price be certified and substantiated in writing to the marina by the buyer, under penalty of perjury. That's not boilerplate. It means the number a buyer writes down for the marina has the same legal weight as a sworn statement, and it closes off any temptation to report something softer than what actually changed hands.

In practice, this makes the marina an unlisted third party at the negotiating table. Buyers and sellers have always known the county would eventually see the recorded price. Now the marina does too, and it does something with it immediately: it plugs that number into a formula that sets a real, recurring cost the buyer will pay for years.

The Other Office That Uses the Same Number, Differently

It's easy to assume the marina's rent math and the county's tax math are the same system wearing two names. They aren't. Marin's Assessor-Recorder-County Clerk states plainly that a floating home is assessed in the same manner as real property and is not categorized as a vessel for tax purposes. That means the same certified sale price also sets the new owner's property tax basis under the standard rules that apply to any home sale in California, a public process run entirely separately from the private, contractual rent-reset math happening at the marina.

Two systems, one number, two completely different outcomes. A seller's disclosure package should make clear which conversation is which, because a buyer's lender, insurer, and accountant will each care about a different half of that split.

The Lookback Window Sellers Should Check Before Listing

The 10-year lease qualifier isn't limited to homes that currently hold a signed 10-year lease. It also covers berths where the marina offered a lease of that length at any point between two years and six months before the sale, whether or not the homeowner ultimately signed it. That means a letter sitting in a file from eighteen months ago, offering a longer lease the seller never acted on, could still trigger the sale-price reset formula on a home that otherwise looks like it's on a short-term arrangement.

Before listing, it's worth pulling the current berth agreement and any correspondence from the marina from the past few years to confirm which formula applies. That's the kind of detail a buyer's agent or lender will eventually ask about anyway, and finding it before an offer is on the table avoids a renegotiation after inspection.

What This Means at the Table

The practical shift is this: price now carries a second consequence that depends entirely on where a berth's current rent sits relative to that crossover threshold. A seller whose rent has stayed low relative to comparable berths might be sitting on a genuine selling point, since the 25% ceiling will likely bind regardless of what the home sells for, which means the next owner inherits real rent stability almost no matter what price they pay. A seller whose rent already tracks close to market value is in a different position, because the price-based path is more likely to bind, and every dollar negotiated into or out of the sale price maps directly onto the next owner's monthly cost for years.

Running that math before an offer is written, not after, is the difference between a buyer who understands what they're actually agreeing to and one who finds out at their first rent notice.

A Few Questions Worth Asking Directly

Does this apply to every floating home sale in Sausalito? No. It applies specifically to in-place transfers on berths under a lease of 10 years or longer, or one that was offered on those terms in the window between two years and six months before the sale.

What happens to rent on a shorter lease? Outside of a sale-triggered reset, Marin's annual berth rent increases are capped at the percentage change in the cost of living, with a floor of 3% and a ceiling of 7.5%, and any cost-of-living increase above 5% counted at half value.

Does the marina see the actual signed purchase agreement? The law requires the buyer to certify the final sale price to the marina in writing, under penalty of perjury, as part of establishing the new rental rate.

Is this the same everywhere in Marin? AB 754 was written and negotiated as a special statute for Marin County specifically, separate from the broader 2022 law that also covered Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

The docks reward the kind of buyer or seller who asks these questions before signing anything, not after. If you're weighing a sale on Richardson Bay and want to know exactly which side of that formula your berth falls on, First California Realty can walk through the lease, the timing, and the math with you before you put a number on paper. Start with a confidential home valuation, and bring the berth agreement.