California ADU Laws and Garage Conversion Permits
What California law guarantees for ADUs in 2026, what your city can still require, and how the 60-day ministerial review clock actually works for Valley lots.
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Who Issues Your Building Permit in the Valley
LADBS, LA County, Ventura County, or an independent city hall — which office reviews your permit depends on your address. A plain map of every Valley jurisdiction we file in.
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How to Hire a Licensed Contractor in California
The five-step California checklist: verify the CSLB license, compare bids on one scope, respect the down-payment law, and put change orders in writing.
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Bathroom Remodel Timeline, Week by Week
A realistic week-by-week bathroom remodel timeline from design and selections through demo, rough-ins, tile, and the final walkthrough.
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The Kitchen Remodel Sequence That Works
Why kitchen remodels stall and the trade order that prevents it — cabinets before demo, stone templated after cabinets, inspections before walls close.
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Room Addition, ADU, or Garage Conversion?
Additions, ADUs, and garage conversions compared on cost drivers, permits, and use cases — and why your lot decides as much as your budget.
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Hillside and Brush-Zone Remodeling
Remodeling in very high fire hazard severity zones: Class-A roofing, ember-resistant venting, defensible space, and hillside permit review.
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Water Damage: The First 48 Hours
The contractor's first-48-hours checklist after a leak: safety, insurance-grade documentation, real drying, and the mold clock that decides repair vs rebuild.
Read the guide →Every guide is written from jobs we've actually run — the same crew, the same permit offices, the same sequenced schedules we hand our clients. When rules change (California ADU law changes often), we update the page and the date at the top. Questions a guide can't answer? Call (747) 203-9716 — the site visit is free.
How to use them: skim the quick answer at the top — it's the one-paragraph version — then read the section that matches your stage, and bring the FAQ to your first call with any contractor, ours or theirs. The guides stay honest on purpose: where a decision depends on your specific parcel, they say so and point you to the free site visit instead of guessing. And when a guide changes your mind about scope, that's a good thing — better on the phone than in week three.
Most readers land here from one of three places: planning a bathroom or kitchen remodel and wanting a realistic timeline, weighing an ADU against a room addition, or about to hire a builder for the first time and looking for the right questions. Start with the matching guide above, then check how general contracting under one contract works when you are ready to talk scope.
Geography matters too: permit offices differ street to street across the Valley. Our service area pages list the jurisdiction, ZIP codes, and housing stock for each of the 40 communities we serve, so you know which counter will review your project before you call. When the reading is done, the next step is the same everywhere — contact us and we schedule the free site visit.
About these guides
Are these guides written by contractors?
Yes — every guide is written by the Ofir Construction team from twenty years of building and remodeling across the Valley, not scraped from generic blogs.
Can I ask a question about my own project?
Please do — call (747) 203-9716 or email OfirConstruction@gmail.com. Site visits and estimates are free across our service area.
Which guide should I start with?
Match the guide to your stage: still deciding (room addition vs ADU), ready to hire (the licensed-contractor checklist), or mid-project (bathroom timeline, kitchen sequence, water damage).