Orange County families touring a continuing care retirement community almost always hear the same reassurance about the entrance fee: it is “refundable.” What the sales presentation rarely explains is that refundable does not mean fast, and it does not mean guaranteed on any particular date. On September 18, 2026, the Governor signed AB 1983, a bill that finally forces these communities to disclose the worst case, not just the average, and sets a firm clock on repayment once the money is actually available. It is a real, useful law. It is also a smaller law than most families will be told it is, and understanding exactly where its edges stop matters as much as understanding what it does.
AB 1983, Signed September 18: What Actually Changed
AB 1983, authored by Assemblymember Blanca Rubio (D-Baldwin Park), amends Health and Safety Code Section 1771, the law that governs “repayable contracts” at continuing care retirement communities regulated by the California Department of Social Services. The bill was signed and chaptered as Chapter 281, Statutes of 2026. Because the bill contains no urgency clause, it is expected to become operative on January 1, 2027, California’s default effective date for non-urgency legislation.
The bill’s biggest structural change is splitting “repayable contract” into two distinct categories, and every OC family evaluating a CCRC needs to know which one they would be signing:
- Repayable conditioned on resale contracts, the older and more common structure, where your refund depends on the unit being resold or reoccupied by a new resident.
- Repayable in sequential order contracts, a newly defined structure where refunds are paid out of a separate, dedicated account in the order contracts terminated, funded as later residents pay their own entrance fees.
Two Kinds of “Repayable,” Side by Side
The two contract types sound similar in a sales conversation. On paper, under AB 1983, they behave differently enough that the distinction should be the first question any OC family asks before touring a second facility.
| Repayable Conditioned on Resale | Repayable in Sequential Order | |
|---|---|---|
| What triggers your refund | Your unit is resold or reoccupied by a new resident | The dedicated sequential repayment account accumulates enough funds to cover your assigned repayment number |
| Repayment deadline once triggered | 14 calendar days after resale or reoccupancy (reoccupancy is the new addition) | 14 calendar days after sufficient funds exist in the account for your number in the sequence |
| What must be disclosed | The average AND longest time it has taken to resell or reoccupy a unit in the last 5 calendar years | The average AND longest duration between contract termination and repayment in the last 5 calendar years |
| Applies to contracts already signed? | Yes, once the law is operative | No. This paragraph applies only to contracts entered into on or after January 1, 2027 |
The Number Every Family Forgets to Ask For
Existing law already required CCRCs to disclose the average time it took to resell or reoccupy a unit over the prior five years. Almost every family stops there, hears a reassuring average like “a few months,” and signs. AB 1983 adds a second, more honest number to that same disclosure: the longest time it has taken, in either direction, over the same five-year window. It extends that same average-and-longest disclosure requirement to sequential-order contracts too, where the relevant figure becomes the longest gap between when a resident’s contract terminated and when the estate was actually repaid.
The average tells you what usually happens. The longest tells you what has actually happened to a real family at that facility, and it is the number a sales team is least likely to volunteer without being asked directly, by name, for the specific disclosure document.
The 14-Day Clock, and Who It Doesn’t Start For
Once a refund is actually triggered, resale, reoccupancy, or sufficient funds in a sequential account, AB 1983 sets a hard 14 calendar day deadline to pay the full lump sum owed, including any accrued interest. Here is the operative language from the enrolled bill text:
For sequential-order contracts, “the full lump sum owed, including any interest accrued, shall be paid within 14 calendar days after sufficient funds exist in the sequential repayment account to satisfy the contract’s assigned sequential repayment number.” For resale-conditioned contracts, payment is due “within 14 calendar days after resale or reoccupancy of the unit.”
Source: AB 1983, amending Health & Safety Code Section 1771.
That 14-day clock only starts once the triggering event happens. It does not force a resale to happen faster, and it does not force a sequential account to fill up faster. It only stops a CCRC from sitting on funds once they are already there.
What This Law Does Not Fix for Families Already Waiting
This is the part of AB 1983 that early consumer coverage is likely to get wrong. The bill states plainly that its sequential-order interest and repayment-deadline protections apply “only to repayable in sequential order contracts entered into on or after January 1, 2027.” If your family already has a parent in a sequential-order contract signed before that date, that specific 14-day protection and its interest accrual rule do not reach you, even after the law takes effect.
The resale-conditioned side of the law is not limited the same way in the bill text. Once AB 1983 becomes operative, the updated 14-day deadline, including the new “or reoccupancy” trigger, and the updated average-and-longest disclosure requirement apply to resale-conditioned contracts generally, not only to contracts signed after 2027. That is a genuine, if modest, improvement for existing resale-conditioned residents. It is the sequential-order protections, the newer and less familiar contract structure, that carry the hard January 1, 2027 cutoff.
Either way, a resident sitting on an unrefunded six-figure entrance fee today should not assume this law changes their situation. It may not. Get the exact contract type and exact signing date confirmed in writing before assuming otherwise.
The Medi-Cal Pincer: When a “Refundable” Fee Still Counts Against You
There is a second, less obvious problem that AB 1983 does not touch at all, and it sits in federal law. Under 42 U.S.C. Section 1396p(g), a CCRC entrance fee can be counted as a resource available to the individual for Medi-Cal eligibility purposes, whether or not the cash has actually been returned. The statute sets a three-part test, and the resource-counting rule applies when all three are true:
An entrance fee is treated as an available resource to the extent that: (A) the individual has the ability to use the entrance fee, or the contract allows it to be used, to pay for care if other resources or income are insufficient; (B) the individual is eligible for a refund of any remaining entrance fee when they die or terminate the contract and leave the community; and (C) the entrance fee does not confer an ownership interest in the community.
Source: 42 U.S.C. 1396p(g)(2)(A)-(C).
Read that closely and the trap becomes clear. A refundable entrance fee, the exact kind AB 1983 is trying to make more transparent, is more likely to satisfy condition (B) than a non-refundable one. A contract that lets the community draw on the fee if a resident’s other money runs out satisfies condition (A). Most standard CCRC entrance-fee contracts do not confer ownership, satisfying (C). Put together, a fee structured to sound consumer-friendly on the disclosure form is often the same fee California’s Medi-Cal program is entitled to count as an available resource today, even while the family is still years away from actually seeing that money again under the very refund timeline AB 1983 just made more visible.
What This Looks Like at the Kitchen Table
Picture an Orange County family whose mother moved into a CCRC three years ago under a $250,000 resale-conditioned entrance fee. She now needs a higher level of care than the community provides, and the family wants to explore Medi-Cal to help cover it. Her unit has not resold. Under 1396p(g), that unrefunded $250,000 may still be counted as an available resource, potentially disqualifying her from Medi-Cal until it is spent down or actually repaid, while AB 1983’s own disclosure rule confirms the facility’s longest resale wait on record could be well over a year. The family is caught between two clocks, a Medi-Cal spend-down calculation and a resale timeline the facility does not control, and neither one moves faster because a bill was signed in Sacramento.
Weighing the Alternative: Care Without Six Figures at Risk
At Home VA Staffing is not a continuing care retirement community, an assisted living facility, or a senior housing provider of any kind. We are a home care staffing agency serving Orange County families who need trained caregiving support at home, without a six-figure entrance fee sitting in someone else’s account while a resale clock runs. For families weighing a CCRC largely because of the built-in care continuum it promises, in-home care staffing is worth pricing out as a direct comparison: it scales up or down with actual need, month to month, with no capital commitment at risk if a parent’s needs, a facility’s finances, or a family’s plans change.
If You’re Already Weighing a Move
Families who have already started packing, comparing floor plans, or signing a reservation deposit should treat AB 1983’s new disclosure rule as a checklist item, not a formality. Ask for the longest-time figure in writing before a single box gets taped shut. A facility that cannot produce it, or produces only the average, has told you something important about how it wants this conversation to go.
When an Elder Law Attorney Earns Their Fee
Before signing any CCRC contract, especially one structured as repayable in sequential order, it is worth paying an elder law or Medi-Cal planning attorney for a single consultation to review the actual disclosure document and contract language against both AB 1983 and 42 U.S.C. 1396p(g). That conversation, which typically costs far less than a single month’s care fee, is the cheapest insurance available against signing a six-figure commitment on the strength of a sales presentation alone.
Before You Sign: 10 Questions to Demand Answers To
Click each item as you work through it with any CCRC you are seriously considering.
Test What You’ve Learned
1. Once a refund is triggered under AB 1983, how many days does a CCRC have to pay the full amount owed?
2. What new figure must CCRCs now disclose alongside the average repayment time?
3. Which contract type’s new interest and deadline protections apply only to contracts signed on or after January 1, 2027?
4. Under 42 U.S.C. 1396p(g)(2), when can a CCRC entrance fee count as an available Medi-Cal resource?
5. What does AB 1983 do for a resident already waiting today on an unrefunded sequential-order entrance fee signed before 2027?
Frequently Asked Questions
It was signed on September 18, 2026, and chaptered as Chapter 281, Statutes of 2026. Because the bill contains no urgency clause, it is expected to become operative January 1, 2027, California’s standard effective date for non-urgency legislation.
No. It specifically amends Health and Safety Code Section 1771, which governs repayable entrance-fee contracts at continuing care retirement communities regulated by the California Department of Social Services. It does not rewrite the rules for standalone assisted living (RCFE) facilities or skilled nursing facilities.
Yes. Even where the new interest and deadline protection is limited to future sequential-order contracts, you can still ask your CCRC directly for its actual resale, reoccupancy, or repayment track record under the updated disclosure requirement. A facility that stalls on producing it is telling you something.
Under federal law, 42 U.S.C. 1396p(g), it can, once the three statutory conditions are met: the fee can be tapped for care, it is refundable on death or exit, and it confers no ownership interest. That test looks at contract terms, not whether the cash has actually landed back in the family’s hands yet.
No. At Home VA Staffing is a home care staffing agency serving Orange County, California. We are not a continuing care retirement community, an assisted living facility, or a behavioral health provider. We help families arrange in-home caregiving support, an option that does not require a large entrance fee at risk.
The enrolled version of AB 1983 is public on the California Legislature’s website, leginfo.legislature.ca.gov, searchable under the 2025-2026 session.
Weighing a CCRC Against In-Home Care? Talk It Through First
Before committing a six-figure entrance fee to any facility, it is worth pricing out the alternative. At Home VA Staffing helps Orange County families arrange trained, flexible in-home caregiving support with no large capital commitment at risk.
Talk to Our Team: (213) 326-7452This article is for general educational purposes and does not constitute legal, financial, or Medi-Cal planning advice. AB 1983 was signed by the Governor on September 18, 2026, and chaptered as Chapter 281, Statutes of 2026; always confirm current statutory status at leginfo.legislature.ca.gov before relying on any provision described here. Federal resource-counting rules under 42 U.S.C. 1396p(g) can interact with California’s Medi-Cal program in fact-specific ways. Consult a licensed elder law attorney or Medi-Cal planning professional before signing any continuing care retirement community contract or making eligibility decisions.
