Cal. Civ. Code § 1710.2 provides in relevant part that no action lies against "an owner of real property or his or her agent, or any agent of a transferee of real property" for failure to disclose "the occurrence of an occupant's death upon the real property or the manner of death" if "the death has occurred more than three years prior to the date the transferee offers to purchase, lease, or rent the real property". Note that the term "transferee" would include a lessee even without further clarification because a lease is, by definition, a (temporary) transfer of real property. However, in this case the statute explicitly says that "transferee" includes a purchaser, lessee, or renter of real property.
This statute is widely misunderstood (which I say based on my search of the internet).
This statute does not mandate any disclosures. It also does not create any liability for a transferee who fails to make the contemplated disclosures. (Note: That does not mean they aren't liable, it's just not addressed by the statute.) The sole effect of this statute is to create a defence, in certain circumstances, for the defendant in an action where the legal theory of liability is based on nondisclosure of death. What this statute means is that if you fail to make the contemplated disclosure and the requirements of the statute are met, you can rest easy that you cannot be sued under California law for your failure to make that disclosure.
To reiterate, then, this statute only says when an owner (etc.) is not liable. It says nothing about when they actually are liable.
Assuming the defence in the statute does not apply, liability will be determined under the normal principles of tort law and contract law and any other legal theories that the plaintiff can dream up. That is far too broad of a topic to address here, so I'm not going to attempt to do so; I just wanted to clarify the effect of this California statute.
