(a) A legislative body shall publish notice of a hearing pursuant to Section 6066 of the Government Code, and the first publication shall occur not later than 20 days before the date of the hearing.

(b) A legislative body shall provide written notice of a proposed contractual assessment program to all water or electric providers within the boundaries of the area within which voluntary contractual assessments may be entered into not less than 60 days prior to adoption of any resolution pursuant to Section 5898.26.

(c) (1) A legislative body administering a voluntary contractual assessment program shall designate an office, department, or bureau of the local agency that shall be responsible for annually preparing the current roll of assessment obligations by assessor’s parcel number on property subject to a voluntary contractual assessment.

(2) The designated office, department, or bureau shall establish procedures to promptly respond to inquiries concerning current and future estimated liability for a voluntary contractual assessment. Neither the designated office, department, or bureau, nor the legislative body, shall be liable if any estimate of future voluntary contractual assessment liability is inaccurate, nor for any failure of any seller to request notice pursuant to this chapter or to provide the notice to a buyer.

(d) For purposes of enabling sellers of real property subject to a voluntary contractual assessment to satisfy the notice requirements of Section 1102.6b of the Civil Code, the legislative body shall cause to be recorded in the office of the county recorder for the county in which the real property is located, concurrently with the instrument creating the voluntary contractual assessment, a separate document that meets all of the following requirements:

(1) The title of the document shall be “Payment of Contractual Assessment Required” in at least 14-point boldface type.

(2) The document shall include all of the following information:

(A) The names of all current owners of the real property subject to the contractual assessment and the legal description and assessor’s parcel number for the affected property. If a program administrator utilized the income of the property owner’s legal spouse or domestic partner who was not on title to the property to determine whether the property owner had a reasonable ability to pay the assessment pursuant to subparagraph (A) of paragraph (3) of subdivision (a) of Section 22687 of the Financial Code, the document shall also include the name of the property owner’s legal spouse or domestic partner.

(B) The annual amount of the contractual assessment.

(C) The date or circumstances under which the contractual assessment expires, or a statement that the assessment is perpetual.

(D) The purpose for which the funds from the contractual assessment will be used.

(E) The entity to which funds from the contractual assessment will be paid and specific contact information for that entity.

(F) The signature of the authorized representative of the legislative body to which funds from the contractual assessment will be paid.

(e) The recorder shall only be responsible for examining the document required by subdivision (d) and determining that it contains the information required by subparagraphs (A), (E), and (F) of paragraph (2) of subdivision (d). The recorder shall index the document under the names of the persons and entities identified in subparagraphs (A) and (E) of paragraph (2) of subdivision (d). The recorder shall not examine any other information contained in the document required by subdivision (d).

(f) In order to reduce the costs associated with contractual assessments, a legislative body may authorize the document described in subdivision (d) to be combined with the notice required by Section 5898.32, and recorded as a single document.

(Amended by Stats. 2018, Ch. 813, Sec. 15. (AB 2063) Effective January 1, 2019.)