About the Building
Vicente Court is a for-sale condominium, with an important qualification the public record makes plain: it is a conversion. The Los Angeles County Assessor carries twenty-one separately assessed parcels at 511 San Vicente Boulevard on recorded condominium Tract 51581, Lot 1, addressed 101 to 107, 201 to 207 and 301 to 307, plus a parcel representing the common lot. Every sampled home is coded 010E, which the assessor's use-code table expands as condo conversion, as opposed to 010C for a building mapped as a condominium from the start. That is a distinction the listing sites do not make, and it is the first thing the tax roll tells you that they do not.
The dates frame the building's history. The assessor records the year built as 1969 and gives an effective year of 1982, which usually indicates substantial later work rather than a second construction date. The condominium parcels themselves were created on 2 August 1995, twenty-six years after the building went up. That sequence, apartments in 1969, significant work around 1982, subdivision in 1995, is a common Santa Monica pattern and each step leaves a different kind of evidence in the title and permit record. Ask the association what the early 1980s work actually consisted of, because an effective year that late usually reflects something more substantial than redecoration.
The 1995 conversion date puts the building inside the window in which Santa Monica's Tenant Ownership Rights Charter Amendment, TORCA, allowed tenant-participating conversions of rent-controlled buildings. Approved at a special municipal election in June 1984, TORCA required signatures from two thirds of the tenants and intent-to-purchase forms from at least half, gave sitting tenants a two-year exclusive right to buy, levied a conversion tax of twelve months' maximum allowable rent per unit, and protected non-purchasing tenants. No application could be filed after 1 July 1996. Whether this was a TORCA conversion should be confirmed from the title work rather than assumed.
The homes are consistent in size and generous for the vintage. Assessor areas sampled run from 1,108 square feet at unit 306 through 1,283 and 1,284 square feet at units 104, 101, 201 and 301, all recorded as two bedrooms and two bathrooms, up to 1,527 and 1,529 square feet at units 307 and 105, both recorded as three bedrooms. A condominium directory publishes a wider range of 947 to 2,255 square feet, which the sampled roll does not reach at either end. Sampling cannot rule out an outlier at the top, but a claimed maximum of 2,255 square feet is seven hundred feet above anything the roll shows. The recorded plan is what governs.
Seven homes on each of three levels on a lot of 14,641 square feet is a straightforward stacked arrangement, and the repetition of the 1,284 square foot area at units 101, 201 and 301 confirms that the plans stack vertically. Directories describe a pool and spa, controlled access and secure parking, with fireplaces, floor-to-ceiling windows in the living rooms, in-unit laundry and private balconies in the homes, and later individual updates in hardwood, stone and joinery. Those descriptions come from listing sources rather than from the association and should be checked against the home itself.
Amenities & Services
The Residences
The assessor carries twenty-one separately assessed condominium parcels on Tract 51581, addressed 101 to 107, 201 to 207 and 301 to 307, with a further parcel for the common lot. Directories publish the same count of twenty-one. Seven homes on each of three levels is a simple, legible plan and it means short corridors and a manageable common area. It also means a small assessment base: twenty-one owners fund the pool, the spa, the parking, the roof and the whole exterior of a building now more than fifty years old.
Units 101, 201 and 301 all record 1,284 square feet with two bedrooms and two bathrooms, and unit 104 records 1,283. Units 105 and 307 both record just over 1,527 square feet with three bedrooms. That pattern is unambiguous: the same plans repeat on each level, so the choice between homes comes down to floor, exposure and condition rather than to layout. It also makes internal comparables genuinely useful, which is unusual in an association this small: a sale on the first level is a fair read on the same stack two floors up, adjusted for outlook, light and whatever the owners have done inside.
The homes sampled run from 1,108 square feet at unit 306 to 1,529 at unit 105, with the bulk sitting at 1,283 or 1,284. A published directory gives a much wider 947 to 2,255 square feet across the building. The sampled parcels reach neither end of that claim, and while sampling cannot rule out an outlier, a gap of seven hundred square feet at the top is large. Take the area for a specific home from the recorded condominium plan, not from a directory, and be particularly careful with any listing that quotes a size at the extremes of the published range.
Sampled homes record two bedrooms and two bathrooms at around 1,283 square feet and three bedrooms at just over 1,527. Three-bedroom condominiums are scarce north of Montana at any price, and in a building of twenty-one homes there may be only a handful. Assessor bedroom counts come from historic field records and do not track later reconfiguration, so verify from the recorded plan and a physical inspection, and check that any room being marketed as a bedroom has the window and egress the code requires. In a stacked plan of this kind the third bedroom is often the room with the least natural light.
The shell is late 1960s: standard ceiling heights, defined rooms, a living room organised around a fireplace, and a balcony treated as a real outdoor space. The assessor's effective year of 1982 suggests substantial work at some point in the early 1980s, which in a building of this type usually means systems, windows or a common-area refit rather than structural change. Ask the association what that work was, whether it was permitted, and whether any of it is now itself due for renewal. Work carried out in the early 1980s is now more than forty years old in its own right, which is the age at which windows, boilers and roof coverings come round again.
Directories describe secure parking, and a 1969 building on a fourteen thousand square foot lot will have made the most of a tight garage footprint, which frequently means tandem spaces. What no source states is how many spaces attach to a given home, whether they are deeded, assigned or exclusive-use common area, or whether storage comes with them. Read the allocation off the title report and the declaration, and check the physical dimensions and turning circle in person before you commit. Where tandem parking is used, establish who is behind whom and whether the arrangement is workable for two drivers in one household.
Due Diligence
Twenty-one separately assessed parcels on recorded condominium Tract 51581 mean the homes can be bought and sold individually, each with its own tax bill. The use code on every sampled parcel is 010E, condo conversion, so the building was constructed as apartments in 1969 and subdivided in 1995. Conversions are ordinary and financeable, but they differ from purpose-built stock on sound separation, metering, common-area definition and how alterations were regularised at the point of conversion.
Parcels were created in August 1995, inside the window in which Santa Monica's Tenant Ownership Rights Charter Amendment allowed tenant-participating conversions. No application could be filed after 1 July 1996. TORCA required tenant supermajority consent, gave sitting tenants a two-year exclusive purchase right, levied a conversion tax equal to twelve months of maximum allowable rent per unit, and gave non-purchasing tenants continuing occupancy rights. Ask the title company and the association to confirm the route and whether any legacy tenancy right survives.
Santa Monica's charter amendment covers residential units built before 10 April 1979, and 1969 is well inside that. Costa-Hawkins exempts separately conveyed condominium units from rent ceilings, but units of this vintage can retain protections where the tenancy began on or before 1 January 1996, which is close to the conversion date here. If the home is tenanted, establish the tenancy start date and check the unit's registration position with the Rent Control Board before agreeing a price.
The city's mandatory retrofit ordinance, adopted March 2017, covers wood-frame buildings built under code standards enacted before 10 November 1980 with parking or similar open space at ground level beneath occupied floors. A 1969 three-storey building over a garage is precisely that profile. Around 1,700 buildings were identified and orders served between September 2017 and July 2018, with soft-storey buildings of three or more storeys placed in the highest priority tier. Ask whether an order was served on this address.
Deadlines under the soft-storey chapter run from service of the order: two years to submit a structural evaluation report, three years to submit a permit application and plans, and six years to final approval. For orders served in 2017 and 2018 that means final approval fell due in 2023 and 2024. If this building was ordered, ask for the engineer's evaluation, the permit, the drawings and the sign-off, and read the minutes and financials for how the work was paid for.
Santa Monica's separate concrete chapter reaches concrete buildings constructed before 11 January 1977, with deadlines of three years for evaluation, four and a half years for a permit application and ten years for final approval from service of the order. A 1969 building qualifies on date if its structure is concrete rather than wood frame. The construction type is not established by any public source consulted, so establish it: which of the two programmes applies, if either, turns entirely on that answer.
A pool and a spa are the amenities most likely to generate both deferred maintenance and running cost, and here twenty-one households fund them alongside a garage, controlled access, the roof and the exterior of a building over fifty years old. Read the reserve study required by Civil Code section 5550 with three years of financials and minutes, look at the pool plant, the roof, the plumbing risers and any retrofit obligation, and ask whether a special assessment has been levied or discussed.
Directories describe private balconies on the homes, which brings the exterior elevated element regime into play. Civil Code section 5551 requires associations to have wood-framed balconies and walkways more than six feet above ground inspected by a licensed structural engineer or architect, with the first round due by 1 January 2025 and repeats every nine years. On a building of this age the waterproofing detail at the balcony threshold is the usual weak point. Ask for the report and the repair schedule.
Everything above is drawn from public records, city permit data and published sources. The association’s statutory disclosure package is the only authoritative answer on dues, rules, reserves, insurance and litigation — Ben will request it and read it with you before you remove contingencies.
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