What the words mean

Advance and deposit

The law names these two separately, and for covered units it caps them separately.

Advance is rent, paid ahead of time. Deposit is security, held against damage or unpaid bills and meant to come back. What the deposit may be spent on should be written down — that one sentence is what you will be arguing about on the day you move out.

Reservation fee

No statute defines it. It is not in the Rent Control Act, and it is not in the Civil Code articles on lease. It exists only because the paper you sign says it does.

That is the whole point: whatever the paper says is what binds you. If it says non-refundable, that is the agreement you made, and there is no provision to fall back on.

Before handing over a reservation fee, ask for it in writing: what it is for, whether it counts toward the first month, and what happens to it if the unit falls through. If nobody will write that down, that is your answer.

Dues, utilities and the rest

Association dues, parking, water, electricity, internet — none of these are settled by statute. They are contract terms. If they are not written, they are not agreed, and you will be arguing from memory.