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Author Topic: Landlord-Tenant Law in California re: renting room  (Read 2566 times)

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jeffersonish

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Landlord-Tenant Law in California re: renting room
« on: May 15, 2009, 02:41:17 AM »

I was listening to the podcast of 5/13 and wanted to comment on the caller who was having difficulty with his land lady from whom he was renting a room.

The law in California is insane in how favorable it is for the caller. My understanding is, even without a lease or rental agreement, if the caller has spent seven nights (Cal.Civ.Code Sec. 1940((b)(2)(D)) or more in the house, the state considers him a tenant subject to protection as if he had signed a lease. In fact, a lease usually offers the landlord more protection than the absence of one.

If the landlord is seen as harrassing the tenant in an effort to get them to move out prior to a legal eviction or under non-coerced voluntary vacation, there are penalties. There are waiting periods that apply even if the tenant has not paid. The tenant need not have ever paid a dime to the landlord to establish the landlord-tenant relationship. A family member could come sleep on your sofa for 8 days and they are a tenant.

By the way, I have dealt with problem tenants working for a landlord a couple of times. If you're a landlord in California and you don't have a good landlord-tenant attorney, you need your head examined. The law is in the tenants favor in so many ways, it would make your head spin.

Of course, not being an attorney, what I say is not legal advice. Even if I were an attorney, I don't know all of the callers circumstances and didn't listen that closely to what he was saying. This info could be wrong or not applicable to him. (can you tell I'm in paralegal studies LOL?)
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Sam Gunn (since nobody got Admiral Naismith)

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Re: Landlord-Tenant Law in California re: renting room
« Reply #1 on: May 15, 2009, 03:15:43 AM »

I was listening to the podcast of 5/13 and wanted to comment on the caller who was having difficulty with his land lady from whom he was renting a room.

The law in California is insane in how favorable it is for the caller. My understanding is, even without a lease or rental agreement, if the caller has spent seven nights (Cal.Civ.Code Sec. 1940((b)(2)(D)) or more in the house, the state considers him a tenant subject to protection as if he had signed a lease. In fact, a lease usually offers the landlord more protection than the absence of one.

If the landlord is seen as harrassing the tenant in an effort to get them to move out prior to a legal eviction or under non-coerced voluntary vacation, there are penalties. There are waiting periods that apply even if the tenant has not paid. The tenant need not have ever paid a dime to the landlord to establish the landlord-tenant relationship. A family member could come sleep on your sofa for 8 days and they are a tenant.

By the way, I have dealt with problem tenants working for a landlord a couple of times. If you're a landlord in California and you don't have a good landlord-tenant attorney, you need your head examined. The law is in the tenants favor in so many ways, it would make your head spin.

Of course, not being an attorney, what I say is not legal advice. Even if I were an attorney, I don't know all of the callers circumstances and didn't listen that closely to what he was saying. This info could be wrong or not applicable to him. (can you tell I'm in paralegal studies LOL?)

OOOOOH yeah it is.  If you don't have blinds on your windows you can make your landlord install them for you.  If you get a leaky faucet, your landlord is obligated to repair it ASAP.  These are the things me and my roommate discovered while trying to get our landlord to provide us with free pest control.  There are so many different ridiculous things you wouldn't believe.
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Re: Landlord-Tenant Law in California re: renting room
« Reply #2 on: May 15, 2009, 03:51:51 AM »

I guess she will need some lube for her ass when the courts are done with her

jeffersonish

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Re: Landlord-Tenant Law in California re: renting room
« Reply #3 on: May 17, 2009, 12:00:17 AM »

I do have to share another landlord-tenant situation since we're on the subject.

My mom let this guy move in before we did the credit check on him. She agreed to let him deduct work done on the property off his rent verbally and maybe in writing... can't remember that detail. Anyway, he moves in and IMMEDIATELY quits responding to phone calls and knocks on the door. Mom, being a normal person... not a trained attorney, gets angry and yells at him cuz she can hear him inside. Time passes as attempts are made to contact him, letters are sent, and we contact an attorney to figure out wtf to do.

In the meantime, various other encounters happen and he's building up a series of obviously false charges to intimidate us. Puts out there that he's a paralegal. It looks like he's the Pacific Heights style tenant from hell. (Great movie with Michael Keaton and Melanie Griffith) Now mind you the place he is renting has all sorts of problems and the attorney tells us, he could actually sue US for renting a place to him that was "not habitable." It was actually very habitable, but it was an old building that didn't follow code.

But the dude made one fatal mistake. He wrote us an angry letter about all the grief we were putting him through (no doubt in an effort to shore up his legal case) and because of that grief, he was moving out on date x. Atty told us... game over. He just terminated the lease. All you have to do is wait for that day to pass, then evict him based on he termed the lease but held over. All we want is for him to honor his own termination of the lease. We did that and he actually came to court to defend himself. It was funny how he kept trying to bring up other things and the judge just cut him off and said, "Is this your letter?" "Did you move?" "Then you have no case sir."
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