California Landlord's Law Book, The: Evictions

Evictions

Nils Rosenquest

• Publisher: NOLO
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781413326208
• Edition: 18
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Real Estate Law
• Index: Law

AUDIENCE FOR BOOK:
California landlords and property managers renting residential property, from single-family rentals to multi-unit complexes.REASONS TO BUY THIS NEW EDITION:

• No other book on the market guides California landlords through the steps and forms needed to evict a tenant. The new edition of The California Landlord's Law Book: Evictions includes updated versions of all official termination and eviction forms and the latest laws and eviction practices.
  
• Terminating a tenancy the wrong way can cause annoying delays (while landlords go back and do it right) or, worse, invite lawsuits (if landlords attempt to evict a tenant for the wrong reasons). This book steers landlords to the safe, legal course.
  
• Rent control ordinances often impose special steps when terminating a tenancy. This book explains the key features of California rent control rules and how these affect evictions.

CHAPTER

1

Evictions in California: An Overview

The Landlord’s Role in Evictions

Eviction Forms and Procedures

Types of Forms in This Book

How to Fill in the Forms in This Book

The Importance of Attention to Detail

Proceed With Caution When Evicting a Tenant

How This Book Will Help You Do an Eviction

Legal Grounds for Eviction

Court Procedures for Evictions

If Your Tenant Doesn’t Contest the Eviction

If Your Tenant Contests the Eviction

Bankruptcy and Foreclosure Issues

Collecting a Money Judgment

Evictions in Certain Rent Control and Other Cities

Cities With Rent Control

Just Cause Protection Without Rent Control

A Reason for Which You Must Evict: Drug Dealing

Evicting Roommates

Evicting a Resident Manager

Separate Management and Rental Agreements

Single Management/Rental Agreement

Attorneys and Eviction Services

Hiring an Attorney to Handle or Assist With an Eviction

Using an Eviction Service

This book covers all the rules, procedures, and forms you need to evict a tenant in California, in most cases. Before getting into the details, it’s important to have a clear road map of the eviction process. That’s the purpose of this chapter.

The Landlord’s Role in Evictions

Strictly speaking, the word “evict” refers to the process of a sheriff or marshal ordering a tenant to get out or be forcibly removed. It is illegal for you to try to physically evict a tenant yourself. The sheriff or marshal will only evict a tenant pursuant to a court order known in California as an “unlawful detainer judgment.” To get such a judgment, you must bring an eviction lawsuit, called an “unlawful detainer action,” against the tenant.

The linchpin of an unlawful detainer suit is proper termination of the tenancy; you can’t get a judgment without it. This usually means giving your tenant adequate written notice, in a specified way. The law sets out very detailed requirements for a landlord who wants to end a tenancy. If you don’t meet them exactly, you will lose your suit even if your tenant has bounced rent checks repeatedly.

Eviction Forms and Procedures

There are specific forms and procedures for each step of the eviction process, including:

• termination forms for ending a tenancy, such as a Three-Day Notice to Pay Rent or Quit, or a notice to cure another type of breach or quit (the exact form and procedures vary depending on the reason for the termination), or a notice to terminate for nuisance

• unlawful detainer forms for filing an eviction lawsuit, such as a summons and a complaint (the documents that actually initiate your lawsuit)

• forms for taking a default judgment in an uncontested eviction, such as a Request for Entry of Default and Writ of Possession (paperwork sent to the court that asks for possession of the property and for money the tenant owes you)

• forms for contested evictions, such as a Request/Counter-Request to Set Case for Trial and a Stipulation for Entry of Judgment, both used when a tenant has filed a response to your unlawful detainer complaint

• forms for obtaining your money judgment, such as a Declaration in Support of Default Judgment, and the judgment, and

• forms for collecting your money judgment, such as the Writ of Execution; and related forms, such as Application for Earnings Withholding Order (wage garnishment).

This book includes over 30 forms. We clearly explain which forms you need for different situations, and how and when to prepare and serve each form. At the start of each chapter, we’ve included a checklist of the different steps, timelines, and forms you need to prepare for a particular type of eviction, whether for nonpayment of rent or violation of a lease term. And we provide details on how rent control rules enter the mix.

It may seem overwhelming, but keep in mind that most landlords will primarily be concerned with evicting a tenant for nonpayment of rent, and that in many situations, the tenant will leave without contesting the eviction. In these cases, you may only need a few of the forms included here. But we’ve got you covered when it comes to the all too common case of a tenant’s contesting a termination or filing for bankruptcy.

Types of Forms in This Book

This book includes both official California court forms, published by the Judicial Council, and Nolo forms prepared by this book’s attorney author. We also include a few official forms that are specific to evictions in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Palo Alto, and Oakland. All the 30-plus forms in this book are legally accurate as of the date this book went to press (early 2019).

We’ve included copies of all forms in Appendix C of this book, and downloadable versions are available on the Nolo website (see Appendix B for advice on accessing the forms and the link to this book’s companion page on the Nolo site). In addition to being available on the Nolo website, current Judicial Council forms are available for free at www.courts.ca.gov/forms.htm.

To find a specific Judicial Council form on the Council website, select a category from the dropdown menu, such as Unlawful Detainer (Landlord–Tenant), then click “See Forms.” All unlawful detainer forms are listed with download links. The Judicial Council forms will have the words Judicial Council of California in the bottom left, and a statement on whether the form is mandatory or optional. It will also have a form number in the upper right; for example, the Judgment—Unlawful Detainer is Judicial Council Form UD-110.

How to Fill in the Forms in This Book

We provide detailed instructions on how to fill in each form in the relevant chapters. Also, Appendix B explains how to download the forms from the Nolo website. In addition, if you want to download a form from the Judicial Council site, there’s useful information there on filling out one of the official court forms (see www.courts.ca.gov/selfhelp-howtofill.htm).

Many of you will prefer to download the relevant forms and complete them online, then print them. If you’re old fashioned and prefer to use a typewriter, you may type in the required information on any of the forms in this book. Courts are also required to accept forms that are filled in by hand.

The Importance of Attention to Detail

Because an eviction judgment means tenants won’t have a roof over their heads (and their families’ heads), judges are very demanding of the landlord. In addition, many California cities go beyond state law, which allows the termination of periodic tenancies at the will of the landlord, by requiring the landlord to show a “just cause” for eviction. In these cities, nonpayment of rent remains a straightforward ground for eviction, but there are few others as clear.

Why do we emphasize the negatives of evicting a tenant? Because we want you to understand at the outset that even if you properly bring and conduct an unlawful detainer action, you are not assured of winning and having the tenant evicted if the tenant decides to file a defense. In other words, despite the merits of your position, you may face a judge who will hold you to every technicality and bend over backwards to sustain the tenant’s position. A tenant can raise many substantive, as well as procedural, objections to an unlawful detainer suit. Essentially, any breach by you of any duty imposed on landlords by state or local law can be used by your tenant as a defense to your action.

Paying the Tenant to Leave May Be Cheaper Than Doing an Eviction

Before you proceed with an unlawful detainer lawsuit, consider that paying the tenant a few hundred dollars to leave right away may be cheaper in the long run. Take a lesson from landlord attorneys, who often remark that “time is money.” Not only will you have lost money as a result of the original nonpayment, but the time you spend in litigation usually approximates more lost rent.

For example, paying a tenant $500 to leave right away (with payment made only as the tenant leaves and hands you the keys) will be cheaper than spending hundreds of dollars to file suit and going without rent for three to eight weeks while the tenant contests the lawsuit and stays. The cost of a several-months-long eviction lawsuit may, in the long run, be more expensive and frustrating than paying the tenant to leave and starting over with a better tenant quickly.

Unless you thoroughly know your legal rights and duties as a landlord before you go to court, and unless you dot every “i” and cross every “t,” you may end up on the losing side of an eviction. Our advice: Especially if the tenant contests your lawsuit, be meticulous in your preparation.

TIP

Note of sanity. Between 80% and 90% of all unlawful detainer actions are won by landlords. Either the tenants fail to contest them, or they lack a real defense but need time to move. So the odds favor relatively smooth sailing in your unlawful detainer action.

Proceed With Caution When Evicting a Tenant

The moment relations between you and one of your tenants begin to sour, you will be wise to remember a cardinal truth. Any activity by you that might be construed by your tenants as illegal, threatening, humiliating, abusive, or invasive of their privacy can potentially give rise to a lawsuit against you for big bucks. So, although the unlawful detainer procedure can be tedious, it’s important to understand that it is the only game in town.

Shortcuts, such ...