CA Commercial tenant trouble with seurity/1st/last month's rent (lease, eviction)

[klin6]

Hi everyone, please help me out with some advice if you could. I am helping my family to manage a small commercial property in Los Angeles County, CA. and we just leased it out to this tenant. When we signed the lease he asked me to not make the deposit of the check until 1 week later which i agreed since we gave him 1 week free so he can move in and do the remodeling, total comes to about $5850. The check includes security deposit, first and last month's rent. So 1 week later he dropped by my office and gave me a check of $2800 and asked me to deposit that instead of the $5850 since he is still waiting for his deposit back from another leasing company. He told me to give him couple more day and he will pay the rest. So i deposited the $2800 check (Been 2 working days) and keep the $5850 check in his file (Will return to him once he pay the rest). He showed me pictures that they have already started remodeling the place and putting in equipment so I kind of feel that they are serious about a new business and may have some money problem. Being a small business owner I kinda go easy on them. Anyways, 2 working days has passed and he said he is still waiting for his fund. Any advise anyone can give me? What steps should i take if I trusted the wrong guy and things turn ugly? The lease contract was signed but we only received $2800 out of $5850 as listed on the contract. I've never had experience with tenants like this before. Thank you in advance for all your helps.

[Rabrrita]

Does the lease say the tenant owes the money or does it say the tenant has paid the money?

If it says they paid the money, they could pretend you were paid and show the lease as proof of payment. They coudl show the deposit you made on the check and also claim the rest was paid in cash.

If the lease only states that that money is due, give them 3 days to pay or you will deposit the check they gave you. If it bounces, thats your documentation of a breech.

But, the big question is why is this even an issue since your so trusting to let someone move in without payment and missing deadlines they said they would make. Clearly you don't care about conducting this as a business and using sensible business practices. Just keep winging it and doing as your heart tells you and hopefully they will embrace the zen of favorable light and pay you someday. You just need to continue your Don't worry, be happy ways of conducting business.

You may want to hire a professional manageent company who would never have allowed this to progress past the No Check, No Lease stage

[beb0p]

At this point there are only two options - let them stay or evict them.

Give your tenant a deadline and then begin eviction process if they fail to meet it. However, you have accepted partial payment, that's not good. Never accept partial payment.

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