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I really don't want type out a long winded post but, I believe it's necessary to do so, so those of you that review my post can have a good background of the situation that I'm presently faced with. In essence, I am hoping for someone out there who is really qualified and willing to share a little bit of their expertise to offer me a way to resolve my dilemma. Following are the detailed facts concerning the issues in this matter;
For the past 10 years I have owned a small four unit apartment building consisting of very nice 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, living room and a kitchenette. Throughout the time that I have owned my apartment building I have been lucky in keeping three of my apartments rented by the same tenants that pay their rent on time and voluntarily help keep up the interior and exterior appearance of their apartments. For some ungodly reason however, I've had nothing but bad luck with the same apartment that concerns my post today. I will only focus on what has transpired with the tenants that I am current trying to evict from so called bad luck apartment, (BLA). On May 25, 2014, I received a call from a woman who was inquiring about the (BLA) for rent advertisement that I had placed in the regional Pennysaver. I made an appointment with this woman to show her the apartment the next day. The woman her boyfriend and her adult daughter showed up to look at the (BLA). All three of them express and interest to rent the unit so I gave them each a rental application to fill-in and afterwards I would have their applications checked out by the service that handles that for me. On May 27, 2014, I received the rental application results which met with the minimum qualifications that I will accept to rent one of my apartments to a prospective tenant. On the May 29, 2014 I called the woman and told her that her that her boyfriend, daughter and her qualified to rent the (BLA). the woman asked me if they could sign the rental agreement, pay their deposit and their rent for June 2014, because they wanted to start moving in their personal property to be settled into their new home on May 1, 2014. Their eagerness to move-in to the unit should have been my tip off that something didn't sit well with these people.
However; just seven days after these folks moved in the ugliest most orally obscene loud argument that I have ever heard took place between the woman her boyfriend and daughter. Some of my other tenants that were home at time and complained to me about their obscene loud arguing. By the time that I got to the BLA the police had already arrived to investigate the incident. The arguments between the BLA tenants continued at least three times a week and their arguments got to the point were they seriously physically assaulted each or one of the other at least 3 times. Then to top it off they allowed two other people to move in with them without first complying with the provision in their month to month rental agreement concerning sub-tenants which required identifying information and a credit check on their sub-tenants and if I approved of the sub-tenants the main tenant(s) would need to submit a written request to me to get my written consent allowing the main tenants, which I hold responsible for the actions of their sub-tenants. For the first 15 days I didn't hassle my BLA tenants, thereafter I started to get somewhat upset with the BLA tenants because they kept ignoring my demand for their compliance concerning their sub-tenants. On July 5, 2014 The woman and her boyfriend told me that they would be moving out of the (BLA) in 30 days and handed me their handwritten notes which only stated "This is my 30 day move out", that's it. The notes where each signed by the woman and her boyfriend and dated July 5, 2014. I now believe that it was their smoke screen to get me off of their backs about their sub-tenants hoping I would just leave them alone because they believed they made me believe that they really would be moving out of the BLA in 30 days anyway. As a matter of fact I did stop asking them about their sub-tenants. Okay, here is the kicker; I was going to evict them before they orally notified me about their intentions to vacate the (BLA). After July 5,2014, The main tenants and their sub-tenants started to what I suspect, selling what could be illegal drugs. I base my suspicions on the abnormal amount of people and their vehicles that were coming in and out of my tenant vehicle parking lot for periods of just minutes and then leaving the parking lot right away. I witnessed this activity from the video footage that my security camera provides that covers my tenant vehicle parking lot. Bottom line here is the tenant decided that they were going to stay in the apartment and they offered to me the money to cover the month of August 2014. I told the tenants that I wouldn't be able to renew their rental agreement because I had already accepted a hold deposit for their apartment from new people that were just waiting for them to move out. The woman and her boyfriend got orally hostile with me and they told me that they weren't going anywhere voluntarily that I would have to force them out.
CONCLUSION: After all the details that I have aforementioned, I served them with a "Three Day Notice To Quit", which I believed was the right type of notice to serve the (BLA) tenants based on their violations of the pertinent terms in their month to month rental agreement. Unfortunately for me, I misread the guidelines in my NOLO Landlord How to on evictions and I made a mistake in the way I served the tenants the unconditional "Three (3) Day Quit Notice". I rescinded this "Quit" notice and served the tenants an amended "Quit" notice but , I made another mistake in the manner that I served the tenants the amended "Quit" I notified the (BLA) tenants in letter that I was rescinding all of the previous "Notices" that I had served them and I served them a "Three (3) Day Notice to Pay Rent", which they have ignored too. From what I read in NOLO the property owner or a representative of the owners authorized state licensed property management company are the only ones that can serve the three (BLA) tenants each a "Three Day Notice to Quit" and if the tenants are personally served there is no need to mail the tenants a copy of the "Quit" notice is this true?? Since the tenants ignored the "Quit" notice did I as the owner/landlord have a right to serve the tenants a "Three (3) Day Notice to Pay Rent or Quit"? Now from what I'm understanding is that I as the owner/landlord of the rental property cannot serve the tenants the "Three Day Notice to Pay Rent or Quit" but, even if I could serve the "Pay or Quit Notice"" notice does it need to be signed, I didn't sign it before I served a copy to each one of the (BLA) tenants, I did sign the proof of mailing form but I only mailed one copy of the "Pay Rent or Quit Notice" which shows the names of the three (BLA) tenants to the (BLA) tenants via "Certified Registered Mail Return Receipt Requested". Yesterday I was told by somebody that use to do residential evictions that I can't send copy of the "Pay Rent or Quit Notice" via "Certified Mail" because according to CA law that is an ineffective method of service and if I would have moved forward to file my UD against the (BLA) tenants the judge presiding over my UD would have dismissed my UD against the (BLA) tenants just on that defect alone.
I ask anyone that has read my post that really knows what they are talking about to tell me where I actually went wrong besides renting the (BLA) to the tenants that I'm trying to evict and or to talk to an attorney that has experience in landlord eviction law. I will in all probability eventually need to talk to an attorney my situation but for now I just want to get a heads up on correcting my mistakes and pursue my UD against the (BLA) tenants.
I want to take this opportunity to thank those persons in advance which, took their time to read my post and are able to provide me with correction information so I can get past go.
California - Tenant's failure to honor 30 Day Notice Of Intent To Vacate - I really don't want type out a long winded post but...
oh well. this WOT is a : tl;dr
Your choice is to DEMAND that they leave in writing and the per law...
and then to follow that up per the law until they do leave (Court, Sheriff, etc)...
or to wait patiently until they are ready to leave.
You need to hire an attorney. It shouldn't cost you a whole lot if you eliminate all the emotional fluff and details of the adventure so far. You want to evict the tenants because of continued disturbances (hopefully you have a police report for every incident), allowing unauthorized people to live in the unit (proof provided by your hopefully written requests to them) and non-payment of rent (if that's even applicable which I can't figure out). An attorney will lead through you all the proper documentation, you'll pay attention to how it's done and then if you run into the same problems in the future (hopefully you won't but ...) you'll know precisely what to do.
From what I understand, California is a very tenant-friendly state. One of the agents in our office used to own a rental property in California, and ended up having a tenant sue him. He was in the right on the deal, but he spent so much time in court with the tenant that he finally signed the house over to his attorney to pay his legal bills.
For this reason, if you have rental properties in California, I strongly suggest you get a good rental attorney you can consult on issues like this.
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